Poetry

Apr. 25, 2011

Rilke: “The Man Watching”

Seek out ever greater challenges. “When we win it’s with small things, / and the triumph itself makes us small.”

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Mar. 27, 2011

Sunday poem: “Tonight I Can Write” by Pablo Neruda

*I no longer love her, that’s certain, but maybe I love her. / Love is so short, forgetting is so long.*

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Mar. 6, 2011

“The Writer” by Richard Wilbur

In Wilbur’s poem about writing, the poet recalls, *It is always a matter, my darling, / Of life or death, as I had forgotten.*

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Nov. 10, 2010

“Best Society” by Philip Larkin

Uncontradicting solitude / Supports me on its giant palm; / And like a sea-anemone / Or simple snail, there cautiously / Unfolds, emerges, what I am.

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Sep. 17, 2010

Poem for the weekend: “Strawberries” by Edwin Morgan

There were never strawberries / like the ones we had / that sultry afternoon…

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Aug. 23, 2010

“Perfection Wasted” by John Updike

And another regrettable thing about death / is the ceasing of your own brand of magic, / which took a whole life to develop and market — / the quips, the witticisms, the slant / adjusted to a few…

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Jun. 10, 2010

Browning: “a few I value more”

“I can have little doubt that my writing has been in the main too hard for many I should have been pleased to communicate with; but I never designedly tried to puzzle people, as some of my critics have supposed. On the other hand, I never pretended to offer such literature as should be a [...]

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Jan. 23, 2010

Adrienne Rich: “Prospective Immigrants Please Note”

Either you will / go through this door / or you will not go through….

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Nov. 9, 2009

Ted Kooser: “Daddy Longlegs”

Here, on fine long legs springy as steel, / a life rides, sealed in a small brown pill / that skims along over the basement floor / wrapped up in a simple obsession….

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Nov. 3, 2009

Walt Whitman for Levi’s

A cool ad for Levi’s jeans features a Walt Whitman poem, Pioneers! O Pioneers! (video)

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