Category: April 2009

Rune of the Finland Woman

She could bind the world’s winds in a single strand.
She could find the world’s words in a singing wind.
She could lend a weird will to a mottled hand.
She could wind a willed word from a muddled mind.

She could wend the wild woods on a saddled hind.
She could sound a wellspring with a rowan wand.
She could bind the wolf’s wounds in a swaddling band.
She could bind a banned book in a silken skin.

She could spend a world war on invaded land.
She could pound the dry roots to a kind of bread.
She could feed a road gang on invented food.
She could find the spare parts of the severed dead.

She could find the stone limbs in a waste of sand.
She could stand the pit cold with a withered lung.
She could handle bad puns in the slang she learned.
She could dandle foundlings in their mother tongue.

She could plait a child’s hair with a fishbone comb.
She could tend a coal fire in the Arctic wind.
She could mend an engine with a sewing pin.
She could warm the dark feet of a dying man.

She could drink the stone soup from a doubtful well.
She could breathe the green stink of a trench latrine.
She could drink a queen’s share of important wine.
She could think a few things she would never tell.

She could learn the hand code of the deaf and blind.
She could earn the iron keys of the frozen queen.
She could wander uphill with a drunken friend.
She could bind the world’s winds in a single strand.

---

Hello Friends,

Marilyn Hacker‘s single strand “She could…” can be found binding “Rune of the Finland Woman” in her 1985 collection Assumptions, and included in her Selected Poems: 1965-1990.

To learn more about National Poetry Month, or to subscribe to a more official-like Poem-a-Day list, visit www.poets.org.

Enjoy.
Ellen

waiting on the mayflower, iii. march 1770 (excerpt)

that night, crispus attucks
dreamed. how he’d attacked

his would-be master and fled
in wild-eyed search of self-

determination. discarded
virginia on the run and ran

out of breath in salt-scented
boston. found there, if not

freedom, fearlessness. a belief
in himself that racked things

with the uncontrolled power
of the muscular atlantic, power

to cradle, to capsize. awoke
angry again at the planter

who’d taken him for a mule
or a machine. had shouldered

a chip the size of concord
by the time the redcoat dared

to dare him. died wishing he’d
amassed such revolutionary

ire in virginia. died dreaming
great britain was the enemy.

---

Hello Friends,

Today’s re-imagining of American Revolutionary War hero Crispus Attucks comes to us courtesy of Evie Shockley in her 2006 collection half-red sea.

To learn more about National Poetry Month, or to subscribe to a more official-like Poem-a-Day list, visit www.poets.org.

Enjoy.
Ellen

Hey Friends,

Remember that day when there was no poem-a-day? That was a bummer. In my defense, I was consumed by an entity that can only be described by Lord Alfred Tennyson:

---

The Kraken

Below the thunders of the upper deep,
Far, far beneath in the abysmal sea,
His ancient, dreamless, uninvaded sleep
The Kraken sleepeth: faintest sunlights flee
About his shadowy sides; above him swell
Huge sponges of millennial growth and height;
And far away into the sickly light,
From many a wondrous grot and secret cell
Unnumbered and enormous polypi
Winnow with giant arms the slumbering green.
There hath he lain for ages, and will lie
Battening upon huge sea worms in his sleep,
Until the latter fire shall heat the deep;
Then once by man and angels to be seen,
In roaring he shall rise and on the surface die.

---

Tennyson did not invent the kraken — the creature had already been around in folklore for some time — but his poem is regarded as the quintessential description. Only 21 years old at the time “The Kraken” was published, Tennyson enjoyed the rare privilege of living to be an immensely popular and revered poet in his own lifetime.

Bonus points to anyone who finds or writes and sends me another poem that uses the word “polypi.”

To learn more about National Poetry Month, or to subscribe to a more official-like Poem-a-Day list, visit www.poets.org.

Best,
Ellen

The Shirt

The shirt touches his neck
and smoothes over his back.
It slides down his sides.
It even goes down below his belt—
down into his pants.
Lucky shirt.

---

Hello Friends,

Lucky you — Today’s poem is by Jane Kenyon from her 1978 collection From Room to Room. Other shirt poems I’m fond of include “Shirt” by Robert Pinsky and this shirt from Threadless.

April is National Poetry Month, and I am celebrating by emailing out my own selection of one poem per day for the duration of the month. To learn more about National Poetry Month, or to subscribe to a more official-like Poem-a-Day list, visit www.poets.org.

Enjoy.
Ellen

“The Shirt” by Jane Kenyon was also featured for Poem-a-Day April 22, 2007.

Rose Colored City

When Jennifer & I
       near the Ross Island
              Bridge pass the two

young men in matching
       black combat boots
              & white tee-shirts

beneath suspenders
       that blaze an X on
              their backs,

I see them first as partners,
       taking a late evening walk,
              like us, locked arm

to arm, charmed by park
       lamps & floral pathways
              then well-up with pride,

glorying in the picture
       our generation makes,
              & I think what passes

between us, lust holier
       than war & lovelooks tinged
              with righteousness

could fertilize a new & supreme
       race, but then, White Power,
              Sister, & I snap out of

my reverie & remember
       the sound of History & blood,
              & look over my shoulder

& sneer my long, teasing
       black smile & say,
              Yeah right, White Power

to which they spill out
       of each other’s arms &
              stomp, cursing, heads

bald as trophies in gold
       streetlight, & we set off
              to crossing the avenue,

a soft jog that breaks
       to a sprint, far away to
              our separate lives.

---

Hi Friends,

Major Jackson‘s “Rose Colored City” is featured in American Poet Magazine, volume 35 (fall 2008).

Was this poem easier to understand once you knew the narrator’s race, gender and sexual orientation? How far into the poem did it take you to ascertain those perspective traits?

How important are an author’s headshot and bio on the back of a poetry collection or a novel for you as a reader? Is it possible to read a poem without making assumptions about both the writer’s and the narrator’s gender? Is it possible to pass a silhouette in a park late at night without making assumptions about a peron’s gender or race?

April is National Poetry Month, and I am celebrating by emailing out my own selection of one poem per day for the duration of the month. If you wish to be unsubscribed from this Poem-a-Day email list at any time, please reply to this email with a friendly unsubscribe request (preferably in heroic couplet form). You may also request to add a consenting friend to the list, or even nominate a poem.

To learn more about National Poetry Month, or to subscribe to a more official-like Poem-a-Day list, visit www.poets.org.

Enjoy.
Ellen

Samurai Song

When I had no roof I made
Audacity my roof. When I had
No supper my eyes dined.

When I had no eyes I listened.
When I had no ears I thought.
When I had no thought I waited.

When I had no father I made
Care my father. When I had
No mother I embraced order.

When I had no friend I made
Quiet my friend. When I had no
Enemy I opposed my body.

When I had no temple I made
My voice my temple. I have
No priest, my tongue is my choir.

When I have no means fortune
Is my means. When I have
Nothing, death will be my fortune.

Needs is my tactic, detachment
Is my strategy. When I had
No lover I courted my sleep.

---

Hello Friends —

Today’s poem comes from tercet master Robert Pinsky, opening his 2000 collection Jersey Rain.

April is National Poetry Month, and I am celebrating by emailing out my own eclectic selection of one poem per day for the duration of the month. To learn more about National Poetry Month, or to subscribe to a more official-like Poem-a-Day list, visit www.poets.org.

Enjoy.
Ellen

“Samarai Song” by Robert Pinsky was also featured for Poem-a-Day April 10, 2007.
Poet Robert Pinsky was also featured for Poem-a-Day, March 25, 2011.