Read their poems

Andrew Motion
Anne Waldman
Billy Collins
Brenda Hillman
Brian Turner
C.D. Wright
Charles Simic
Chris Abani
Coleman Barks
Coral Bracho
Edward Hirsch
Ekiwah Adler Belendez
Forrest Gander
Franz Wright
Gerald Stern
Jane Hirshfield
Jorie Graham
Joy Harjo
Kevin Young
Ko Un
Kurtis Lamkin
Linda Gregg
Linda Hogan
Linda Pastan
Lucille Clifton
Mark Doty
Martin Espada
Maxine Kumin
Naomi Shihab
Patricia Smith
Peter Cole
Robert Hass
Robin Robertson
Sekou Sundiata
Sharon Olds
Simon Armitage
Taha Muhammad Ali
Taslima Nasreen
Ted Kooser
Toi Derricotte
Tony Hoagland

Links

Library of Congress's Recorded Sound Reference Center
http://www.loc.gov/rr/record/
Poetry 180
http://www.loc.gov/poetry/180/
Dodge Poetry Festival
http://www.dodgepoetry.org/
Thesaurus Reference
http://thesaurus.reference.com/
Rhyming Dictionary
http://www.rhymer.com/

دستان تو بسيار نرم هستند

آغوشت بسيار گرم است 

به من كه دست مي زني

هوش از سرم مي بري

نزديكم كه مي شوي

از بوي خوبت سرم گيج مي رود

نگاهت كه مي كنم

همه چيز از تو پر مي شود 

صدايت آرامم مي كند

نگاهم كه مي كني

دلم را مي بري

با تو بودن

يك عشق بازي تمام نشدني ست 

فرهاد

حلقه

به هر انگشتش

حلقه اي كن

بر گردنش هم يكي بنداز

و حلقه اي هم

كن به پاش

و به اين خيال باش

كه اينچنين

او را از خواسته هايش

باز خواهي داش

يك رو سري به سرش كن

و يك مقنعه روش

و يك چارقد

و چادري هم بالاش

و به اين خيال باش

كه اينچنين

او را از خواسته هايش

باز خواهي داش

پيراهن ظريفش را

ز تنش بِكَن

و يك گوني كن تنش

به جاش

و به اين خيال باش

كه اينچنين

او را از خواسته هايش

باز خواهي داش

هر كه او را نگاه كرد

بزن

به كميته اش بسپار

بعد به خانه بيا

و بگو

كه تقصير او بوده ست

راه داده است

نخ داده است

كاري نكرده بود

كه نگاهش نمي كردند

بگو كه

جنده است

و بعد هم او را بزن

و حاليش كن

كه اگر تو نبودي

هيچكس 

او را نگاه نمي داش

و به اين خيال باش

كه اينچنين

او را از خواسته هايش

باز خواهي داش

فرهاد

من یك زنم

بزن توی سرم

لگدمال كن تنم

بگو كه من

نه انسانی كاملم

كه نیمه ایست

از بدن تو

بدنم

!من یك زنم

مرا نشناس به خودم

بل آنكه 

به آنكه

خواهر كدام مرد باشم

دختر كدام مرد

مادر كدام

همسر كدام مرد

كه من تنها

در ارتباط

با كدام مرد بودن است 

بودنم

!من یك زنم

از پسرانی كه در زندگانی ام

شناخته ام

اسم نبرم

كه مبادا

غیرت شوهرم لكه دار شود

آبرویش برود

وای كه اگر مردم بشنوند

كه من كسانی را می شناخته ام

كه پسر بوده اند

حالا اگر اكبری می شناخته ام

كه فلان گفته بود

در نقل آن بگویم

كه كبری گفته بوده است

فرهاد را فرح 

و سینا را سوسن بگویم

و اگر به اشتباه

نام مردی را بردم

بگویم كه عمویم بود

دایی ام بود

و یا كه شوهر خاله ام

بهتر نیست كه اصلا حرف نزنم؟

!من یك زنم

بیهوده از من تعریف كن

بگو كه بسیار زیبا هستم

كه هیچكس مرا

به اندازه ای

كه تو دوست داری ام

دوست ندارد

و نخواهد داشت

بگو كه بی من می میری

وبه خیالی كه تا بیشتر

حرفهایت را گوش كنم

بیشتر

گول بزنم

!من یك زنم

بچه هایم را در مقابلم بگذار

و مرا احساس گناه بده

بپرس

چه گونه مادری هستم؟

بگو كه باید 

از خودم شرم كنم

و در نقش یك مادر 

به یاد داشته باشم

مسئولیت هایم را

پیش از آنكه

اینگونه لباس بپوشم

اینگونه راه بروم

اینگونه نفس بكشم

و یا اینگونه

حرف بزنم

!من یك زنم

احساس ترحم مرا بر انگیز

چشمانت را پر از اشك كن

نشد, گریه كن

و اگر باز نشد 

زار بزن

و در میان هق هق هات

بگو كه ایكاش می فهمیدم

كه هر چه را كه می گویی

و بند هایی را كه بر من می نهی

و آزادی هایی را كه از من میگیری

همه برای نفع خود من است

و تمام بلاهایی 

كه تا بر سر من آیند

به صف ایستاده اند

باعث شان

خود منم

!من یك زنم

بگو كه مردان همه

زنبورند و من

تنها گل 

این چمنم

بهتر است كه عطر

كمتر بزنم

!من یك زنم

بگو كه هر چه داریم 

از توست

و چقدر كار كرده ای

مرا دوباره مدیون خود كن

و یادت نرود كه

یادم آوری

كه چقدر بی عرضه ام

كه نه كسی هیچگاه 

به من كار خواهد داد

و نه هیچكس هرگز

چون تو مرا حمایت خواهد كرد

و بگو كه در مقابل این همه

كه به من داده ای

فقط یك چیز از من می خواهی

كه روی حرفت

حرف نزنم

!من یك زنم

پول ها را

در اختیار خود بگیر

و هر خرجی كه میكنم

مرور كن

و هیچگاه به هر كلك

مگذار

كه برای خود كار كنم

و مگذار

كه برای خود حقوق داشته باشم

بگو كه من یك مادرم

یك همسرم

وظایفی دارم

و تا به آنها برسم

وقتی نخواهد بود 

كه كار كنم

!من یك زنم

گاهی هم

مادرت را

به سرم بفرست

كه یادم بیاورد

كه با لباس سفید

به خانه ات آمده ام

و از این خانه 

می روم با كفنم

!من یك زنم

بگو كه دیگران

چقدر زنهایشان خوبند

چقدر دوستشان دارند

چه غذا ها می پزند

و پای شوهر هاشان را

می شویند

و صبحانه شان را به 

رختخوابشان می برند

و بگو با این حال

تو هم همیشه به دروغ

از من تعریف می كنی

نه برای حفظ آبرو

بلكه 

برای حفظ

شخصیت خویشتنم

!من یك زنم

و آخر شب

گوشه ای گیرم بیار

و خود را 

بر من تحمیل كن

و بگو

كه خوشحال باش

امشب می خواهم 

تو را بكنم

!من یك زنم

فردا

سرزنش یادت نرود

و حواست باشد

كه در مقابل دیگران

كوچكم كنی

به بچه ها هم یواشكی بگو 

كه كمی مادرشان را نصیحت كنند

و پشت سر

به تك تك افراد

خانواده ام هم بسپار

كه همآن كنند

یكی را هم مأمور كن 

كه دنبالم بیافتد

تلفن هایم را هم كنترل كن

لباسهای زیرم را

یادت نرود

چك كنی

مبادا سكسی باشند

اگر بودند

نیستشان كن

و اگر دیدی كه

دنبالشان می گردم

شك كن

و بیشتر مواظبم باش

دیگر چه بگویم؟

اوه راستی

كبودی هایم بهتر شده اند

می خواهی دوباره مرا بزنی؟

اگر كه خسته ای

خودم, خودم را بزنم

!من یك زنم

فرهاد

يك روز صبح

از خواب كه بر مي خيزي

مي بيني

كه فرشته اي كه بر شانه ات نشسته بود

ديگر آنجا نيست

نگاهت باغ را مي گردد

ميان توي درختها را

لا به لاي 

آفتاب را

تو به توي

برگها را 

پيچ در پيچ

شاخه ها را

رنگ بر رنگ

گل ها را

شكوفه ها را

چند روزي گذشته است

بر شانه ات 

گرد تنهايي نشسته است

نگاهت اينبار

آسمان را مي گردد

زير و روي 

ابر ها را

قطره به قطره 

باران را

دانه دانه 

برف را

سوي سوي 

باد را

نسيم را

هفته اي گذشته است

فرشته اي كه بر شانه ات مي نشست

نيامده است

نگاهت باز 

مي گردد

شانه هاي ديگران را

شانه به شانه

آنان كه از ما بوده اند را

و آناني كه از ما نبوده اند را

و باز

پيش و پس

اشيا را

پايين و بالاي

كمد ها را

مبل ها را

خانه خانه

شهر را

شهر شهر

دنيا را

يك روز صبح

از خواب كه بر مي خيزي

مي بيني

كه فرشته اي كه بر شانه ات نشسته بود

ديگر آنجا نيست

فرهاد

من در آسمان به دنبال ماهی بوده ام

در آبها پرنده جسته ام

و بر ديوارهای هنوز بنا نشده

خواسته ام پنجره بسازم

در حاشيه دروغ به خويشتن نشسته

بافه ای خيالی را تنپوش خود ساخته ام

فردا با خويش به طور جدی صحبت خواهم كرد

فرهاد

تا از خويش بر آمده باشم

مرا همه در خويش جای داده بودی

و همهمه نفسهايمان بود

تا صدايمان را كه هنوز اسير دستهاي جستجوگرمان بود

بهانه ای داده باشد برای از دست گريختگيشان

اگر چه پرده اي بر قاب تختم بودی

اما نقاشی خيالت را نمی خواستم

چرا كه هر انحنايت با هر راستايم مي رفت

تا راهی نباشد بر خيال

تا هيچ آرزويی واقعيت موجود را خدشه دار نسازد

با چشمانی تمام باز

خود را بر تو دوختم

حركت در هر جا بود جز صدايم

پس تا قلبم بر قلبت نهم

لب از لبت برداشتم

و سر بر شانه ات نهادم

و ... گريستم

فرهاد

Mary Oliver

Mary Oliver was born on September 10, 1935 in Maple Heights, Ohio. As a teenager, she lived briefly in the home of Edna St. Vincent Millay, where she helped Millay's family sort through the papers the poet left behind.
In the mid-1950s, Oliver attended both Ohio State University and Vassar College, though she did not receive a degree.
Her first collection of poems, No Voyage, and Other Poems, was published in 1963. Since then, she has published numerous books, including Thirst (Beacon Press, 2006); Why I Wake Early (2004); Owls and Other Fantasies : Poems and Essays (2003); Winter Hours: Prose, Prose Poems, and Poems (1999); West Wind (1997); White Pine (1994); New and Selected Poems (1992), which won the National Book award; House of Light (1990), which won the Christopher Award and the L. L. Winship/PEN New England Award; and American Primitive (1983), for which she won the Pulitzer Prize.
The first part of her book-length poem The Leaf and the Cloud (Da Capo Press, 2000) was selected for inclusion in The Best American Poetry 1999 and the second part, "Work," was selected for The Best American Poetry 2000. Her books of prose include Long Life: Essays and Other Writings (2004); Rules for the Dance: A Handbook for Writing and Reading Metrical Verse (1998); Blue Pastures (1995); and A Poetry Handbook (1994).
"Mary Oliver's poetry is an excellent antidote for the excesses of civilization," wrote one reviewer for the Harvard Review, "for too much flurry and inattention, and the baroque conventions of our social and professional lives. She is a poet of wisdom and generosity whose vision allows us to look intimately at a world not of our making."
Her honors include an American Academy of Arts & Letters Award, a Lannan Literary Award, the Poetry Society of America's Shelley Memorial Prize and Alice Fay di Castagnola Award, and fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts.
Oliver held the Catharine Osgood Foster Chair for Distinguished Teaching at Bennington College until 2001. She currently lives in Provincetown, Massachusetts.

دوباره يكروز

تو دوباره مرا يكروز

به آغوش خويش خواهي كشيد

و خواهي گفت

كجا بودي فرزندم؟

و ما

هر دو

با هم

خواهيم گريست

و اشكهاي يكديگر را

خواهيم بوسيد

و حسرت خواهيم خورد

به روزهايي كه با هم نبوده ايم

و من

با چانه لرزان

و با هق هق گريه هام

خواهم گفت

ببين 
ببين

من هميشه دوستت داشته ام

ببين

ببين

من هنوز هم كه هنوز

گذرنامه ام قهوه ايست

فرهاد

Nikki Giovanni

Yolanda Cornelia "Nikki" Giovanni was born in Knoxville, Tennessee on June 7, 1943, and raised in Cincinnati, Ohio. In 1960, she entered Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee, where she worked with the school's Writer's Workshop and edited the literary magazine. After receiving her bachelor of arts degree in 1967, she organized the Black Arts Festival in Cincinnati before entering graduate school at the University of Pennsylvania and Columbia University.

In her first two collections, Black Feeling, Black Talk (1968) and Black Judgement (1969), Giovanni reflects on the African-American identity. Recently, she has published Acolytes (HarperCollins, 2007), The Collected Poetry of Nikki Giovanni: 1968-1998 (2003), Quilting the Black-Eyed Pea: Poems and Not-Quite Poems (2002) Blues For All the Changes: New Poems (1999), Love Poems (1997), and Selected Poems of Nikki Giovanni (1996).
A lung cancer survivor, Giovanni has also contributed an introduction to the anthology Breaking the Silence: Inspirational Stories of Black Cancer Survivors (Hilton Publishing, 2005).
Her honors include three NAACP Image Awards for Literature in 1998, the Langston Hughes award for Distinguished Contributions to Arts and Letters in 1996, as well as more than twenty honorary degrees from national colleges and universities. She has been given keys to more than a dozen cities, including New York, Los Angeles, Dallas, Miami, and New Orleans.
Several magazines have named Giovanni Woman of the Year, including Essence, Mademoiselle, Ebony, and Ladies Home Journal. She was the first recipient of the Rosa Parks Woman of Courage Award. She has served as poetry judge for the National Book Awards and was a finalist for a Grammy Award in the category of Spoken Word.
She is currently Professor of English and Gloria D. Smith Professor of Black Studies at Virginia Tech, where she has taught since 1987.

Jorge Luis Borges

Jorge Luis Borges (August 24, 1899 – June 14, 1986) was an Argentine writer who is considered to be one of the foremost writers of the 20th century. A poet and an essayist, Borges is generally best-known for his short stories.

Borges was born in Buenos Aires. His father, Jorge Guillermo Borges, was a lawyer and a psychology teacher, who also had literary aspirations ("he tried to become a writer and failed in the attempt," Borges once said. "He composed some very good sonnets"). Borges's mother, Leonor Acevedo Suárez, was a translator. His father's family was part Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, and British; his mother's Spanish, Catalan, and possibly Portuguese. At his home, both Spanish and English were spoken, so from earliest childhood Borges was effectively bilingual, and learned to read in English before Spanish. He grew up in the suburban neighborhood of Palermo in a large house with an extensive library.

Borges's name in full was Jorge Francisco Isidoro Luis Borges Acevedo, but he never used the entire name.

Jorge Guillermo Borges was forced into early retirement from the legal profession owing to the same failing eyesight that would eventually afflict his son, and in 1914, the family moved to Geneva, where Borges senior was treated by a Geneva eye specialist while Borges and his sister Norah (born 1902) attended school. There Borges learned French, which he apparently had initial difficulties with, and taught himself German, receiving his BA from the Collège of Geneva in 1918.

After World War I ended, the Borges family spent three years in Lugano, Barcelona, Majorca, Sevilla, and Madrid. In Spain, Borges became a member of the avant-garde Ultraist literary movement. His first poem, "Hymn to the Sea," written in the style of Walt Whitman, was published in the magazine recia (Spanish: Greece).

In 1921, Borges returned with his family to Buenos Aires where he imported the doctrine of Ultraism and launched his career as a writer by publishing poems and essays in literary journals. Borges's first collection of poetry was Fervor de Buenos Aires (1923). He contributed to the avant-garde review Martín Fierro (whose "art for art's sake" approach contrasted to that of the more politically-involved Boedo group), co-founded the journals Prisma (1921 - 1922, a broadsheet distributed largely by pasting copies to walls in Buenos Aires) and Proa (1922 - 1926). He was, from the first issue, a regular contributor to Sur, founded in 1931, by Victoria Ocampo, which became Argentina's most important literary journal. Ocampo herself introduced Borges to Adolfo Bioy Casares, who was to become Borges's frequent collaborator and Ocampo's brother-in-law, and another well-known figure of Argentine literature.

In 1933 Borges was appointed editor of the literary supplement of the newspaper Crítica, and it was there that the pieces later published in Historia universal de la infamia (A Universal History of Infamy) appeared. These pieces lay somewhere between non-fictional essays and fictional short stories, using fictional techniques to tell essentially true stories, and literary forgeries, which typically claimed to be translations of passages from famous but seldom read works. In the following years, he served as a literary adviser for the publishing house Emecé Editores and wrote weekly columns for El Hogar, which appeared from 1936 to 1939.

Borges's father died in 1938, a great blow because the two were very close. At New Year's 1939, Borges suffered a severe head wound in an accident; during treatment for that wound, he nearly died of blood poisoning. While recovering from the accident, he began writing in a style he became famous for, and his first collection of short stories, El jardín de senderos que se bifurcan (The Garden of Forking Paths) appeared in 1941. The book included 'El sur', a piece that incorporated some autobiographical elements, notably the accident, and which the writer regarded as his personal favorite. Though generally well received, El jardín de senderos que se bifurcan failed to garner the literary prizes many in his circle expected for it. Ocampo dedicated a large portion of the July 1941 issue of Sur to a "Reparation for Borges"; numerous leading writers and critics from Argentina and throughout the Spanish-speaking world contributed writings to the project.

Starting in 1937, Borges began working at the Miguel Cané branch of the Buenos Aires Municipal Library as a first assistant. When Juan Perón came to power in 1946 he was effectively fired, being "promoted" to the position of "Poultry and Rabbit Inspector" for the Buenos Aires municipal market (which he immediately resigned). His offenses against the Peronistas up to that time had apparently consisted of little more than adding his signature to pro-democratic petitions, but shortly after his resignation he addressed the Argentine Society of Letters saying, in his characteristic style, "Dictatorships foster oppression, dictatorships foster servitude, dictatorships foster cruelty; more abominable is the fact that they foster idiocy."

Left without a job, his vision beginning to fade, and unable to fully support himself as a writer, Borges began a new career as a public lecturer. Despite a certain amount of political persecution, he was reasonably successful, and became an increasingly public figure, obtaining appointments as President (1950 - 1953) of the Argentine Society of Writers and as Professor of English and American Literature (1950 - 1955) at the Argentine Association of English Culture. His short story Emma Zunz was turned into a film (under the name of Días de odio, which in English became Days of Wrath) in 1954 by Argentine director Leopoldo Torre Nilsson. Around this time, Borges also began writing screenplays.

In 1955, and after the initiative of Ocampo, the new anti-Peronist military government appointed him head of the National Library. By that time, he had become fully blind, like his predecessor at the National Library. Neither coincidence nor the irony escaped Borges and he commented on them in his work:

Nadie rebaje a lágrima o reproche,
Esta demostración de la maestría,
De Dios, que con magnífica ironía,
Me dio a la vez los libros y la noche.

Nobody should think that I, by tear or reproach, make light
Of the mastery of God who,
With excellent irony,
Gave me at once both books and night.

The following year he received the National Prize for Literature and the first of many honorary doctorates, this one from the University of Cuyo (Argentina). From 1956 to 1970, Borges also held a position as a professor of literature at the University of Buenos Aires, while frequently holding temporary appointments at other universities.

Being unable to read and write, he relied on his mother, with whom he had always been personally close, and who began to work with him as his personal secretary.

Borges's international fame dates approximately from the early 1960s. In 1961, he received the Formentor Prize, which he shared with Samuel Beckett; the Italian government named him Commendatore; and the University of Texas at Austin appointed him for one year to the Tinker chair. This led to his first lecture tour of the United States. The first translations of his work into English were to follow in 1962, with lecture tours of Europe and the Andean region of South America in subsequent years. In 1965, the United Kingdom granted him an O.B.E. Dozens of other honors were to accumulate over the years.

In 1967, Borges began a five-year period of collaboration with the American translator Norman Thomas di Giovanni, thanks to which became better known in the English-speaking world. He also continued to publish books, among them El libro de los seres imaginarios(The Book of Imaginary Beings, 1967), El informe de Brodie (Dr. Brodie's Report, 1970), and El libro de arena (The Book of Sand, 1975). He also lectured prolifically. Many of these lectures were gathered in volumes such as Siete noches (Seven Nights) and Nueve ensayos dantescos.

When Perón returned from exile and was re-elected president in 1973, Borges resigned as director of the National Library.

In 1975, after the death of his mother, Borges started his series of visits to countries all over the world, and continued traveling until his death.

Borges was married twice. In 1967 he married an old friend, the recently widowed Elsa Astete Millán. The marriage lasted three years. After the divorce, Borges moved back in with his mother. During his last years, Borges lived with María Kodama, with whom he had been studying Anglo-Saxon for a number of years, and who also served as his personal secretary. In 1984, they produced an account of their journeys in different places of the world under the name Atlas, with text by Borges and photographs by Kodama. They married in 1986, months before his death.

Borges died of liver cancer in Geneva in 1986, having chosen to return at the end of his life to the city in which he had studied as an undergraduate. He was buried in the Cimetière des Rois.


Quotations:

I cannot walk through the suburbs in the solitude of the night without thinking that the night pleases us because it suppresses idle details, just as our memory does.

Time is the substance from which I am made. Time is a river which carries me along, but I am the river; it is a tiger that devours me, but I am the tiger; it is a fire that consumes me, but I am the f...

One concept corrupts and confuses the others. I am not speaking of the Evil whose limited sphere is ethics; I am speaking of the infinite.

''There is a concept that is the corrupter and destroyer of all others. I speak not of Evil, whose limited empire is that of ethics; I speak of the infinite.

We (the indivisible divinity that works in us) have dreamed the world. We have dreamed it resistant, mysterious, visible, ubiquitous in space and firm in time, but we have allowed slight, and eternal,...

The future is inevitable and precise, but it may not occur. God lurks in the gaps.

The flattery of posterity is not worth much more than contemporary flattery, which is worth nothing.

That one individual should awaken in another memories that belong to still a third is an obvious paradox.

It is worth remembering that every writer begins with a naively physical notion of what art is. A book for him or her is not an expression or a series of expressions, but literally a volume, a prism...

Literature is not exhaustible, for the sufficient and simple reason that a single book is not. A book is not an isolated entity: it is a narration, an axis of innumerable narrations. One literature di...

The truth is that we live out our lives putting off all that can be put off; perhaps we all know deep down that we are immortal and that sooner or later all men will do and know all things.''
Jorge Luis Borges (1899-1986), Argentinian author. "Funes the Memorious," Labyrinths (1964).

It is known that Whistler when asked how long it took him to paint one of his "nocturnes" answered: "All of my life." With the same rigor he could have said that all of the centuries that preceded the...

Art always opts for the individual, the concrete; art is not Platonic.

Every writer "creates" his own precursors. His work modifies our conception of the past, as it will modify the future.

The fact is that all writers create their precursors. Their work modifies our conception of the past, just as it is bound to modify the future.

The central problem of novel-writing is causality.

In the course of a life devoted less to living than to reading, I have verified many times that literary intentions and theories are nothing more than stimuli and that the final work usually ignores o...

And yet, and yet ... Denying temporal succession, denying the self, denying the astronomical universe, are obvious acts of desperation and secret consolation. Our fate (unlike the hell of Swedenborg o...

A book is not an autonomous entity: it is a relation, an axis of innumerable relations. One literature differs from another, be it earlier or later, not because of the texts but because of the way the...

The exercise of letters is sometimes linked to the ambition to contruct an absolute book, a book of books that includes the others like a Platonic archetype, an object whose virtues are not diminished...

The possibilities of the art of combination are not infinite, but they tend to be frightful. The Greeks engendered the chimera, a monster with heads of the lion, the dragon and the goat; the theologia...
Jorge Luis Borges (1899-1986), Argentinian author. "On Dubbing" ["Sobre el doblaje"], Discussion [Discusión] (1932). Aldonza Lorenzo is the Spanis...

Universal history is the history of a few metaphors.

Perhaps universal history is the history of the diverse intonation of some metaphors.''

Writing long books is a laborious and impoverishing act of foolishness: expanding in five hundred pages an idea that could be perfectly explained in a few minutes. A better procedure is to pretend tha...

Reading ... is an activity subsequent to writing: more resigned, more civil, more intellectual.

Life and death have been lacking in my life.''
Life itself is a quotation.

In the order of literature, as in others, there is no act that is not the coronation of an infinite series of causes and the source of an infinite series of effects.

To fall in love is to create a religion that has a fallible god.

Coleridge observes that all men are born Aristotelians or Platonists. The latter feel that classes, orders, and genres are realities; the former, that they are generalizations. For the latter, languag...

Imprecision is tolerable and verisimilar in literature, because we always tend towards it in life.

Like all writers, he measured the achievements of others by what they had accomplished, asking of them that they measure him by what he envisaged or planned.

Music, feelings of happiness, mythology, faces worn by time, certain twilights and certain places, want to tell us something, or they told us something that we should not have missed, or they are abou...

If the pages of this book contain some successful verse, the reader must excuse me the discourtesy of having usurped it first. Our nothingness differs little; it is a trivial and chance circumstance t...

More info on Poet Laureates

The new NC state poet laureate is: Cathy Smith Bowers. She teaches at the Queens University at Charlotte. Watch her installation ceremony.

Current State Poets Laureate: http://www.loc.gov/rr/main/poets/current.html
U.S. Poet Laureate: Kay Ryan

Although Maya Angelou is most certainly one of the most famous African American poets in our history, she has never been appointed as the official U.S. Poet Laureate. She selected as poet laureate of Bill Clinton's 1993 inauguration. In spite of never holding the official title, Maya Angelou remains one of the most well loved and respected poets in the U.S.

Poet Laureate:
A poet laureate is a poet recognized by a government as the official poet of a country, state or city. The term laureate is related to the laurel wreath, which would crown the head of great writers or poets. It is a symbol of Apollo, the Greek god of wisdom. Thus the title of poet laureate infers the poet is exceptionally skilled and wise.

The tradition of recognizing a poet laureate first began in England. A term prior to the reign of James I would have been “king’s poet.” This reflects earlier traditions of a poet or minstrel that might work only at the pleasure of the king and compose poems that would specifically honor the king. Having a minstrel, storyteller or poet, is much older than the monarchies of England. Any nobleman in most European countries would have had designated poets to help mark special occasions and provide entertainment.

The first “official” poet laureate of England was Ben Johnson, named so by James I in 1617. Other interesting names in the list of poet laureates include John Dryden, William Wordsworth, Tennyson, and Cecil Day-Lewis. The current poet laureate of England is Andrew Motion. England has never had a female poet laureate, though Wales recognizes Gwyneth Lewis as its National Poet.

In the US, the US Librarian of Congress appoints the poet laureate. This position began in 1937, though before, many states appointed a poet laureate, and many still do. Some cities, like San Francisco, even appoint a poet laureate. Currently, the US poet laureate is Donald Hall, but this changes yearly since the appointment is annual.

A poet laureate in the US may still serve for more than one year, but many fulfill only a year’s term, for which they are paid a stipend of 35,000 US dollars (USD). The stipend in these economic times does little to significantly improve the economic circumstances of the poet.

American Poet Laureates

The Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress serves as the nation's official lightning rod for the poetic impulse of Americans. During his or her term, the Poet Laureate seeks to raise the national consciousness to a greater appreciation of the reading and writing of poetry.

Image of Archer M. Huntington
1870-1955

The Poet Laureate is appointed annually by the Librarian of Congress and serves from October to May. In making the appointment, the Librarian consults with former appointees, the current Laureate and distinguished poetry critics. The position has existed under two separate titles: from 1937 to 1986 as "Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress" and from 1986 forward as "Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry." The name was changed by an act of Congress in 1985.

The Laureate receives a $35,000 annual stipend funded by a gift from Archer M. Huntington. The Library keeps to a minimum the specific duties in order to afford incumbents maximum freedom to work on their own projects while at the Library. The Laureate gives an annual lecture and reading of his or her poetry and usually introduces poets in the Library's annual poetry series, the oldest in the Washington area, and among the oldest in the United States. This annual series of public poetry and fiction readings, lectures, symposia, and occasional dramatic performances began in the 1940s. Collectively the Laureates have brought more than 2,000 poets and authors to the Library to read for the Archive of Recorded Poetry and Literature.

Robert Frost and Carl Sandburg
in the Library of Congress' Whittall Pavilion
May 2, 1960

Those interested in reading a more detailed history of the poetry consultantship at the Library of Congress should refer to William McGuire's Poetry's Catbird Seat: The Consultantship in Poetry in the English Language at the Library of Congress, 1937-1987 (Washington: Library of Congress, 1988. LC Call No.: Z733.U6M38 1988).

Each Laureate brings a different emphasis to the position. Joseph Brodsky initiated the idea of providing poetry in airports, supermarkets and hotel rooms. Maxine Kumin started a popular series of poetry workshops for women at the Library of Congress. Gwendolyn Brooks met with elementary school students to encourage them to write poetry. Rita Dove brought together writers to explore the African diaspora through the eyes of its artists. She also championed children's poetry and jazz with poetry events. Robert Hass organized the "Watershed" conference that brought together noted novelists, poets and storytellers to talk about writing, nature and community.

Current Poet Laureate is Kay Ryan.  She was born in 1945 in San Jose, Calif., and grew up in the San Joaquin Valley and the Mojave Desert. Her father was an oil well driller and sometime-prospector. She received both bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the University of California, Los Angeles. Since 1971, Ryan has lived in Marin County. Her partner of 30 years is Carol Adair.

Introduction to Poetry

Billy Collins

I ask them to take a poem
and hold it up to the light
like a color slide

or press an ear against its hive.

I say drop a mouse into a poem
and watch him probe his way out,

or walk inside the poem's room
and feel the walls for a light switch.

I want them to waterski
across the surface of a poem
waving at the author's name on the shore.

But all they want to do
is tie the poem to a chair with rope
and torture a confession out of it.

They begin beating it with a hose
to find out what it really means.

Robert Hass

photo: Barbara Hall

Robert Hass was born in San Francisco on March 1, 1941. He attended St. Mary's College in Moraga, California and received both an MA and Ph.D. in English from Stanford University.
His books of poetry include Time and Materials (Ecco Press, 2007), which won the 2007 National Book Award;Sun Under Wood: New Poems (1996);Human Wishes (1989); Praise (1979); and Field Guide (1973), which was selected by Stanley Kunitz for the Yale Younger Poets Series.

About Hass's work, Kunitz wrote, "Reading a poem by Robert Hass is like stepping into the ocean when the temperature of the water is not much different from that of the air. You scarcely know, until you feel the undertow tug at you, that you have entered into another element."

Hass has also co-translated several volumes of poetry withCzeslaw Milosz, most recently Facing the River (1995), and is author or editor of several other collections of essays and translation, including The Essential Haiku: Versions of Basho, Buson, and Issa (1994), and Twentieth Century Pleasures: Prose on Poetry(1984).

Hass served as Poet Laureate of the United States from 1995 to 1997 and as a Chancellor of The Academy of American Poets from 2001 to 2007. He lives in California with his wife, poetBrenda Hillman, and teaches at the University of California, Berkeley.

Bukowski: Poetry and Motion

Talking Brains

This, while preliminary, is pretty amazing. Scientists have been able to synthesize speech from the electrical impulses produced by the human brain at near conversational speeds and with fair accuracy.


By matching the frequencies being generated in the cortex, the software tries to predict the phrases that the patients wants to say and via a synthesizer, says them out loud. The process can take as little as 50 milliseconds, about the same amount of time it takes an average person to do exactly the same thing with his or her mouth.
A blog post about it is here. The research paper can be found here.

Elements of Poetry

DEFINITION OF ALLEGORY

An allegory is a whole world of symbols. Within a narrative form, which can be either in prose or verse, an allegory tells a story that can be read symbolically. You may have encountered The Faerie Queen by Edmund Spenser, or a short story by Nathaniel Hawthorne such as Rappacini’s Daughter, or maybe you’ve heard that The Wizard of Oz was originally an allegory. Interpreting an allegory is complicated because you need to be aware of what each symbol in the narrative refers to. Allegories thus reinforce symbolic meaning, but can also be appreciated as good stories regardless of their allegorical meaning.

DEFINITION OF ALLITERATION

Alliteration occurs when the initial sounds of a word, beginning either with a consonant or a vowel, are repeated in close succession.

Examples:
Athena and Apollo
Nate never knows
People who pen poetry

The function of alliteration, like rhyme, might be to accentuate the beauty of language in a given context, or to unite words or concepts through a kind of repetition. Alliteration, like rhyme, can follow specific patterns. Sometimes the consonants aren't always the initial ones, but they are generally the stressed syllables. Alliteration is less common than rhyme, but because it is less common, it can call our attention to a word or line in a poem that might not have the same emphasis otherwise.

DEFINITION OF ASSONANCE

If alliteration occurs at the beginning of a word and rhyme at the end, assonance takes the middle territory. Assonance occurs when the vowel sound within a word matches the same sound in a nearby word, but the surrounding consonant sounds are different. "Tune" and "June" are rhymes; "tune" and "food" are assonant. The function of assonance is frequently the same as end rhyme or alliteration: All serve to give a sense of continuity or fluidity to the verse. Assonance might be especially effective when rhyme is absent: It gives the poet more flexibility, and it is not typically used as part of a predetermined pattern. Like alliteration, it does not so much determine the structure or form of a poem; rather, it is more ornamental.

DEFINITION OF DENOTATION AND CONNOTATION

Denotation is when you mean what you say, literally. Connotation is created when you mean something else, something that might be initially hidden. The connotative meaning of a word is based on implication, or shared emotional association with a word. Greasy is a completely innocent word: Some things, like car engines, need to be greasy. But greasy contains negative associations for most people, whether they are talking about food or about people. Often there are many words that denote approximately the same thing, but their connotations are very different. Innocent and genuine both denote an absence of corruption, but the connotations of the two words are different: innocent is often associated with a lack of experience, whereas genuine is not. Connotations are important in poetry because poets use them to further develop or complicate a poem's meaning.

DEFINITION OF DICTION

Diction refers to both the choice and the order of words. It has typically been split into vocabulary and syntax. The basic question to ask about vocabulary is "Is it simple or complex?" The basic question to ask about syntax is "Is it ordinary or unusual?" Taken together, these two elements make up diction. When we speak of a "level of diction," we might be misleading, because it's certainly possible to use "plain" language in a complicated way, especially in poetry, and it's equally possible to use complicated language in a simple way. It might help to think of diction as a web rather than a level: There's typically something deeper than a surface meaning to consider, so poetic diction is, by definition, complex.

DEFINITION OF IMAGE

Think of an image as a picture or a sculpture, something concrete and representational within a work of art. Literal images appeal to our sense of realistic perception, like a nineteenth-century landscape painting that looks "just like a photograph." There are also figurative images that appeal to our imagination, like a twentieth-century modernist portrait that looks only vaguely like a person but that implies a certain mood.

Literal images saturate Samuel Coleridge's poem, "Kubla Khan: or, A Vision in a Dream":

So twice five miles of fertile ground
With walls and towers were girdled round:
And here were gardens bright with sinuous rills
Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree;
And there were forests ancient as the hills,
Enfolding sunny spots of greenery. (lines 6-11)

A figurative image begins T. S. Eliot's famous poem "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock":

Let us go then, you and I,
When the evening is spread out against the sky
Like a patient etherized upon a table;

To see the evening in the way Prufrock describes it requires an imaginative leap: He's doing much more than setting the scene and telling us that it's nighttime. We are encouraged to see stars, to feel the unconscious and infinite presence of the universe, but these things are only implied. In either case, poetic imagery alters or shapes the way we see what the poem is describing.

DEFINITION OF IRONY

As a figure of speech, irony refers to a difference between the way something appears and what is actually true. Part of what makes poetry interesting is its indirectness, its refusal to state something simply as "the way it is." Irony allows us to say something but to mean something else, whether we are being sarcastic, exaggerating, or understating. A woman might say to her husband ironically, "I never know what you're going to say," when in fact she always knows what he will say. This is sarcasm, which is one way to achieve irony. Irony is generally more restrained than sarcasm, even though the effect might be the same. The woman of our example above might simply say, "Interesting," when her husband says something that really isn't interesting. She might not be using sarcasm in this case, and she might not even be aware that she is being ironic. A listener who finds the husband dull would probably understand the irony, though. The key to irony is often the tone, which is sometimes harder to detect in poetry than in speech.

DEFINITION OF METAPHOR

Closely related to similes, metaphors immediately identify one object or idea with another, in one or more aspects. The meaning of a poem frequently depends on the success of a metaphor. Like a simile, a metaphor expands the sense and clarifies the meaning of something. "He's such a pig," you might say, and the listener wouldn't immediately think, "My friend has a porcine boyfriend," but rather, "My friend has a human boyfriend who is (a) a slob, (b) a voracious eater, (c) someone with crude attitudes or tastes, or (d) a chauvinist." In any case, it would be clear that the speaker wasn't paying her boyfriend a compliment, but unless she clarifies the metaphor, you might have to ask, "In what sense?" English Renaissance poetry is characterized by metaphors that turn into elaborate conceits, or extended metaphors. Poets like John Donne and William Shakespeare extended their comparisons brilliantly, with the effect that the reader was dazzled. Contemporary poets tend to be more economical with their metaphors, but they still use them as one of the chief elements that distinguishes poetry from less lofty forms of communication.

DEFINITION OF METER

Meter is the rhythm established by a poem, and it is usually dependent not only on the number of syllables in a line but also on the way those syllables are accented. This rhythm is often described as a pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables. The rhythmic unit is often described as a foot; patterns of feet can be identified and labeled. A foot may be iambic, which follows a pattern of unstressed/stressed syllables. For example, read aloud: "The DOG went WALKing DOWN the ROAD and BARKED." Because there are five iambs, or feet, this line follows the conventions of iambic pentameter (pent = five), the common form in Shakespeare's time. Stressed syllables are conventionally labeled with a "/" mark and unstressed syllables with a "U" mark.

DEFINITION OF RHYME

The basic definition of rhyme is two words that sound alike. The vowel sound of two words is the same, but the initial consonant sound is different. Rhyme is perhaps the most recognizable convention of poetry, but its function is often overlooked. Rhyme helps to unify a poem; it also repeats a sound that links one concept to another, thus helping to determine the structure of a poem. When two subsequent lines rhyme, it is likely that they are thematically linked, or that the next set of rhymed lines signifies a slight departure. Especially in modern poetry, for which conventions aren't as rigidly determined as they were during the English Renaissance or in the eighteenth century, rhyme can indicate a poetic theme or the willingness to structure a subject that seems otherwise chaotic. Rhyme works closely with meter in this regard. There are varieties of rhyme: internal rhyme functions within a line of poetry, for example, while the more common end rhyme occurs at the end of the line and at the end of some other line, usually within the same stanza if not in subsequent lines. There are true rhymes (bear, care) and slant rhymes (lying, mine). There are also a number of predetermined rhyme schemes associated with different forms of poetry. Once you have identified a rhyme scheme, examine it closely to determine (1) how rigid it is, (2) how closely it conforms to a predetermined rhyme scheme (such as a sestina), and especially (3) what function it serves.

DEFINITION OF SIMILE

Have you ever noticed how many times your friends say, "It's like . . ." or "I'm like . . . "? They aren't always creating similes, but they are attempting to simulate something (often a conversation). The word like signifies a direct comparison between two things that are alike in a certain way. Usually one of the elements of a simile is concrete and the other abstract. "My love is like a red, red rose" writes Robert Burns. He's talking about the rose's beauty when it's in full bloom (he tells us that it's May in the next line). "Love is like a rose" is a simpler version of the simile, but it's a more dangerous version. (A black rose? A dead rose in December? The thorns of a rose?) Sometimes similes force us to consider how the two things being compared are dissimilar, but the relationship between two dissimilar things can break down easily, so similes must be rendered delicately and carefully.

A symbol works two ways: It is something itself, and it also suggests something deeper. It is crucial to distinguish a symbol from a metaphor: Metaphors are comparisons between two seemingly dissimilar things; symbols associate two things, but their meaning is both literal and figurative. A metaphor might read, "His life was an oak tree that had just lost its leaves"; a symbol might be the oak tree itself, which would evoke the cycle of death and rebirth through the loss and growth of leaves. Some symbols have widespread, commonly accepted values that most readers should recognize: Apple pie suggests innocence or homespun values; ravens signify death; fruit is associated with sensuality. Yet none of these associations is absolute, and all of them are really determined by individual cultures and time (would a Chinese reader recognize that apple pie suggests innocence?). No symbols haveabsolute meanings, and, by their nature, we cannot read them at face value. Rather than beginning an inquiry into symbols by asking what they mean, it is better to begin by asking what they could mean, or what they have meant.

DEFINITION OF TONE

The tone of a poem is roughly equivalent to the mood it creates in the reader. Think of an actor reading a line such as "I could kill you." He can read it in a few different ways: If he thinks the proper tone is murderous anger, he might scream the line and cause the veins to bulge in his neck. He might assume the tone of cool power and murmur the line in a low, even voice. Perhaps he does not mean the words at all and laughs as he says them. Much depends on interpretation, of course, but the play will give the actor clues about the tone just as a poem gives its readers clues about how to feel about it. The tone may be based on a number of other conventions that the poem uses, such as meter or repetition. If you find a poem exhilarating, maybe it's because the meter mimics galloping. If you find a poem depressing, that may be because it contains shadowy imagery. Tone is not in any way divorced from the other elements of poetry; it is directly dependent on them.

DEFINITION OF WORD ORDER

Poetry can be like a recipe. If you were making a cake, you would first mix the dry ingredients together; then you would cream butter and sugar together, then add eggs, then stir the dry ingredients in. Why wouldn't you just drop all of the ingredients into a big bowl at the same time and mix? You'd end up with a lumpy mess, and no one wants a cake, or a poem, to be a lumpy mess. Word order matters—sometimes for clarity of meaning (a solo guitar isn't the same as a guitar solo) and sometimes for effect ("a dying man" is roughly the same as "a man, dying," but the effect of the word order matters). There are many different ways to order words and communicate approximately the same meaning, so readers should always question why poets have chosen a particular order, whether the choice is conventional or just the opposite.