Trees
By Joyce Kilmer

I think that I shall never see
A poem lovely as a tree.

A tree whose hungry mouth is prest
Against the earth’s sweet flowing breast;

A tree that looks at God all day,
And lifts her leafy arms to pray;

A tree that may in summer wear
A nest of robins in her hair;

Upon whose bosom snow has lain;
Who intimately lives with rain.

Poems are made by fools like me,
But only God can make a tree.

About the Poem

Joyce Kilmer’s reputation as a poet is staked largely on the widespread popularity of one poem—”Trees” (1913). It was first published in the August 1913 issue of Poetry: A Magazine of Verse which had begun publishing the year before in Chicago, Illinois and was included as the title poem in a collection of poems Trees and Other Poems (1914). According to Kilmer’s oldest son, Kenton, the poem was written on February 2, 1913, when the family resided in Mahwah, New Jersey.

It was written in the afternoon in the intervals of some other writing. The desk was in an upstairs room, by a window looking down a wooded hill. It was written in a little notebook in which his father and mother wrote out copies of several of their poems, and, in most cases, added the date of composition. On one page the first two lines of ‘Trees’ appear, with the date, February 2, 1913, and on another page, further on in the book, is the full text of the poem. It was dedicated to his wife’s mother, Mrs. Henry Mills Alden, who was endeared to all her family.

Many locations including Rutgers University (where Kilmer attended for two years), University of Notre Dame, as well as historians in Mahwah, New Jersey and in other places, have boasted that a specific tree was the inspiration for Kilmer’s poem. However, Kenton Kilmer refutes these claims, remarking that,

Mother and I agreed, when we talked about it, that Dad never meant his poem to apply to one particular tree, or to the trees of any special region. Just any trees or all trees that might be rained on or snowed on, and that would be suitable nesting places for robins. I guess they’d have to have upward-reaching branches, too, for the line about ‘lifting leafy arms to pray.’ Rule out weeping willows.” 

The popular appeal of this simple poem is likely the source of its endurance despite the continuing negative opinion of the poem’s merits from scholars and critics. According to Robert Holliday, Kilmer’s friend and editor, “Trees” speaks “with authentic song to the simplest of hearts” and that “(t)he exquisite title poem now so universally known, made his reputation more than all the rest he had written put together. That impeccable lyric which made for immediate widespread popularity.” Its popularity has also led to parodies of the poem—some by noted poets and writers. The pattern of its first lines (I think that I shall never see / A poem lovely as a tree.) is of seemingly simple rhyme and meter and easy to mimic along with the poem’s choice of metaphors. One of the best-known parodies is “Song of the Open Road” by American humorist and poet Ogden Nash (1902–1971):

I think that I shall never see
A billboard lovely as a tree.
Indeed, unless the billboards fall,
I’ll never see a tree at all.

About the Poet

Joyce Kilmer was born on December 6, 1886, in New Brunswick, New Jersey. Kilmer attended Rutgers Preparatory School and graduated in 1904. He attended Rutgers College from 1904 to 1906, then transferred to Columbia University, where he completed his bachelor’s degree in journalism in 1908. That same year, he married poet Aline Murray.

After Kilmer graduated college, he took a job teaching Latin at a high school in Morristown, New Jersey, and wrote features for The Literary Digest, The Nation, Town & Country, and The New York Times. From 1909 to 1912, he worked for Funk and Wagnalls, writing definitions for The Standard Dictionary, and continued to write magazine articles for publication.

In 1911, Kilmer published his first poetry collection, A Summer of Love (The Baker & Taylor Company). Two years later, he published what would become his most famous poem, “Trees,” in Poetry magazine. The poem was included in his second collection, Trees and Other Poems (Doubleday, Doran & Company, 1914). 

Kilmer published his last poetry collection, Main Street and Other Poems (George H. Doran Company, 1917), the same year he enlisted in the U.S. Army to serve in World War I, during which time he continued to write poems while fighting in the Sixty-Ninth Regiment. He died of a gunshot from a German sniper on July 30, 1918.

Undressing You
By Witter Bynner

Fiercely I remove from you
All the little vestiges—
Garments that confine you,
Things that touch the flesh,
The wool and the silk
And the linen that entwine you,
Tear them all away from you,
Bare you from the mesh.
And now I have you as you are,
Nothing to encumber you—
But now I see, caressing you,
Colder hands than mine.
They take away your flesh and bone,
And, utterly undressing you,
They tear you from your beauty
And they leave no sign.

About the Poet

Witter Bynner was born in Brooklyn, New York in 1881. He graduated from Harvard University in 1902. After college, he worked as a newspaper reporter and, later, as the assistant editor of McClure’s magazine.

Bynner published his first poetry collection, An Ode to Harvard (Small, Maynard, & Co.), in 1907. He was also the author of New Poems (Alfred A. Knopf, 1960); Take Away the Darkness (Alfred A. Knopf, 1947); The Beloved Stranger (Alfred A. Knopf, 1919); Tiger (M. Kennerley, 1913); and several other poetry collections.

In 1922, Bynner settled in Santa Fe, New Mexico with his partner, Robert Hunt. He died there on June 1, 1968.

We Two, How Long We Were Fool’d
By Walt Whitman

We two, how long we were fool’d,
Now transmuted, we swiftly escape as Nature escapes,
We are Nature, long have we been absent, but now we return,
We become plants, trunks, foliage, roots, bark,
We are bedded in the ground, we are rocks,
We are oaks, we grow in the openings side by side,
We browse, we are two among the wild herds spontaneous as any,
We are two fishes swimming in the sea together,
We are what locust blossoms are, we drop scent around lanes mornings and evenings,
We are also the coarse smut of beasts, vegetables, minerals,
We are two predatory hawks, we soar above and look down,
We are two resplendent suns, we it is who balance ourselves orbic and stellar, we are as two comets,
We prowl fang’d and four-footed in the woods, we spring on prey,
We are two clouds forenoons and afternoons driving overhead,
We are seas mingling, we are two of those cheerful waves rolling over each other and interwetting each other,
We are what the atmosphere is, transparent, receptive, pervious, impervious,
We are snow, rain, cold, darkness, we are each product and influence of the globe,
We have circled and circled till we have arrived home again, we two,
We have voided all but freedom and all but our own joy.

About the Poem

M. Jimmie Killingsworth sees in this poem a significant shift in Whitman’s attitude on sexual acceptance. Whereas in 1855 Whitman wanted men and women to accept their own bodies so that they might be vehicles for contact with others, in a “Children of Adam” poem like “We Two, How Long We were Fool’d,” Whitman turns inward and stresses the need for his unwilling female readers to accept his male body and his poem as given, even though it is separate from his readers’ desires. Although E.H. Miller understands the two to be a modern Adam and Eve in search of a new spirit, he finds the poem actually celebrates male-male attraction, and Allen notes that the theme of the poem stresses that the pair were gulled by abstinence. In a sequence of poems that stresses elemental imagery with water and earth predominating over air and fire, the poem “We Two” mixes images of nature.

About the Poet

Born on May 31, 1819, Walt Whitman is the author of Leaves of Grass and, along with Emily Dickinson, is considered one of the architects of a uniquely American poetic voice. 

Though biographers continue to debate Whitman’s sexuality, he is usually described as either gay or bisexual in his feelings and attractions. Whitman’s sexual orientation is generally assumed on the basis of his poetry, though this assumption has been disputed. His poetry depicts love and sexuality in a more earthy, individualistic way common in American culture before the medicalization of sexuality in the late 19th century. Though Leaves of Grass was often labeled pornographic or obscene, only one critic remarked on its author’s presumed sexual activity: in a November 1855 review, Rufus Wilmot Griswold suggested Whitman was guilty of “that horrible sin not to be mentioned among Christians.”

Whitman had intense friendships with many men and boys throughout his life. Some biographers have suggested that he did not actually engage in sexual relationships with males, while others cite letters, journal entries, and other sources that they claim as proof of the sexual nature of some of his relationships. I tend to believe he was gay and did have sexual relations with other men.

Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? (Sonnet 18)
By William Shakespeare – 1564-1616

Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate.
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer’s lease hath all too short a date.
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimmed;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance, or nature’s changing course, untrimmed;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st,
Nor shall death brag thou wand’rest in his shade,
When in eternal lines to Time thou grow’st.
    So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
    So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

Since Memorial Day marks the unofficial start of summer, I thought I’d post what is arguably the most well-known use of summer in a poem. “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day” is one of my favorite of Shakespeare’s sonnets.

“Sonnet 18” is perhaps the best known of all of Shakespeare’s 154 sonnets, primarily due to the opening line, “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day,” which every true romantic knows by heart. But there is much more to this line than meets the eye. “Sonnet 18” focuses on the loveliness of a friend or lover, with the speaker initially asking a rhetorical question about comparing their subject to a summer’s day. He then goes on to introduce the pros and cons of the weather, mentioning both an idyllic English summer’s day and the less-welcome dim sun and rough winds of autumn. In the end, it is insinuated this very piece of poetry will keep the lover—the poem’s subject—alive forever and allow them to defy even death.

When I would teach “Sonnet 18,” I loved to compare it with “Sonnet 130,” also known as, “My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun.” “Sonnet 130” is an unusual poem because it turns the idea of female beauty on its head and offers the reader an alternative view of what it’s like to love a woman, warts and all, despite her shortcomings. It is basically the opposite of the more famous “Sonnet 18.”

It parodies other sonnets of the Elizabethan era, which were heavily into Petrarchan ideals, where the woman is continually praised and seen as beyond reproach. In this sense, ‘Sonnet 130’ is an anomaly, a unique poem that flouts the rules of convention and breaks new ground in the process. Shakespeare must have known what he was doing when he wrote this sonnet, because he ridicules an art form he himself had mastered.

My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun (Sonnet 130)
By William Shakespeare – 1564-1616

My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red than her lips’ red;
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
I have seen roses damasked, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
And in some perfumes is there more delight
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
I love to hear her speak, yet well I know
That music hath a far more pleasing sound;
I grant I never saw a goddess go;
My mistress when she walks treads on the ground.
    And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare
    As any she belied with false compare.

I Am No Good at Love
By Noël Coward

I am no good at love
My heart should be wise and free
I kill the unfortunate golden goose
Whoever it may be
With over-articulate tenderness
And too much intensity.

I am no good at love
I batter it out of shape
Suspicion tears at my sleepless mind
And, gibbering like an ape,
I lie alone in the endless dark
Knowing there’s no escape.

I am no good at love
When my easy heart I yield
Wild words come tumbling from my mouth
Which should have stayed concealed;
And my jealousy turns a bed of bliss
Into a battlefield.

I am no good at love
I betray it with little sins
For I feel the misery of the end
In the moment that it begins
And the bitterness of the last good-bye
Is the bitterness that wins.

Noël Coward was an English playwright, composer, director, actor, and singer. What some might not realize is that he was also a poet. He was known for his wit, flamboyance, and what Time magazine called “a sense of personal style, a combination of cheek and chic, pose and poise.”

Coward was gay but, following the convention of his times, this was never publicly mentioned. Coward firmly believed his private business was not for public discussion, considering “any sexual activities when over-advertised” to be tasteless. Even in the 1960s, Coward refused to acknowledge his sexual orientation publicly, wryly observing, “There are still a few old ladies in Worthing who don’t know.” Despite this reticence, he encouraged his secretary Cole Lesley to write a frank biography once Coward was safely dead.

Coward’s most important relationship, which began in the mid-1940s and lasted until his death, was with the South African stage and film actor Graham Payn. Coward featured Payn in several of his London productions. Payn later co-edited with Sheridan Morley a collection of Coward’s diaries, published in 1982. Coward’s other relationships included the playwright Keith Winter, actors Louis Hayward and Alan Webb, his manager Jack Wilson and the composer Ned Rorem, who published details of their relationship in his diaries. Coward had a 19-year friendship with Prince George, Duke of Kent, but biographers differ on whether it was platonic. Payn believed that it was, although Coward reportedly admitted to the historian Michael Thornton that there had been “a little dalliance.” Coward said, on the duke’s death, “I suddenly find that I loved him more than I knew.”

Forget Me Not
By Ann Plato

When in the morning’s misty hour,
When the sun beams gently o’er each flower;
When thou dost cease to smile benign,
And think each heart responds with thine,
When seeking rest among divine,
                        Forget me not.

When the last rays of twilight fall,
And thou art pacing yonder hall;
When mists are gathering on the hill,
Nor sound is heard save mountain rill,
When all around bids peace be still,
                        Forget me not.

When the first star with brilliance bright,
Gleams lonely o’er the arch of night;
When the bright moon dispels the gloom,
And various are the stars that bloom,
And brighten as the sun at noon,
                        Forget me not.

When solemn sighs the hollow wind,
And deepen’d thought enraps the mind;
If e’er thou doest in mournful tone,
E’er sigh because thou feel alone,
Or wrapt in melancholy prone,
                        Forget me not.

When bird does wait thy absence long,
Nor tend unto its morning song;
While thou art searching stoic page,
Or listening to an ancient sage,
Whose spirit curbs a mournful rage,
                        Forget me not.

Then when in silence thou doest walk,
Nor being round with whom to talk;
When thou art on the mighty deep,
And do in quiet action sleep;
If we no more on earth do meet,
                        Forget me not.

When brightness round thee long shall bloom,
And knelt remembering those in gloom;
And when in deep oblivion’s shade,
This breathless, mouldering form is laid,
And thy terrestrial body staid,
                        Forget me not.

“Should sorrow cloud thy coming years,
And bathe thy happiness in tears,
Remember, though we’re doom’d to part,
There lives one fond and faithful heart,
                        That will forget thee not.”

Little is known about the life of Ann Plato. Apparently, she was a free black in Hartford, Connecticut, at a time when the city’s free black residents outnumbered the town’s slave population. She was also a member of Hartford’s Colored Congregational Church. Knowledge about her is limited to the one book that she published, most likely when she was 16. Entitled Essays: Including Biographies and Miscellaneous Pieces of Prose and Poetry (1841), it contains four biographical compositions, sixteen very short essays, and twenty poems. She was one of the earliest African American women to publish a collection of poems and essays. 

Not a lot is known about Ann Plato. Her minister, the Reverend James W. C. Pennington, wrote an introductory notice, “To the Reader.” After identifying Ann Plato as one of his parishioners, he repeatedly says she is young but does not make clear exactly how old she is. He says nothing about her family except to indicate that she is “of modest worth.” Neither does he tell how long she had been a member of his church, but he does record she is “of pleasing piety.”

We get even less information from her. There is some evidence that she was either a young teacher or preparing to be one. Her essays are conventional. Designed as instructive interpretations of issues she found important, they focus primarily on religious and educational matters. Her attitude toward Africa appears in an essay entitled “Education,” in which she commends those Christian missionaries who were willing to forsake the comforts of home in order to take “a message of love to the burning clime of Africa.” In keeping with an eighteenth-century tendency to eulogize one’s friends, Plato mourns—in the four biographies—the early deaths of some friends, one of whom was apparently a slave.

Although Plato’s poetry seldom deals with racial issues, she apparently was not totally oblivious to the concerns of her day. She occasionally emphasized the equality of people, regardless of race, a few times in the Essays. One of her poems, “To the First of August,” celebrates the ending of slavery in the British West Indies and may have been written shortly after that law went into effect on 1 August 1838. At the time, there were a number of poems written by a variety of poets on the subject, and she presumably joined this contemporaneous group. “The Natives of America” is a dramatic poem that relates her consideration of the plight of Native Americans in the United States. But for the most part, her subjects seem to have little to do with the specific problems faced by African Americans in everyday life.

Some scholars might dismiss her merely as a link between Phillis Wheatley (the first African-American author of a published book of poetry), whose work she apparently knew, and later women writers. On the other hand, Plato shows in Essays some tendencies toward a lyricism not associated with Phillis Wheatley. For example, her “Reflections, Written on Visiting the Grave of a Venerated Friend” goes beyond the expected neoclassical tradition and shows real feelings about death. Her love poem “Forget Me Not” is another example of a stylized lyric that conveys a sense of emotion. In the essay “Benevolence,” Plato wrote, “Although there are many nations, and many stations in life, yet He watches over us, He has given us immortal souls. Some have white complexions, some are red, like our wandering natives, others have sable or olive complexions. But God hath made of one blood all who dwell upon the face of the earth.”

Following neoclassical conventions, she did not write about herself. As a result, much about Ann Plato has—so far—been lost to history. Though her poems “On Examination for a Teacher,” “I Have No Brother,” or “The Residence of My Fathers” may be autobiographical. Nothing is known about Plato’s life after her book was published in 1841. 

I was looking for a poem about nostalgia, which is what the picture above brought to mind when I saw it. I can see the man at the window thinking, “Forget Me Not,” as he watches a lover walk away. This poem touched my heart. Most of us will not leave a great legacy after we are gone. We will not be written in history books. We will only be remembered by those who knew us, and that may not last past their lifetime. Our gravestones will tell when we were born when we died, and may even give a clue about our family. The poem above is sentimental and, while long, is also simple. Its style, rhyming scheme, and lack of cynical sarcasm are out of fashion with most modern poetry as I said last week is “mostly nonsense, the type of poems that the title claims are about one thing, and while it may start out following what you expect from the title, it just goes off into leftfield.” Often there is no “rhyme or (apparent) reason,” nor does it have any structure or lyricism to it.

Near Middlebury in the town of Ripton, in Addison Country, Vermont, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Forestry Service maintains the Robert Frost Interpretive Trail. This National Recreation Trail commemorates Robert Frost’s poetry, and several of his poems are mounted along the trail in the woods and fields. The trail is said to be an easy walk along the Middlebury. I had considered going this last weekend, but I wasn’t feeling great mentally, just a case of the blahs, nothing major. Also, Addison County is not the easiest place to get to from where I live. At best, it’s an hour and a half away, even if you brave going over the mountain pass, which I have done before, and it scared the ever-loving hell out of me. The road is basically a somewhat maintained dirt path with just enough width for two cars to pass, with the mountain on one side and a drop-off of trees on the other. My point is I was not up for it last weekend. Maybe this weekend will be different. Saturday is looking like nice weather.

I got a little sidetracked. I was thinking of poems that fit the bill of the type I like, and Robert Frost’s poems usually do. In turn, that had me thinking of the Robert Frost Interpretive Trail, how I’d like to visit it, and how far away and inconvenient it is. There are several places in that part of the state I like to visit, Manchester and Middlebury being two of them. I’d also like to see Bennington. I’m getting off track and babbling again, so let’s just leave it there….

I hope you enjoyed this week’s poem.

Short-Order Cook
By Jim Daniels

An average joe comes in
and orders thirty cheeseburgers and thirty fries.

I wait for him to pay before I start cooking.
He pays.
He ain’t no average joe.

The grill is just big enough for ten rows of three.
I slap the burgers down
throw two buckets of fries in the deep frier
and they pop pop, spit spit. . .
pssss. . .
The counter girls laugh.
I concentrate.
It is the crucial point–
they are ready for the cheese:
my fingers shake as I tear off slices
toss them on the burgers/fries done/dump/
refill buckets/burgers ready/flip into buns/
beat that melting cheese/wrap burgers in plastic/
into paper bags/fries done/dump/fill thirty bags/
bring them to the counter/wipe sweat on sleeve
and smile at the counter girls.
I puff my chest out and bellow:
Thirty cheeseburgers! Thirty fries!
I grab a handful of ice, toss it in my mouth
do a little dance and walk back to the grill.
Pressure, responsibility, success.
Thirty cheeseburgers, thirty fries.

About the Poem

This poem is pretty straightforward. I was trying to come up with something to post and thought I’d check out poems about cooking. Most of the poems I read were mostly nonsense, the type of poems that the title claims are about one thing, and while it may start out following what you expect from the title, it just goes off into leftfield. This was not that type of poem. “Short-Order Cook” is a pretty straightforward poem. There may be a deeper meaning, but sometimes, I just enjoy a poem for what it actually says instead of trying to figure out all of the subtext, metaphors, form, cadence, etc. This one, I just liked it for its simplicity. 

Poetry can mean so much, but at the heart of it, the question is: do you like it? If the answer is no, then it’s the wrong poem for you. If the answer is yes, then savor the words, just as you’d savor one of these burgers made by a short-order cook. We all know the greasy spoons have the best hamburgers, and if you don’t, go out and find one. If you don’t know what a greasy spoon is, it’s a small, cheap restaurant – either an American diner or coffee shop – typically specializing in fried foods.

About the Poet

Jim Daniels is the author of numerous collections of poetry, most recently The Middle Ages (Red Mountain Press, 2018) and Street Calligraphy (Steel Toe Books, 2017). His third collection, Places/Everyone (University of Wisconsin Press, 1985), won the inaugural Brittingham Prize in Poetry in 1985. He lives in Pittsburgh and is the Thomas Stockham University Professor of English at Carnegie Mellon University.

In Public
By John Wieners – 1934-2002

Promise you wont forget
each time we met
we kept our clothes on
despite obvious intentions
to take them off,
seldom kissed or even slept,
talked to spend desire,
worn exhausted from regret.

Continue our relationship apart
under surveillance, torture, persecuted
confinement’s theft; no must or sudden blows
when embodied spirits mingled
despite fall’s knock
we rode the great divide
of falsehood, hunger and last year

About the Poem

Reading this poem, I think we all know what John Wieners is talking about: gay sex in public. When the poem was written in 1968, Wieners had been in and out of psychiatric hospitals. In the 1960s, homosexuality was still illegal and considered a mental illness. Wieners was institutionalized again in 1969, and at least once more in 1972. Massachusetts law justified involuntary hospitalization for those who conducted themselves “in a manner which clearly violates the established laws, ordinances, conventions, or morals of the community.” Gay men became a scapegoat for mental health experimentation. The torture and persecution he alludes to in the poem included insulin coma therapy, electroshock treatment, and the experimental use of barbiturates and sedatives. 

Living with his parents in Massachusetts in the later 1960s, Wieners had no access to private property where he could engage in sex. His only recourse was to have sex in public places and try not to get caught. In Michael Rumaker’s memoir of his time in San Francisco with a literary crowd which included Wieners, he makes clear the dangers in 1958–1959:

…the Morals Squad was everywhere, and the entrapment of gay males in the streets, the parks, and in numerous public places was a constant fear and common occurrence. Often the most handsome, hung, desirable-looking cops were used for the plainclothes operations. I often wondered who did the selecting. 

While the above passage is about San Francisco, life for gay men was not much different in New York City or Boston in the late 1960s.

About the Poet

John Wieners was born on January 6, 1934, in Milton, Massachusetts. After graduating from Boston College in 1954, Wieners heard Charles Olson give a reading at the Charles Street Meeting House in Boston. Inspired by Olson’s work, Wieners spent a year at Black Mountain College in North Carolina, where he studied with Olson, Robert Creeley, and Robert Duncan.

After the closing of Black Mountain College in 1956, Wieners briefly returned to Boston and founded the small magazine Measure (published from 1957–62) before relocating to San Francisco in 1958. It was there that he published his first book, The Hotel Wentley Poems (Auerhahn Press, 1958). The book became known for its frankness, as it openly addressed homosexuality and drug use, subjects Wieners became known for writing about in his later works as well.

Wieners, who worked at City Lights and became acquainted with poets as diverse as Allen Ginsberg and Frank O’Hara, lived on the periphery of several movements from the 1950s—the Beat Generation, the Black Mountain School, the New York School, and the San Francisco Renaissance—and would be granted cult status in the poetry community.

In 1960, Wieners returned to the East Coast, and for the next few years he spent time in both Boston and New York City, where he shared an apartment with Beat poet Herbert Huncke and managed and acted in the production of three of his plays at the Judson Poets Theater. At the invitation of Olson, then the Chair of Poetics at SUNY Buffalo, Wieners enrolled in the school’s graduate program before eventually returning to Boston.

In the 1970s, Wieners continued to write, despite periods of institutionalization. Throughout his life, Wieners was in and out of institutions due to his drug abuse. His 1969 collection, Asylum Poems (Angel Hair Books), was written while he was in an institution. Wieners lived and wrote in Boston’s Beacon Hill for over thirty years, until his death on March 1, 2002.

Alone
By Maya Angelou – 1928-2014

Lying, thinking
Last night
How to find my soul a home
Where water is not thirsty
And bread loaf is not stone
I came up with one thing
And I don’t believe I’m wrong
That nobody,
But nobody
Can make it out here alone.

Alone, all alone
Nobody, but nobody
Can make it out here alone.

There are some millionaires
With money they can’t use
Their wives run round like banshees
Their children sing the blues
They’ve got expensive doctors
To cure their hearts of stone.
But nobody
No, nobody
Can make it out here alone.

Alone, all alone
Nobody, but nobody
Can make it out here alone.

Now if you listen closely
I’ll tell you what I know
Storm clouds are gathering
The wind is gonna blow
The race of man is suffering
And I can hear the moan,
‘Cause nobody,
But nobody
Can make it out here alone.

Alone, all alone
Nobody, but nobody
Can make it out here alone.

About the Poet

Maya Angelou was born Marguerite Johnson in St. Louis, Missouri, on April 4, 1928. She grew up in St. Louis and Stamps, Arkansas. She was an author, poet, historian, songwriter, playwright, dancer, stage and screen producer, director, performer, singer, and civil rights activist. She was best known for her seven autobiographical books: Mom & Me & Mom (Random House, 2013); Letter to My Daughter (Random House, 2008); All God’s Children Need Traveling Shoes (Random House, 1986); The Heart of a Woman (Random House, 1981); Singin’ and Swingin’ and Gettin’ Merry Like Christmas (Random House, 1976); Gather Together in My Name (Random House, 1974); and I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (Random House, 1969), which was nominated for the National Book Award.

Among her volumes of poetry are A Brave and Startling Truth (Random House, 1995); The Complete Collected Poems of Maya Angelou (Random House, 1994); Wouldn’t Take Nothing for My Journey Now (Random House, 1993); I Shall Not Be Moved (Random House, 1990); Shaker, Why Don’t You Sing? (Random House, 1983); Oh Pray My Wings Are Gonna Fit Me Well (Random House, 1975); and Just Give Me a Cool Drink of Water ‘fore I Diiie (Random House, 1971), which was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize.

In 1959, at the request of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Angelou became the northern coordinator for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. From 1961 to 1962 she was associate editor of The Arab Observer in Cairo, Egypt, the only English-language news weekly in the Middle East, and from 1964 to 1966 she was feature editor of the African Review in Accra, Ghana. She returned to the United States in 1974 and was appointed by Gerald Ford to the Bicentennial Commission and later by Jimmy Carter to the Commission for International Woman of the Year. She accepted a lifetime appointment in 1982 as Reynolds Professor of American Studies at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. In 1993, Angelou wrote and delivered a poem, “On The Pulse of the Morning,” at the inauguration for President Bill Clinton at his request. In 2000, she received the National Medal of Arts, and in 2010 she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Barack Obama.

The first black woman director in Hollywood, Angelou wrote, produced, directed, and starred in productions for stage, film, and television. In 1971, she wrote the original screenplay and musical score for the film Georgia, Georgia, and was both author and executive producer of a five-part television miniseries “Three Way Choice.” She also wrote and produced several prize-winning documentaries, including “Afro-Americans in the Arts,” a PBS special for which she received the Golden Eagle Award. Angelou was twice nominated for a Tony award for acting: once for her Broadway debut in Look Away (1973), and again for her performance in Roots (1977).

Angelou died on May 28, 2014, in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, where she had served as Reynolds Professor of American Studies at Wake Forest University since 1982. She was eighty-six.

O Small Sad Ecstasy of Love
By Anne Carson

I like being with you all night with closed eyes.
What luck—here you are
coming
along the stars!
I did a road trip
all over my mind and heart
and
there you were
kneeling by the roadside
with your little toolkit
fixing something.

Give me a world, you have taken the world I was.

About This Poem

“I have not much to say. It’s one of my more self-evident works, and I don’t like covering things with a lot of exegesis. Although I do enjoy using the word exegesis. Thank you and goodnight.”—Anne Carson

About This Poet

Anne Carson is the author of several poetry collections, including Float(Alfred A. Knopf, 2016) and Antigonick (New Directions, 2015). She currently teaches in New York University’s creative writing program.