The wind was a care-free soul That broke the chains of earth, And strode for a moment across the land With the wild halloo of his mirth. He little cared that he ripped up trees, That houses fell at his hand, That his step broke calm on the breast of seas, That his feet stirred clouds of sand.
But when he had had his little joke, Had shouted and laughed and sung, When the trees were scarred, their branches broke, And their foliage aching hung, He crept to his cave with a stealthy tread, With rain-filled eyes and low-bowed head.
Gwendolyn Bennett, a teacher, artist, and writer, was born in Giddings, Texas in 1902. She never published her collected work, but her poems, short stories, and nonfiction columns appeared in literary journals, among them Opportunity, Fire!! and Palms. Bennett was connected to the Harlem Renaissance and a dedicated supporter of African American writers and artists through support groups, community centers, and schools. She died in Reading, Pennsylvania in 1981.
Dear March – Come in – (1320) By Emily Dickinson – 1830-1886
Dear March – Come in – How glad I am – I hoped for you before – Put down your Hat – You must have walked – How out of Breath you are – Dear March, how are you, and the Rest – Did you leave Nature well – Oh March, Come right upstairs with me – I have so much to tell –
I got your Letter, and the Birds – The Maples never knew that you were coming – I declare – how Red their Faces grew – But March, forgive me – And all those Hills you left for me to Hue – There was no Purple suitable – You took it all with you –
Who knocks? That April – Lock the Door – I will not be pursued – He stayed away a Year to call When I am occupied – But trifles look so trivial As soon as you have come
That blame is just as dear as Praise And Praise as mere as Blame –
____________________
About this Poem
“Dear March, Come In” is Emily Dickinson’s eloquent greeting to the season of Spring during the month of March. By personifying the season, Dickinson reminds us that we have anticipated spring each day of the long and infinite winter we have just experienced. She reminds the reader that Spring is on its way and will likely be out of breath when it arrives.
The beginning of spring means the blossoming of life anew. Dickinson describes the renewed life that comes with spring. Dickinson for many years lived as a recluse withdrawing from the society. Like her Transcendentalists contemporaries, she shows us that she does not need to leave her seclusion to understand the meaning and the elements of life. Through her garden, Dickinson realized her need to stay in contact with nature. The poem discusses her feeling of welcoming nature in her front doors. However, like life nature can arrive without any signs or warnings, and it can disappear just as easily.
At the end of the poem, Dickinson describes how she does not want April to arrive. Although she never give the reason of having such feelings, we can infer that she does not want to lose the contact between herself and the beginning of life. Sooner or later, May will arrive and after a few months, winter will creep back up and the nature of the world will return to the dreariness and cold of the winter months. Time marches on, but Dickinson doesn’t want the renewal of March to end.
The weather is rude today, too full of good color and cheer, and makes me want to be out of here, out of the interior time pandemic time trauma has made me. I would sing as the canary passes gently thru the break of my vision; I would listen as the cat’s ear stings patiently at its Lord; I would gorge deeply on my own fruit’s womb; I would entomb blind joy in its spell: et benedictus fructus ventris tui, Iesus. Iesus is us, and he isn’t, anymore than Byzantine raised halos and bronze disease is us, and they are—though most I enjoy these hiccups come also witty with the breast, with the breath, in the idea disease, ease, and that we might just be metal too close together that will infect each other, brother, brother, sister, sister, sister, brother, comma, comma, trans—with revision then, reglistening, which is love, becaused.
About the Poem
“Still early in the pandemic, around May 2020, I had a phone conversation with my friend, Sanchita Balachandran, associate director at John Hopkins Archaeological Museum, who taught me about ‘bronze disease,’ a term borne out of a belief earlier conservators had that certain corrosion products in bronze were the result of ‘a communicable biological contagion spread from object to object’ kept ‘too close together.’ It’s an idea, now disproved, that still struck me, knowing that for the conservator corrosion is enemy, but what if the corrosion was love?” —Rickey Laurentiis
Rickey Laurentiis (b. 1989, February 7) was raised in New Orleans, Louisiana, to love the dark. Their writing has been supported by several foundations and fellowships. In 2016, they traveled to Palestine as an invited reader for the Palestine Festival of Literature. Laurentiis received an MFA in Writing from Washington University in St Louis, where they were a Chancellor’s Graduate Fellow, and a Bachelor’s in Liberal Arts from Sarah Lawrence College, where they read literature and queer theory.
They are the trans author of Boy with Thorn, winner of the Cave Canem Poetry Prize and the Levis Reading Prize, and a finalist for the Kate Tufts Discovery Award, the Thom Gunn Award for Gay Poetry and a Lambda Literary Award. Boy with Thorn was also named one of the top ten debuts of 2015 by Poets & Writers Magazine and a top 16 best poetry book by Buzzfeed, among other distinctions.
You do not have to be good. You do not have to walk on your knees for a hundred miles through the desert repenting. You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves. Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine. Meanwhile the world goes on. Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain are moving across the landscapes, over the prairies and the deep trees, the mountains and the rivers. Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air, are heading home again. Whoever you are, no matter how lonely, the world offers itself to your imagination, calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting – over and over announcing your place in the family of things.
About the Poem
The American poet Mary Oliver published “Wild Geese” in her seventh collection, Dream Work, which came out in 1986. The poem’s speaker urges readers to open themselves up to the beauty of nature. While people focus on their own struggles, the speaker points out, the natural world moves along effortlessly, free as a flock of geese passing overhead. The poem celebrates nature’s grandeur—and its ability to remind people that, after all, they’re part of something vast and meaningful.
The poem tells readers that they don’t have to be perfect, nor do they have to beat themselves up by wandering the desert as if paying for their sins. Instead, people only have to treat their bodies like the vulnerable animals that they are, simply letting them love whatever they want to love. Oliver offers to commiserate with readers about their suffering and unhappiness, but adds that while they talk about this, the world will continue like normal—sunshine and rain will move over the earth’s wide-open plains, tall trees, mountains, and rivers. No matter who you are or how lonely you are you can always lose yourself in the wonders of nature, since these wonders call out like the urgent squawks of wild geese—a sound that, again and again, puts people back in touch with their surroundings and makes them feel at home in the world.
The poem acknowledges that human beings are soft, vulnerable creatures prone to suffering and despair. At the same time, it frames the vast, awe-inspiring beauty of nature as a soothing and comforting force—something that reminds people that they’re part of something bigger and more meaningful than their everyday problems. “Wild Geese” seeks to put the pressures and difficulties of everyday life into perspective. The speaker acknowledges the burden people feel to be “good” and also notes that everyone inevitably experiences “despair” or loneliness from time to time. Beating yourself up for perceived mistakes or failings, the speaker implies, is a fruitless endeavor that drains people’s happiness.
About the Poet
Mary Oliver (September 10, 1935 – January 17, 2019) was an American poet who won the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize. Her work is inspired by nature, rather than the human world, stemming from her lifelong passion for solitary walks in the wild. It is characterized by a sincere wonderment at the impact of natural imagery, conveyed in unadorned language.
On a visit to Austerlitz in the late 1950s, Oliver met photographer Molly Malone Cook, who became her partner for over forty years. In Our World, a book of Cook’s photos and journal excerpts Oliver compiled after Cook’s death, Oliver writes, “I took one look [at Cook] and fell, hook and tumble.” Cook was Oliver’s literary agent. They made their home largely in Provincetown, Massachusetts, where they lived until Cook’s death in 2005, and where Oliver continued to live until relocating to Florida. Of Provincetown she recalled, “I too fell in love with the town, that marvelous convergence of land and water; Mediterranean light; fishermen who made their living by hard and difficult work from frighteningly small boats; and, both residents and sometime visitors, the many artists and writers. […] M. and I decided to stay.”
The World Is Too Much With Us By William Wordsworth
The world is too much with us; late and soon, Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers; Little we see in Nature that is ours; We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon! This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon; The winds that will be howling at all hours, And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers, For this, for everything, we are out of tune; It moves us not.—Great God! I’d rather be A pagan suckled in a creed outworn; So might I, standing on this pleasant lea, Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn; Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea; Or hear old Triton blow his wreathèd horn.
In a comment on yesterday’s post, Roderick posted this poem, “The World Is Too Much With Us” by William Wordsworth. The poem is an Italian (Petrarchan)sonnet, which is one of my favorite forms of poetry. I love how sonnets, whether Italian, Shakespearean, Spenserian, etc., conforms to a set of strict conventions. The structure adds a particular beauty to the poetic form.
“The World Is Too Much With Us” lends itself to yesterday’s post on the theme of niksen or doing nothing. In the early 19th century, Wordsworth wrote several sonnets criticizing what he perceived as “the decadent material cynicism of the time.” This 1802 poem is one of those works. It reflects his view that humanity must get in touch with nature to progress spiritually.
The metaphor “we have given our hearts away, a sordid boon” is also an oxymoron. Sordid suggests the worst aspects of human nature such as immorality, selfishness, and greed, while a boon is something that functions as a blessing or benefit. The contradiction between the meanings of the two words suggests that materialism is a destructive and corrupt blessing which the Industrial Revolution (1760-1840) has produced. They use of the oxymoron emphasizes the tension between the good exterior (material goods bring pleasure and are a symbol of man’s progress) and the sordid truth (feeding on the worst aspects of humanity) behind materialism.
While the Industrial Revolution made many advances for civilization, it was also detrimental to the health of the planet. Today’s global warming and the danger that an industrialized world has on the environment makes Wordsworth poem even more meaningful today. We saw the effects of overpopulation and industrialization during this pandemic. If you remember when Italy was in a near complete lockdown, dolphins returned to the canals of Venice that had become remarkably clear with no traffic on their waterways, and wild animals walked through the streets of Florence and Milan. It showed just how much we have sacrificed nature for “progress.” Wordsworth saw the beginnings of this over 200 years ago, and he knew the detriment society has on the environment will proceed unchecked and relentless like the “winds that will be howling at all hours.”
Wordsworth gave a fatalistic view of the world: past and future. The words “late and soon” in the opening verse describe how the past and future are included in his characterization of mankind. The poet knew the potential of humanity’s “powers,” but feared it was clouded by the mentality of “getting and spending.” The “sordid boon” we have “given our hearts” is the materialistic progress of mankind. Wordsworth complains that “the world” is too overwhelming for us to appreciate it, and that people are so concerned about time and money that we use up all our energy. People want to accumulate material goods, so they see nothing in Nature that they can “own.” Humanity has sold its soul for material gain.
The verse “I, standing on this pleasant lea, have glimpses that would make me less forlorn,” reveals Wordsworth’s perception of himself in society: a visionary romantic more in touch with nature than his contemporaries. he would rather be a pagan who worships an outdated religion so that when he gazes out on the ocean (as he’s doing now), he might feel less sad. If he were a pagan, he would have glimpses of the great green meadows that would make him less dejected. He’d see wild mythological gods like a Proteus, who can take many shapes, and Triton, who can soothe the howling sea waves.
You are already asleep. I lower myself in next to you, my skin slightly numb with the restraint of habits, the patina of self, the black frost of outsideness, so that even unclothed it is a resilient chilly hardness, a superficially malleable, dead rubbery texture.
You are a mound of bedclothes, where the cat in sleep braces its paws against your calf through the blankets, and kneads each paw in turn.
Meanwhile and slowly I feel a is it my own warmth surfacing or the ferment of your whole body that in darkness beneath the cover is stealing bit by bit to break down that chill.
You turn and hold me tightly, do you know who I am or am I your mother or the nearest human being to hold on to in a dreamed pogrom.
What I, now loosened, sink into is an old big place, it is there already, for you are already there, and the cat got there before you, yet it is hard to locate. What is more, the place is not found but seeps from our touch in continuous creation, dark enclosing cocoon round ourselves alone, dark wide realm where we walk with everyone.
Valentine’s Day is coming up on Sunday, and in 2012, The Guardian asked poets for their favorite love poem. English poet Blake Morrison chose “Touch” by Thom Gunn. Here is what he said:
Love poems may be addressed to someone in particular but the “you” invariably remains unidentified or is represented only by a body part or item of dress – a sleeping head, a naked foot, an air-blue gown. Thom Gunn’s “Touch” is an extreme example of this. His lover is no more than a mound of bedclothes and embraces him in sleepy oblivion.
do you know who I am or am I your mother or the nearest human being
This feeling of anonymity is important: it links the two lovers to the rest of us: they’re part of a “realm where we walk with everyone.” But the poem is also intimate and domestic: here are two people (plus their cat) in their own bed – naked, cocooned, “ourselves alone.” Gunn was gay but his lover’s gender isn’t specified, since the theme is the inclusiveness of touch: the way it breaks down the “resilient chilly hardness” we all adopt to function in the outside world. The syllabic form enacts this dissolution or slippage, as the words seep gently from line to line, without the hardness of end stops. The word “love” isn’t used; the words “dark” and “darkness” recur three times. But the poem exudes warmth, familiarity and how it feels to lie naked with a fellow creature, whoever he or she may be.
In the bleak mid-winter Frosty wind made moan; Earth stood hard as iron, Water like a stone; Snow had fallen, snow on snow, Snow on snow, In the bleak mid-winter Long ago.
Our God, heaven cannot hold Him Nor earth sustain, Heaven and earth shall flee away When He comes to reign: In the bleak mid-winter A stable-place sufficed The Lord God Almighty — Jesus Christ.
Enough for Him, whom cherubim Worship night and day, A breastful of milk And a mangerful of hay; Enough for Him, whom Angels Fall down before, The ox and ass and camel Which adore.
Angels and Archangels May have gathered there, Cherubim and seraphim Thronged the air; But only His Mother In her maiden bliss Worshipped the Beloved With a kiss.
What can I give Him, Poor as I am? — If I were a Shepherd I would bring a lamb; If I were a Wise Man I would do my part, — Yet what I can I give Him, — Give my heart.
About the Poem
In verse one, Rossetti describes the physical circumstances of the Incarnation in Bethlehem, which refers to the birth of Jesus, when God became flesh and assumed a human nature. In verse two, Rossetti contrasts Christ’s first and second coming. The third verse dwells on Christ’s birth and describes the simple surroundings, in a humble stable and watched by beasts of burden. Rossetti achieves another contrast in the fourth verse, this time between the angels who were attending Christ at his birth and Mary’s ability to show Jesus physical affection, a kiss. The final verse shifts the description to a more introspective thought process.
While this is a Christmas poem, and was originally published, under the title “A Christmas Carol”, in the January 1872 issue of Scribner’s Monthly, Midwinter itself has two meanings: the Winter Solstice or the actual midpoint of winter. Many people think the midpoint of winter is today, Groundhog Day, but it actually varies. The 2021 Farmers’ Almanac says that it is Wednesday, February 3rd at 4:49 p.m. EST—the exact halfway point between the Winter Solstice and the Spring Equinox. Either way, we have reached midwinter, so I thought this was an appropriate poem for today.
We are supposed to get hit pretty bad by a nor’easter today. It is the same storm that came through northern New Jersey, New York City, and Boston yesterday. I’m hoping it won’t be as bad here. Our local weather has said that while the prediction is 6”-12”, they believe it will be on the lower end of that scale.
if you didn’t mind the bible you’d surely mind the belt
This may be the shortest poem I have ever posted. I was looking at D. A. Powell’s poems and originally came across “The Fluffer Talks of Eternity.” While it is an interesting poem, I decided it just wasn’t what I was looking for in today’s poem. Then I came across “Bible Belt.” I was so intrigued by the simplicity of the poem but also its deep meaning. Considering that I was born in the buckle of the Bible Belt where in cities there is a church on nearly every street corner or in rural areas where you can hardly drive a mile without passing a church.
In a chat with the Rumpus Poetry Book Club, Powell talked about being born in the Bible Belt. In the interview he said, “I was born in the Bible Belt. My father’s family were all Bible belters. They belted us with the Bible. But despite their abuse of it, it’s a Good Book.” I think there are several ways you can take this poem, whether the second line means “They belted us with the Bible” or if the belt was used for corporal punishment, is up to the reader. You can hear Powell read the poem here.
About D. A. Powell
Born in Albany, Georgia, D. A. Powell earned an MA at Sonoma State University and an MFA at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. His first three collections of poetry, Tea, (1998), Lunch (2000), and Cocktails (2004), are considered by some to be a trilogy on the AIDS epidemic. Lunch was a finalist for the National Poetry Series, and Cocktails was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award for poetry. His next two books were Chronic(2009), which won the Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award and was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award;and Useless Landscape, or A Guide for Boys (2012) won the National Book Critics Circle Award for poetry.
Noting Powell’s “open-secret sexiness, his confident collage effects and his grave subjects” in Cocktails, New York Times critic and Harvard professor Stephen Burt says, “No accessible poet of his generation is half as original, and no poet as original is this accessible.” As a teacher at Sonoma State, he noticed that most of his students’ poems were written to fit the demands of the page. His experiments with his students in writing on unexpected surfaces (such as candlesticks or rolls of toilet paper) led to his own breakthrough in “subverting the page:” he turned a legal pad sideways and wrote the first poem for Tea. Powell explains that “by pulling the line longer, stretching it into a longer breath, I was giving a little bit more life to some people who had very short lives.” Powell has also taught at Harvard University, Columbia University, and the University of San Francisco.
Of History and Hope 1997 inaugural poem by Miller Williams
We have memorized America, how it was born and who we have been and where. In ceremonies and silence we say the words, telling the stories, singing the old songs. We like the places they take us. Mostly we do. The great and all the anonymous dead are there. We know the sound of all the sounds we brought. The rich taste of it is on our tongues. But where are we going to be, and why, and who? The disenfranchised dead want to know. We mean to be the people we meant to be, to keep on going where we meant to go. But how do we fashion the future? Who can say how except in the minds of those who will call it Now? The children. The children. And how does our garden grow? With waving hands — oh, rarely in a row — and flowering faces. And brambles, that we can no longer allow. Who were many people coming together cannot become one people falling apart. Who dreamed for every child an even chance cannot let luck alone turn doorknobs or not. Whose law was never so much of the hand as the head cannot let chaos make its way to the heart. Who have seen learning struggle from teacher to child cannot let ignorance spread itself like rot. We know what we have done and what we have said, and how we have grown, degree by slow degree, believing ourselves toward all we have tried to become — just and compassionate, equal, able, and free. All this in the hands of children, eyes already set on a land we never can visit — it isn’t there yet — but looking through their eyes, we can see what our long gift to them may come to be. If we can truly remember, they will not forget.
In honor of Joe Biden’s inauguration tomorrow, I wanted to post a poem read at the inauguration of another Democratic president. In 1997, Miller Williams, a poet and the father of the singer-songwriter Lucinda Williams, was honored as the country’s third inaugural poet, reading his poem “Of History and Hope” at the start of former President Bill Clinton’s second term.
Williams published, edited, and translated over thirty books. He was born in Hoxie, Arkansas, in 1930, the son of a Methodist clergyman and civil rights activist. Miller’s work is known for its gritty realism as much as for its musicality. Equally comfortable in formal and free verse, Williams wrote poems grounded in the material of American life, frequently using dialogue and dramatic monologue to capture the pitch and tone of American voices.
As a child, Miller Williams seemed to be more gifted in science than in writing. Though he entered college as a double major in English and foreign languages, an aptitude test revealed “absolutely no aptitude in the handling of words,” Miller said in interviews during his lifetime. He changed his major to hard sciences to avoid “embarrassing my parents.” Williams earned a BS in biology from Arkansas State University and an MS in zoology from the University of Arkansas. He taught science at the college level for many years before securing a job in the English department at Louisiana State University, partly with his friend Flannery O’Connor’s help. In an interview, Miller told the story: “We became dear friends, and in 1961, LSU advertised for a poet to teach in their writing program. Though I had only had three hours of freshman English formally, she saw the ad and, without mentioning it to me, wrote them and said the person you want teaches biology at Wesleyan College. They couldn’t believe that, of course, but they couldn’t ignore Flannery O’Connor. So they sent me word that said, ‘Would you send us some of your work?’ And I did.” Williams’s appointment began a long career in academia: as a professor at Loyola University New Orleans, he founded the New Orleans Review; while at the University of Arkansas, where he taught until his retirement in 2003, he founded the University of Arkansas Press, serving as director for twenty years. He also founded the MFA in Translation at the University of Arkansas. A selection of Miller Williams’ papers is archived in the Special Collections at the University of Arkansas library.
Williams collaborated with his daughter Lucinda, and he was compared to another great country musician with the same last name. According to Williams, “One of the best things that has ever been said about my work was said by a critic who wrote that ‘Miller Williams is the Hank Williams of American poetry. While his poetry is taught at Princeton and Harvard, it’s read and understood by squirrel hunters and taxi drivers.’” Williams died on January 1, 2015, of Alzheimer’s disease. Sixty-two years earlier, Hank Williams died on his way from Montgomery to a New Year’s Day concert in Canton, Ohio.
Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening By Robert Frost
Whose woods these are I think I know. His house is in the village though; He will not see me stopping here To watch his woods fill up with snow. My little horse must think it queer To stop without a farmhouse near Between the woods and frozen lake The darkest evening of the year. He gives his harness bells a shake To ask if there is some mistake. The only other sound’s the sweep Of easy wind and downy flake. The woods are lovely, dark and deep, But I have promises to keep, And miles to go before I sleep, And miles to go before I sleep.
About the Poem:
Robert Frost wrote the poem in June 1922 at his house in Shaftsbury, Vermont. He had been up the entire night writing the long poem “New Hampshire” and had finally finished when he realized morning had come. He went out to view the sunrise and suddenly got the idea for “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening.” He wrote the new poem “about the snowy evening and the little horse as if I’d had a hallucination” in just “a few minutes without strain.”
Readers often find the poem somewhat dark, albeit beautiful, and many assume it has something to do with death (or at least fatigue with life). When asked if the poem had anything to do with death or suicide, Frost denied it, preferring to keep everyone guessing by merely saying “No.” However, many scholars still think that the poem could be construed as a dream-like tale of someone passing away or saying a final goodbye and has often been used as such.
In the early morning of November 23, 1963, Sid Davis of Westinghouse Broadcasting reported the arrival of President John F. Kennedy’s casket at the White House. Since Frost was one of the President’s favorite poets, Davis concluded his report with a passage from this poem but was overcome with emotion as he signed off. Also, at the funeral of former Canadian prime minister Pierre Trudeau, on October 3, 2000, his eldest son, current Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, rephrased the last stanza of this poem in his eulogy: “The woods are lovely, dark and deep. He has kept his promises and earned his sleep.”
In many ways, it’s a poem that trusts the reader. The words, sounds, and images appeal to all—from those who regard it as no more than a serene winter scene featuring snowy woods, a horse, and a rider to those who feel a morose shudder when they read the final two lines. This ambiguity makes the poem a classic and keeps it relevant so many years after its publication. The narrative sets up a subtle tension between the timeless attraction of the lovely woods and the pressing obligations of the present moment.
Joe
The Closet Professor 