Tag: national poetry month
National Poetry Month: Xi Xi
Xi Xi 西西 (also known as Sai Sai), pseudonym of Cheung Yin, is one of Hong Kong’s most beloved authors. Her books available in English translation include A Girl Like Me and Other Stories and Not Written Words: Selected Poetry of Xi Xi.
Many A Lady – Xi Xi
National Poetry Month: Tracy K. Smith
Tracy K. Smith (1972), was raised in Falmouth, Massachusetts. She studied at Harvard, where she joined the Dark Room Collective, a reading series for writers of color. She went on to receive her MFA from Columbia University.
Smith’s first collection, The Body’s Question (Graywolf Press, 2003), won the Cave Canem Poetry Prize in 2002.
The Universe as a Primal Scream – Tracy K. Smith
5pm on the nose. They open their mouths
And it rolls out: high, shrill and metallic.
First the boy, then his sister. Occasionally,
They both let loose at once, and I think
Of putting on my shoes to go up and see
Whether it is merely an experiment
Their parents have been conducting
Upon the good crystal, which must surely
Lie shattered to dust on the floor.
Maybe the mother is still proud
Of the four pink lungs she nursed
To such might. Perhaps, if they hit
The magic decibel, the whole building
Will lift-off, and we’ll ride to glory
Like Elijah. If this is it—if this is what
Their cries are cocked toward—let the sky
Pass from blue, to red, to molten gold,
To black. Let the heaven we inherit approach.
Whether it is our dead in Old Testament robes,
Or a door opening onto the roiling infinity of space.
Whether it will bend down to greet us like a father,
Or swallow us like a furnace. I’m ready
To meet what refuses to let us keep anything
For long. What teases us with blessings,
Bends us with grief. Wizard, thief, the great
Wind rushing to knock our mirrors to the floor,
To sweep our short lives clean. How mean
Our racket seems beside it. My stereo on shuffle.
The neighbor chopping onions through a wall.
All of it just a hiccough against what may never
Come for us. And the kids upstairs still at it,
Screaming like the Dawn of Man, as if something
They have no name for has begun to insist
Upon being born.
National Poetry Month: Jibanananda Das
Article via Khurpi.com
He is a poet of nature. Bengal’s beauty with its lovely flora and fauna finds apt description in his poetry. He had a unique lyricism, and was a romantic as well as a classicist. One of his most famous poems is Banalata Sen dedicated to his muse, the poem abounds with the distinct imagery of nature:
Jibanananda Das –Banalata Sen
“Hajar bochor dhorey ami poth hantitechi prithibir pothey,
Shinghol- shomudro theke nisheether ondhokarey moloy- shagorey
Onek ghurechi ami; Bimbishar- Ashokar dhushor jogotey
Shekhane chilam ami; aro dur ondhokar bidorbho nogore;”
(It has been a thousand years since I started trekking the earth
A huge travel in night’s darkness from the Ceylonese waters
To the Malayan sea
I have been there too; the fading world of Vimbisara and Ashoka
Even further- the forgotten city of Vidarva)
National Poetry Month: Richard Wright
Haiku (67, 75, 78, 93 & 95) – Poem by Richard Wright
Richard Nathaniel Wright was an African-American author of novels, short stories, poems, and non-fiction. His literature concerns racial themes, especially those involving the plight of African Americans during the late 19th to mid-20th centuries.
67
The day is so long
That even noisy sparrows
Fall strangely silent.
75
Spring begins shyly
With one hairpin of green grass
In a flower pot.
78
An apple blossom
Trembling on a sunlit branch
From the weight of bees.
93
Leaving its nest,
The sparrow sinks a second,
Then opens its wings.
95
Like a fishhook,
The sunflower’s long shadow
Hovers in the lake.
National Poetry Month: Sandra Cisneros
Black Lace Bra Kind of Woman – Sandra Cisneros
Sandra Cisneros (born December 20, 1954) is an American writer best known for her acclaimed first novel The House on Mango Street and her short story collection Woman Hollering Creek and Other Stories.
Wachale! She’s a black lace bra
kind of woman, the kind who serves
up suicide with every kamikaze
poured in the neon blue of evening.
A tease and a twirl. I’ve seen that
two-step girl in action. I’ve gambled bad
odds and sat shotgun when she rambled
her ’59 Pontiac between blurred
lines dividing sense from senselessness.
Ruin your clothes, she will.
Get you home way after hours.
Drive her ’59 seventy-five on 35
like there is no tomorrow.
Woman zydeco-ing into her own decade.
Thirty years pleated behind her like
the wail of a San Antonio accordion.
And now the good times are coming. Girl,
I tell you, the good times are here.
National Poetry Month: Alice Walker
Desire – Alice Walker
Walker is an activist, short story writer and novelist. Her most famous work includes The Color Purple.
My desire
is always the same; wherever Life
deposits me:
I want to stick my toe
& soon my whole body
into the water.
I want to shake out a fat broom
& sweep dried leaves
bruised blossoms
dead insects
& dust.
I want to grow
something.
It seems impossible that desire
can sometimes transform into devotion;
but this has happened.
And that is how I’ve survived:
how the hole
I carefully tended
in the garden of my heart
grew a heart
to fill it.
National Poetry Month: Walt Whitman
All Is Truth – Walt Whitman
Walt Whitman is an essayist, poet, and journalist. He is also known as “poet of democracy”, to explain how he effortlessly wrote for Americans.
O ME, man of slack faith so long!
Standing aloof—denying portions so long;
Only aware to-day of compact, all-diffused truth;
Discovering to-day there is no lie, or form of lie, and can be none, but grows as
inevitably
upon
itself as the truth does upon itself,
Or as any law of the earth, or any natural production of the earth does.
(This is curious, and may not be realized immediately—But it must be realized;
I feel in myself that I represent falsehoods equally with the rest,
And that the universe does.)
Where has fail’d a perfect return, indifferent of lies or the truth?
Is it upon the ground, or in water or fire? or in the spirit of man? or in the meat and
blood?
Meditating among liars, and retreating sternly into myself, I see that there are really no
liars or
lies after all,
And that nothing fails its perfect return—And that what are called lies are perfect
returns,
And that each thing exactly represents itself, and what has preceded it,
And that the truth includes all, and is compact, just as much as space is compact,
And that there is no flaw or vacuum in the amount of the truth—but that all is truth
without
exception;
And henceforth I will go celebrate anything I see or am,
And sing and laugh, and deny nothing.