Tag: Writer

Categories
20th century African-American America American American Poetry Black History Leslie Pinckney Hill Poetry Uncategorized United States

“Tuskegee” by Leslie Pinckney Hill (1880 – 1960)


Wherefore this busy labor without rest?
Is it an idle dream to which we cling,
Here where a thousand dusky toilers sing
Unto the world their hope? “Build we our best.
By hand and thought,” they cry, “although unblessed.”
So the great engines throb, and anvils ring,
And so the thought is wedded to the thing;
But what shall be the end, and what the test?
Dear God, we dare not answer, we can see
Not many steps ahead, but this we know—
If all our toilsome building is in vain,
Availing not to set our manhood free,
If envious hate roots out the seed we sow,
The South will wear eternally a stain.

Categories
England English English poetry English Renaissance Poetry renaissance William Shakespeare

“When, in Disgrace with Fortune and Men’s Eyes (or, ‘Sonnet 29’)” by William Shakespeare” (1564 – 1616)


When in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes,
I all alone beweep my outcast state,
And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries,
And look upon myself and curse my fate, wishing me like to one more rich in hope,
Featured like him, like him with friends possessed,
Desiring this man’s art, and that man’s scope,
With what I most enjoy contented least;
Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising,
Haply I think on thee—and then my state,
Like to the lark at break of day arising
From sullen earth sings hymns at heaven’s gate;
For thy sweet love remembered such wealth brings,
That then I scorn to change my state with kings.

Categories
20th century A.E. Housman England English English poetry Victorian Era

“When I Was One-and-Twenty” by A.E. Housman


“When I Was One-and-Twenty”
 BY A. E. HOUSMAN

Listen to “When I Was One-and-Twenty” by A.E. Housman at SoundCloud.com

When I was one-and-twenty
I heard a wise man say,
“Give crowns and pounds and guineas
But not your heart away;
Give pearls away and rubies
But keep your fancy free.”
But I was one-and-twenty,
No use to talk to me.

When I was one-and-twenty
I heard him say again,
“The heart out of the bosom
Was never given in vain;
’Tis paid with sighs a plenty
And sold for endless rue.”
And I am two-and-twenty,
And oh, ’tis true, ’tis true.

Categories
20th century American American Poetry Elinor Wylie Literature Poetry Uncategorized United States women women poets

“Bells in the Rain” by Elinor Wylie (1885 – 1928)


"Bells in the Rain"
by Elinor Wylie

Sleep falls, with limpid drops of rain,
Upon the steep cliffs of the town.
Sleep falls; men are at peace again
While the small drops fall softly down.

The bright drops ring like bells of glass
Thinned by the wind; and lightly blown;
Sleep cannot fall on peaceful grass
So softly as it falls on stone.

Peace falls unheeded on the dead
Asleep; they have had deep peace to drink;
Upon a live man’s bloody head
It falls most tenderly, I think.
Categories
19th century American Poetry Eugene Field Literature Poetry Uncategorized United States

“Wynken, Blynken, and Nod” by Eugene Field (1850–1895)


"Wynken, Blynken, and Nod"
Wynken, Blynken, and Nod one night
    Sailed off in a wooden shoe–
Sailed on a river of crystal light,
    Into a sea of dew.
“Where are you going, and what do you wish?”
    The old moon asked of the three.
“We have come to fish for the herring fish
That live in this beautiful sea;
Nets of silver and gold have we!”
                  Said Wynken,
                  Blynken,
                  And Nod.
The old moon laughed and sang a song,
    As they rocked in the wooden shoe,
And the wind that sped them all night long
    Ruffled the waves of dew.
The little stars were the herring fish
    That lived in that beautiful sea–
“Now cast your nets wherever you wish–
    Never afeard are we!”
    So cried the stars to the fishermen three:
                  Wynken,
                  Blynken,
                  And Nod.
All night long their nets they threw
   To the stars in the twinkling foam—
Then down from the skies came the wooden shoe,
   Bringing the fishermen home;
‘T was all so pretty a sail it seemed
   As if it could not be,
And some folks thought ‘t was a dream they ‘d dreamed
   Of sailing that beautiful sea—
   But I shall name you the fishermen three:
                     Wynken,
                     Blynken,
                     And Nod.
Wynken and Blynken are two little eyes,
   And Nod is a little head,
And the wooden shoe that sailed the skies
   Is a wee one’s trundle-bed.
So shut your eyes while mother sings
   Of wonderful sights that be,
And you shall see the beautiful things
   As you rock in the misty sea,
   Where the old shoe rocked the fishermen three:
                     Wynken,
                     Blynken,
                     And Nod.



*Source: The Golden Book of Poetry (1947)
Categories
20th century American American Poetry Uncategorized William Carlos Williams

“The Red Wheelbarrow” by William Carlos Williams (1883 – 1963)


"The Red Wheelbarrow" by William Carlos Williams, Read by Teyuna Trynea Darris 

so much depends 
upon 

a red wheel 
barrow 

glazed with rain 
water 

beside the white 
chickens.
Categories
21st Century British Poetry Poetry Scotland United Kingdom women women poets

“Little Red-Cap” by CAROL ANN DUFFY


Little Red-Cap

BY CAROL ANN DUFFY | 2 MINS

(Read Carol Ann Duffy‘s Biography)

At childhood’s end, the houses petered out

into playing fields, the factory, allotments

kept, like mistresses, by kneeling married men,

the silent railway line, the hermit’s caravan,

till you came at last to the edge of the woods.

It was there that I first clapped eyes on the wolf.

He stood in a clearing, reading his verse out loud

in his wolfy drawl, a paperback in his hairy paw,

red wine staining his bearded jaw. What big ears

he had! What big eyes he had! What teeth!

In the interval, I made quite sure he spotted me,

sweet sixteen, never been, babe, waif, and bought me a drink,

my first. You might ask why. Here’s why. Poetry.

The wolf, I knew, would lead me deep into the woods,

away from home, to a dark tangled thorny place

lit by the eyes of owls. I crawled in his wake,

my stockings ripped to shreds, scraps of red from my blazer

snagged on twig and branch, murder clues. I lost both shoes

but got there, wolf’s lair, better beware. Lesson one that night,

breath of the wolf in my ear, was the love poem.

I clung till dawn to his thrashing fur, for

what little girl doesn’t dearly love a wolf?

Then I slid from between his heavy matted paws

and went in search of a living bird – white dove –

which flew, straight, from my hands to his open mouth.

One bite, dead. How nice, breakfast in bed, he said,

licking his chops. As soon as he slept, I crept to the back

of the lair, where a whole wall was crimson, gold, aglow with books.

Words, words were truly alive on the tongue, in the head,

warm, beating, frantic, winged; music and blood.

But then I was young – and it took ten years

in the woods to tell that a mushroom

stoppers the mouth of a buried corpse, that birds

are the uttered thought of trees, that a greying wolf

howls the same old song at the moon, year in, year out,

season after season, same rhyme, same reason. I took an axe

to a willow to see how it wept. I took an axe to a salmon

to see how it leapt. I took an axe to the wolf

as he slept, one chop, scrotum to throat, and saw

the glistening, virgin white of my grandmother’s bones.

I filled his old belly with stones. I stitched him up.

Out of the forest I come with my flowers, singing, all alone.

Categories
21st Century European Poetry Poetry Uncategorized United Kingdom women women poets

“Differences of Opinion” by WENDY COPE


Differences of Opinion

BY WENDY COPE

HE TELLS HER

He tells her that the earth is flat —
He knows the facts, and that is that.
In altercations fierce and long
She tries her best to prove him wrong.
But he has learned to argue well.
He calls her arguments unsound
And often asks her not to yell.
She cannot win. He stands his ground.

The planet goes on being round.

Categories
21st Century American American Poetry Uncategorized United States women women poets

“What Kind of Times Are These” by ADRIENNE RICH (1929 – 2012)


What Kind of Times Are These

There’s a place between two stands of trees where the grass grows uphill
and the old revolutionary road breaks off into shadows
near a meeting-house abandoned by the persecuted
who disappeared into those shadows.
I’ve walked there picking mushrooms at the edge of dread, but don’t be fooled
this isn’t a Russian poem, this is not somewhere else but here,
our country moving closer to its own truth and dread,
its own ways of making people disappear.
I won’t tell you where the place is, the dark mesh of the woods
meeting the unmarked strip of light—
ghost-ridden crossroads, leafmold paradise:
I know already who wants to buy it, sell it, make it disappear.
And I won’t tell you where it is, so why do I tell you
anything? Because you still listen, because in times like these
to have you listen at all, it’s necessary
to talk about trees.
Categories
20th century American American Poetry Poetry Uncategorized women women poets

“Instruction” by HAZEL HALL (1886 – 1924)


Instruction

By HAZEL HALL

My hands that guide a needle
In their turn are led
Relentlessly and deftly
As a needle leads a thread.

Other hands are teaching
My needle: when I sew
I feel the cool, thin fingers
Of hands I do not know.

They urge my needle onward.
They smooth my seams. until
The worry of my stitches
Smothers in their skill.

All the tired women.
Who sewed their lives away.
Speak in my deft fingers
as I sew to-day.