A Dead Poet's Society

"Some words live in my throat breeding like adders. Other know sun seeking like gypsies over my..."

Sun, 05 May 2013 18:37:39 -0400

““Some words live in my throat
breeding like adders. Other know sun
seeking like gypsies over my tongue
to explode through my lips
like young sparrows bursting from shell.
Some words
bedevil me…””

- Audre Lorde, from “Coal“

" Okay, Ophelia ” We’ve heard you were a victim. Stop crouching in shadows, chewing..."

Sun, 07 Apr 2013 12:38:00 -0400

“

Okay, Ophelia ”

We’ve heard you were a victim.
Stop crouching in shadows, chewing your hair.

You can be graceful, not like a ballerina,
like a hedge of coral,

Built up and eaten and worn down
yet alive, carving the rhythms of the seas.

You can be a threshing sledge,
new and sharp with many teeth.

”

- Jeannine Hall Gailey, “Okay, Ophelia” (from her collection “Becoming the Villainess”

"…You’ve kissed my hair to wake me. I dreamed you were a poem, I say, a poem I wanted..."

Sat, 16 Mar 2013 18:30:31 -0400

““…You’ve kissed my hair
to wake me. I dreamed you were a poem,
I say, a poem I wanted to show someone…
and I laugh and fall dreaming again
of the desire to show you to everyone I love.””

- Adrienne Rich, from Part II of “Twenty-One Love Poems”

"Ah, but high, high in the air I flew. And far, far beyond the curb of her will, were the blue hills..."

Sat, 16 Mar 2013 00:16:55 -0400

““Ah, but high, high in the air I flew.
And far, far beyond the curb of her will,
were the blue hills where the falcons nest.
And then I saw west to the dying sun—
it seemed my human soul went down in flames.””

- Robert Duncan, “My Mother Would Be a Falconress“

"On this winter night my eyes were closed with ice. I wore out the darkness until lazy dawn."

Sat, 23 Feb 2013 17:52:36 -0500

“On this winter night
my eyes were closed
with ice.
I wore out the darkness
until lazy dawn.”

- Izumi Shikibu, from “The Diary of Izumi Shikibu” (10th-11th century)

"Coming together it is easier to work after our bodies meet paper and pen neither care nor..."

Mon, 18 Feb 2013 23:10:00 -0500

“

Coming together
it is easier to work
after our bodies
meet
paper and pen
neither care nor profit
whether we write or not
but as your body moves
under my hands
charged and waiting
we cut the leash
you create me against your thighs
hilly with images
moving through our word countries
my body
writes into your flesh
the poem
you make of me.

Touching you I catch midnight
as moon fires set in my throat
I love you flesh into blossom
I made you
and take you made
into me.

”

- Audre Lorde, “Recreation“

"Will he always love me? I cannot read his heart. This morning my thoughts Are as disordered As my..."

Mon, 11 Feb 2013 21:54:47 -0500

“

Will he always love me?
I cannot read his heart.

This morning my thoughts
Are as disordered
As my black hair.

”

- Lady Horikawa, Untitled (12th century)

"Don’t suppose that the weightless phantom will disappear. It is lurking in the other world..."

Sun, 10 Feb 2013 17:16:35 -0500

“

Don’t suppose that the weightless phantom
will disappear.
It is lurking in the other world like a huge angel
or beast,
waiting to return.

Passion floats away.

”

- Betti Alver, from “The Titans” (translated by: Willis Barnstone and Felix Oinas)

"It’d be great if all I had to do was save my own soul; but since other souls are mixed up..."

Thu, 07 Feb 2013 15:34:09 -0500

“It’d be great
if all I had to do was save my own soul;
but since other souls are mixed up with
mine
I can’t even say which soul is mine.”

- Shuntaro Tanikawa, from “Written at 14th E 28th Street, New York City” (1975)

"And the swan keep swimming across the years, Deeply in love with his disturbing double."

Mon, 04 Feb 2013 22:20:17 -0500

“And the swan keep swimming across the years,
Deeply in love with his disturbing double.”

- Anna Akhmatova, from “Summer Garden” (translated by: Stephen Stepanchev)

"Eyes shut tight I hear my brains go splat and scatter like dry tea-leaves. I must kill one lovely..."

Sun, 03 Feb 2013 18:39:07 -0500

“

Eyes shut tight
I hear my brains go splat and scatter
like dry tea-leaves.

I must kill
one lovely languid serpent after another.

”

- Sachiko Yoshihara, from “Madness”

"I could not hope to touch the sky with my two arms."

Sat, 02 Feb 2013 23:22:47 -0500

“I could not hope
to touch the sky
with my two arms.”

- Sappho (translated by Willis Barnstone)

"I walk alone in the cold end of winter. Perhaps we’ll meet when the moon is round. What can I..."

Fri, 01 Feb 2013 18:16:11 -0500

“

I walk alone in the cold end of winter.
Perhaps we’ll meet when the moon is round.

What can I give my absent man?
In the pure light, my tears fall: a poem.

”

- Yu Hsuan-chi, from “Spring Thoughts Sent to Tzu-an” (ca. 843-868)

"I am too near to be dreamt of by him. I do not fly over him, do not escape from him under the roots..."

Thu, 31 Jan 2013 19:58:31 -0500

“I am too near to be dreamt of by him.
I do not fly over him, do not escape from him
under the roots of a tree. I am too near.”

- Wislawa Szymborska, from “I Am Too Near”

"You dreamt on the immense river devoured by a flame of moon…"

Mon, 28 Jan 2013 12:22:32 -0500

“You dreamt on the immense river
devoured by a flame of moon…”

- Yvonne Caroutch, from an untitled poem

"Since I entered the inner rooms I haven’t see the spring. I write this poem on a fallen..."

Sun, 27 Jan 2013 19:17:16 -0500

“

Since I entered the inner rooms
I haven’t see the spring.

I write this poem on a fallen leaf
and send it out to a wandering man.

”

- Anonymous Palace Woman, “Written on a Leaf” (ca. 790)

"You seem to play with the great hill and the clearness of the sky: to please me you echo the ancient..."

Sat, 26 Jan 2013 14:27:08 -0500

“

You seem to play
with the great hill and the clearness of the sky:
to please me you echo the ancient background
and make it purer.

But you live elsewhere.
Your gentle blood came from elsewhere.

”

- Cesare Pavese, from “Nocturne”

"As their figures vanish in the distance Only my love remains."

Fri, 25 Jan 2013 08:31:05 -0500

“As their figures vanish in the distance
Only my love remains.”

- Ts’ai Yen, from “18 Verses Sung to a Tatar Reed Whistle”

"You are only a white and sweetly gentle cloud entangled one night among ancient branches."

Wed, 23 Jan 2013 09:11:12 -0500

“You are only a white and sweetly gentle cloud
entangled one night among ancient branches.”

- Cesare Pavese, from “Nocturne”

"The woman is perfected. Her dead Body wears the smile of accomplishment, The illusion of a Greek..."

Tue, 22 Jan 2013 19:58:00 -0500

“

The woman is perfected.
Her dead

Body wears the smile of accomplishment,
The illusion of a Greek necessity

Flows in the scrolls of her toga,
Her bare

Feet seem to be saying:
We have come so far, it is over.

”

- Sylvia Plath, from “Edge” (dated on February 5th, 1963, six days before her death)