Poem for 2/28/22 - Your National Anthem by Clint Smith

Your National Anthem

By Clint Smith

Today, a black man who was once a black boy
like you got down on one of his knees & laid
his helmet on the grass as this country sang

its ode to the promise it never kept
& the woman in the grocery store line in front
of us is on the phone & she is telling someone

on the other line that this black man who was
once a black boy like you should be grateful
we live in a country where people aren’t killed

for things like this you know she says, in some places
they would hang you for such a blatant act of disrespect
maybe he should go live there instead of here so he can

appreciate what he has & then she turns around
& sees you sitting in the grocery cart surrounded
by lettuce & yogurt & frozen chicken thighs

& you smile at her with your toothless gum smile
& she says that you are the cutest baby she has
ever seen & tells me how I must feel so lucky

to have such a beautiful baby boy & I thank her
for her kind words even though I should not
thank her because I know that you will not always

be a black boy but one day you may be a black man
& you may decide your country hasn’t kept
its promise to you either & this woman or another

like her will forget you were ever this boy & they
will make you into something else & tell you
to be grateful for what you’ve been given

Clint Smith is a writer, teacher, and Ph.D. Candidate at Harvard University. He is a 2014 National Poetry Slam champion, a 2017 recipient of the Jerome J. Shestack Prize from The American Poetry Review and has received fellowships from Cave Canem, the Art For Justice Fund, and the National Science Foundation. His writing has appeared in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, The Paris Review, The New Republic and he has delivered two popular TED Talks, The Danger of Silence & How to Raise a Black Son in America. His debut collection of poems, Counting Descent, was published in 2016 by Write Bloody Publishing. It won the 2017 Literary Award for Best Poetry Book from the Black Caucus of the American Library Association and was a finalist for an NAACP Image Award.

Poem for 2/24/22 - God Could Not Make Her a Poet by Cornelius Eady

 

God Could Not Make Her a Poet

Cornelius Eady

Thomas Jefferson said this, more or less, After he read the musings of the clever African Phillis Wheatley, a sensation of both the Colonies And England, a black patriot, though a slave. Whatever a black hand can build, he knew, Could only be guided by a master’s vision, Like this room of the mansion he probably Wrote his opinion in—what black mind could Dream in these proportions? And gather The slope of these Virginia hills so lovingly To his window? God could give her words, But the subtle turn? Like giving a gull A sack of gold.

Copyright © 2022 by Cornelius Eady. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on February 24, 2022, by the Academy of American Poets. “This is a poem in a cycle I am writing about Phillis Wheatley Peters, the first Black poet to publish a full-length book of poetry in America. My cycle explores that period of time between the loss of her native West African tongue and its replacement with English. The title of my poem, ‘God Could Not Make Her a Poet,’ is based on what Thomas Jefferson wrote after reading Wheatley-Peters’s book: ‘Religion, indeed, has produced a Phillis Wheatley; but it could not produce a poet.’” —Cornelius Eady

Poem for 2/22/22 - The Flea by Gail Mazur

 

The Flea

Gail Mazur

“The flea,” that’s what the year-rounders call it, rummaging through tools or bric-a-brac then gossiping all day at their tables in the blistering sun, their faded beach umbrellas barely shading the tarmac. This is what my mother did in New Hampshire Sunday after widowed Sunday, into her eighties. Up at dawn, her wagon packed the night before— by noon, willing to mark down anything not to have to re-wrap and pack the whole kit and caboodle for the sticky hundred mile drive home…. Today, I pick up a teapot, white with a smattering of pink and black and aqua stars, its flawed glaze (a reject from the start), its jaunty asterisks, its moderne form, manufactured in Syracuse in the ’Fifties, pleases me, seven starry cups and five chipped star-studded dinner plates— ordinary optimistic dishes, probably used by one Cape Cod family for decades, only dings and cracks now to tell their homely provenance, their good usage and keep the price down. Not star-struck, my mother would have felt the edges’ roughness with her thumb and found them wanting. It wouldn’t have been the chips— she treasured her miniatures, her broken “minnies”— these just weren’t her thing. But like a ninny— I can make something of this, can’t I?—I buy the lot in her magpie memory, wrapped in old Globes, for what a cappuccino would cost, or a Parisian mystery.

Copyright © 2022 by Gail Mazur. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on February 18, 2022, by the Academy of American Poets.

Poem for 2/21/22 - Weave in, My Hardy Life by Walt Whitman

Weave in, My Hardy Life

Walt Whitman - 1819-1892

Weave in, weave in, my hardy life,
Weave yet a soldier strong and full for great campaigns to come,
Weave in red blood, weave sinews in like ropes, the senses, sight weave in,
Weave lasting sure, weave day and night the weft, the warp, incessant weave, tire not,
(We know not what the use O life, nor know the aim, the end, nor really aught we know,
But know the work, the need goes on and shall go on, the death-envelop’d march of peace as well as war goes on,)
For great campaigns of peace the same the wiry threads to weave,
We know not why or what, yet weave, forever weave.

Poem for 2/18/22 - Love - by Czesław Miłosz

 Love (Suggested by Michal Goldman--thank you!)

A poem by Czesław Miłosz
Translated by Robert Hass

Love means to learn to look at yourself
The way one looks at distant things
For you are only one thing among many.
And whoever sees that way heals his heart,
Without knowing it, from various ills.
A bird and a tree say to him: Friend.

Then he wants to use himself and things
So that they stand in the glow of ripeness.
It doesn’t matter whether he knows what he serves:
Who serves best doesn’t always understand.

Poem for 2/16/22 - Sea Canes by Derek Wolcott

 SEA CANES

Half my friends are dead.
I will make you new ones, said earth.
No, give me them back, as they were, instead,
with faults and all, I cried.

Tonight I can snatch their talk
from the faint surf's drone
through the canes, but I cannot walk

on the moonlit leaves of ocean
down that white road alone,
or float with the dreaming motion

of owls leaving earth's load.
O earth, the number of friends you keep
exceeds those left to be loved.

The sea canes by the cliff flash green and silver;
they were the seraph lances of my faith,
but out of what is lost grows something stronger

that has the rational radiance of stone,
enduring moonlight, further than despair,
strong as the wind, that through dividing canes

brings those we love before us, as they were,
with faults and all, not nobler, just there.

~ Derek Walcott, born in 1930, Caribbean poet, playwright, and watercolorist, and winner of the 1992 Nobel Prize in Literature

Poem for 2/15/22 - Prophecy by Pauli Murray

Click on the poet's name for more information.

PROPHECY

by Pauli Murray

I sing of a new American
Separate from all others,
Yet enlarged and diminished by all others.
I am the child of kings and serfs, freemen and slaves,
Having neither superiors nor inferiors,
Progeny of all colors, all cultures, all systems, all beliefs.
I have been enslaved, yet my spirit is unbound.
I have been cast aside, but I sparkle in the darkness.
I have been slain but live on in the river of history.
I seek no conquest, no wealth, no power, no revenge:
I seek only discovery
Of the illimitable heights and depths of my own being.

Cambridge, 1969

Poem for 2/14/22 - Crossing the Line by E. Ethelbert Miller

 Click the title for more information about the poem and the poet.

Crossing the Line E. Ethelbert Miller for Maria Sitting across the table from you I think back to when our friendship came down from the mountains. It was a cold day and the miners had not left for work.   You break a cookie in half like bread and this sharing is what we both now need. That which breaks into crumbs are memories. Your gray hair cut short and you ask if I notice.   How can I tell you that Bolivia will always be beautiful and everything I notice is you and yes is you. Our napkins folded in our hands. Folded as if our meeting now is prayer.   Did I ever tell you that your eyes are a map and I would lose myself if you ever turned away Copyright © 2022 by E. Ethelbert Miller. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on February 14, 2022, by the Academy of American Poets.

Poem for 2/10/22 - Surprised by Joy - by William Wordsworth

 Surprised by Joy

BY WILLIAM WORDSWORTH

Surprised by joy—impatient as the Wind

I turned to share the transport—Oh! with whom

But Thee, long buried in the silent Tomb,

That spot which no vicissitude can find?

Love, faithful love, recalled thee to my mind—

But how could I forget thee?—Through what power,

Even for the least division of an hour,

Have I been so beguiled as to be blind

To my most grievous loss!—That thought’s return

Was the worst pang that sorrow ever bore,

Save one, one only, when I stood forlorn,

Knowing my heart’s best treasure was no more;

That neither present time, nor years unborn

Could to my sight that heavenly face restore.

Source: Poems (1815)

Poem for 2/9/22 - As I Grew Older by Langston Hughes

 

As I Grew Older

Langston Hughes

It was a long time ago. I have almost forgotten my dream. But it was there then, In front of me, Bright like a sun,— My dream. And then the wall rose, Rose slowly, Slowly, Between me and my dream. Rose slowly, slowly, Dimming, Hiding, The light of my dream. Rose until it touched the sky,— The wall. Shadow. I am black. I lie down in the shadow. No longer the light of my dream before me, Above me. Only the thick wall. Only the shadow. My hands! My dark hands! Break through the wall! Find my dream! Help me to shatter this darkness, To smash this night, To break this shadow Into a thousand lights of sun, Into a thousand whirling dreams Of sun!

This poem is in the public domain. Published in Poem-a-Day on February 5, 2022, by the Academy of American Poets.

Poem for 2/8/22 - Last Mattress by Marilyn Nelson

Last Mattress Marilyn Nelson This $1,600 slice of foam, if it stays firm, will be the last mattress I’ll ever buy. It’s comfortable enough for years of sleeps, for the long, thwarted hours of scribbling sentences, or to step from into the surrey with the fringe on top. Given the choice between flat-lining here, and 1,000,000 other possibilities for the time when my pronouns and now end— I’d pick my bed, and passing on with good dreams. One jot, on this little blue and green globe where life evolved, and consciousness, and hope. Copyright © 2022 by Marilyn Nelson. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on February 8, 2022, by the Academy of American Poets.

Poems for 2/7/22 - Snapdragons in the Market by Lee Upton and Joy by Clarissa Scott Delaney

Snapdragons at the Market

By Lee Upton

January 31, 2022

I wish I’d taken you
out of the bucket
and brought you home.
Which way would the sun
flow into the room
for your clocks?
You drank a bee
and it stung your lips.
Or are those jawbones
or paws
on your stems,
or curdled grudges?
As if anyone could own you.
For the second night
I am still thinking of you
even as sleep comes with its
soft little sack.
You own me, I suppose.

Published in the print edition of the February 7, 2022, issue of The New Yorker. Joy

Clarissa Scott Delaney

Joy shakes me like the wind that lifts a sail, Like the roistering wind That laughs through stalwart pines. It floods me like the sun On rain-drenched trees That flash with silver and green. I abandon myself to joy— I laugh—I sing. Too long have I walked a desolate way, Too long stumbled down a maze Bewildered.

This poem is in the public domain. Published in Poem-a-Day on February 6, 2022, by the Academy of American Poets.

Poem for 2/3/22 - The Robin - by George Daniel

 THE ROBIN

GEORGE DANIEL (1616-1657)

Poor bird! I do not envy thee;

Pleased in the gentle melody

Of thy own song.

Let crabbèd winter silence all

The wingèd choir; he never shall

Chain up thy tongue:

Poor innocent:

When I would please myself, I look on thee:

And guess some sparks of that felicity.

That self-content.

When the bleak face of winter spreads

The carth, and violates the meads

Of all their pride;

When sapless trees and flowers are fed,

Back to their causes, and lie dead

To all beside:

I see thee set

Bidding defiance to the bitter air,

Upon a withered spray; by cold made bare,

And drooping yet.

There, full in notes, to ravish all

My earth, I wonder what to call

My dullness; when

I hear thee, pretty creature, bring

Thy better odes of praise, and sing,

To puzzle men:

Poor pious elf!

I am instructed by thy harmony,

To sing the time's uncertainty,

Safe in myself.

Poor redbreast, carol out thy lay,

And teach us mortals what to say.

Here cease the choir

Of airy choristers: no more

Mingle your notes; but catch a store

From her sweet lyre;

You are but weak,

Mere summer chanters: you have neither wing

Nor voice, in winter. Pretty redbreast, sing,

What I would speak.

Poem for 2/2/22 - Not Once, by Sharon Olds

 

Not Once

Sharon Olds

Not once—not when I toppled, rigid, a 5'7" pine felled, stiff as a board, a five and a half foot plank, 16 x 32, and not while I wallowed on the rug among his oxygen tubes and my cane and his 8 wheelchair wheels, and not when I sat by his hospice bed, chirping I’m fine!, and not the next day, when the brilliant violet and black slash-slathered in my easy-life skin, or days later when the purple turned yellow and the blue green—never once when I said No pain, Nothing broken, did I feel lucky, did I measure the force of the blow, the floor speeding up like a heavy-weight’s smash to my cheek and eyebrow, not until today, did I begin to feel grateful for my good fortune—no concussion, no fracture—as if I expected to be able to be struck by the earth, a wrecking ball, and not feel it— as when someone on the other side of the world, or the city, is struck in my name, I do not feel it.

Copyright © 2022 by Sharon Olds. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on February 2, 2022, by the Academy of American Poets.

Poem for 2/1/22 - Sunset, by Ranier Maria Rilke

Sunset 

by Ranier Maria Rilke

Slowly the west reaches for clothes of new colors
which it passes to a row of ancient trees.
You look, and soon these two worlds both leave you
one part climbs toward heaven, one sinks to earth.

leaving you, not really belonging to either,
not so hopelessly dark as that house that is silent,
not so unswervingly given to the eternal as that thing
that turns to a star each night and climbs--

leaving you (it is impossible to untangle the threads)
your own life, timid and standing high and growing,
so that, sometimes blocked in, sometimes reaching out,
one moment your life is a stone in you, and the next, a star.