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April is Poetry Month. Here are 9 great poets and 9 great poems. And Robin Williams.
By
Published: Apr 13, 2021
Category:
Poetry
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Poetry Month is April, probably because all the other months were taken. Most of the country got all it needed on January 20, when 22-year-old Amanda Gorman delivered the inaugural poem at the Capitol. (That seems ages ago — but what doesn’t?) I’ve been reading poetry regularly of late because I’ve been writing so deep into the night that I don’t have the bandwidth to cool down with fiction. Poetry does quite nicely. On a good night I can find a phrase or word or idea to steal. On almost every night, a poem sends me to dreamland with the knowledge that however little I accomplished during the day at least I imbibed some soul food.
In “Dead Poet’s Society,” Robin Williams uses Walt Whitman to make this point.
Over the 16 years I’ve been editing Head Butler, I’ve managed to sneak in enough of my favorite poets to fill two editions. In this week’s edition I give you the link to my profiles and one poem for each poet. Think of these selections as hors d’oeuvres. Not filling. Tastes great.
Anna Akhmatova
“Poetry is respected only in this country,” said Russian poet Osip Mandelstam. “There’s no place where more people are killed for it.” Akhmatova would have agreed. Her husband was executed. When her son was arrested, she stood outside the prison in Leningrad for 17 months.
Not under the protection of foreign skies
Or saving wings of alien birth,
I was there with my people
There, where my people unhappily were.
Bertolt Brecht
Traveling in a comfortable car
Down a rainy road in the country
We saw a ragged fellow at nightfall
Signal to us for a ride, with a low bow.
We had a roof and we had room and we drove on
And we heard me say, in a grumpy voice: No,
we can’t take anyone with us.
We had gone on a long way, perhaps a day’s march
When suddenly I was shocked by this voice of mine
This behavior of mine and this
Whole world.
C.P. Cavafy
Always keep Ithaca in your mind.
To arrive there is your ultimate goal.
But do not hurry the voyage at all.
It is better to let it last for many years;
and to anchor at the island when you are old,
rich with all you have gained on the way,
not expecting that Ithaca will offer you riches.
Ithaca has given you the beautiful voyage.
Without her you would have never set out on the road.
She has nothing more to give you.
And if you find her poor, Ithaca has not deceived you.
Wise as you have become, with so much experience,
you must already have understood what Ithacas mean.
Claudia Rankine
It’s finally your turn, and then it’s not as he walks in front of you and puts his things on the counter.
The cashier says, Sir, she was next.
When he turns to you he is truly surprised.
Oh my god, I didn’t see you.
You must be in a hurry, you offer.
No, no, no, I really didn’t see you.
Donald Hall
The young girls look up
as we walk past the line at the movie,
and go back to examining their fingernails.
Their boyfriends are combing their hair,
and chew gum
as if they meant to insult us.
Today we made love all day.
I look at you. You are smiling on the sidewalk,
dear wrinkled face.
Dorothy Parker
When all the world was younger.
When petals lay as snow.
What recked I of the hunger
An empty heart can know?
For love was young and cheery,
And love was quick and free;
Tomorrow might be weary,
But when was that to me?
But now the world is older,
And now tomorrow’s come.
The winds are rushing colder,
And all the birds are dumb.
And icy shackles fetter
The brooklet’s sunny blue-
And I was never better;
But what is that to you?
Frank Bidart
To see my father
lying in pink velvet, a rosary
twined around his hands, rouged,
lipsticked, his skin marble …
My mother said, “He looks the way he did
thirty years ago, the day we got married,—
I’m glad I went;
I was afraid: now I can remember him
like that …”
Ruth, your last girlfriend, who wouldn’t sleep with you
or marry, because you wanted her
to pay half the expenses, and “His drinking
almost drove me crazy—”
Ruth once saw you
staring into a mirror,
in your ubiquitous kerchief and cowboy hat,
say:
“Why can’t I look like a cowboy?”
You left a bag of money; and were
the unhappiest man
I have ever known well.
Kabir
If what you feel for the Holy One is not desire,
then what’s the use of dressing with such care
and spending so much time making your eyelids dark?
Maeve Kinkead
Write truthful
the interior life
of the extended family,
letters marching down
creamy parchment
like a file of reticulated
ants. Slip it in a fine
envelope and affix
colorful and antiquated
stamps prised from
sleeves of the collection
forgotten in the closet,
walk 4 miles to the landmark
Post Office and bury
it in the garbage can
out front. Away, away.
