Wallace Stevens (1879 – 1955) was born in Reading, Pennsylvania, educated at Harvard and the New York Law School, and worked for most of his life as an attorney with the Hartford Insurance Company and its predecessors, and was a vice president at the time of his death. (He turned down a faculty position at Harvard since it would have required him to quit his vice presidency at the Hartford.)

A leading light of the American Modernism, Stevens published nine collections of poetry, including Collected Poems (1954), which won the Pulitzer Prize for poetry. Four collections were published after his death, as were three collections of his letters. His poetry influenced such poets as James Merrill, Donald Justice, John Hollander, John Ashberry, Jorie Graham and many others.

This poem is from Opus Posthumous, published in 1957.

The Sick Man

Bands of black men seem to be drifting in the air,
In the South, bands of thousands of black men,
Playing mouth organs in the night or, now, guitars.

Here in the North, late, late, there are voices of men,
Voices in chorus, singing without words, remote and deep,
Drifting choirs, long movements and turnings of sounds.

And in a bed in one room, alone, a listener
Waits for the unison of the music of the drifting bands
And the dissolving chorals, waits for it and imagines

The words of winter in which these two will come together,
In the ceiling of the distant room, in which he lies,
The listener, listening to the shadows, seeing them,

Choosing out of himself, out of everything within him,
Speech for the quiet, good hail of himself, good hail, good hail,
The peaceful, blissful words, well-tuned, well-sung, well-spoken.

Billy Collins has been called the most popular living poet in America, and with good reason: he’s been more than a little successful as a poet, which in some literary quarters is rather unforgiveable.

Collins has been U.S. Poet Laureate twice (2001 and 2002) and New York Poet Laureate (2004); received fellowships for the National Endowment for the Arts, the New York Foundation for Arts and the John Guggenheim Foundation; was named Poet of the Year by Poetry magazine in 1994; and received the Mark Twain Award for Humor in poetry, among many other honors and distinctions. He is Distinguished Professor of English at Lehman College in the Bronx. Collins was born in 1941 in New York City, received his B.A. degree from College of the Holy Cross and his M.A. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of California-Riverside. He has published 13 collections of poems and had served as editor for three anthologies.

This poem is from The Trouble with Poetry (2005).

The Lodger

After I had beaten my sword into a ploughshare,
I beat my ploughshare into a hoe,
then beat the hoe into a fork,
which I used to eat my dinner alone.

And when I had finished dinner,
I beat my fork into a toothpick,
which I twirled on my lips
then flicked over a low stone wall

as I walked along the city river
under the clouds and stars,
quite happy but for the thought
that I should have beaten that toothpick into a shilling

so I could buy a newspaper to read
after climbing the stairs to my room.

Marcus Goodyear is senior editor for TheHighCalling.org (sponsored by Foundations for Laity Renewal) and FaithintheWorkplace.com (sponsored by Christianity Today). His poetry has been published in Geez Magazine, 32 Poems and Stonework Journal. Barbies at Communion: and other poems, his first volume of poetry, was published in 2010 and selected as a notable book by Englewood Review of Books. He blogs at Good Word Editing.

This poem is from Barbies at Communion.

Parable of the Sower

Judgment comes like weeds
in a lawn where the mower
sets his machine so low
it scalps the grass
and makes room for ugly
broad leaf and dollar weeds
and worse – prickles and stickers
that turn the outside wild
again, a place we can’t walk
bare foot. Slip-on sandals
aren’t even enough unless
our feet calluses are so thick we can’t feel
the spines and poisons against
the sides of our soles.
But then we plow through fields
like grounded bees spreading seed,
sowing forms of life we’d never choose,
the fallen world redeemed by our shoes.

Related:

Marcus Goodyear’s interview with TweetSpeak Poetry.

Reviews of Barbies at Communion at Amazon.com.

Pablo Neruda was the pen name of Neftali Ricardo Reyes Basoalto (1904-1973), a Chilean poet and diplomat whom Gabriel Garcia Marquez called “the great poet of the 20th century in any language.” The article on him at Wikipedia contains a wealth of information about his life, family, involvement in the Spanish Civil War, embrace and later rejection of Stalinism, the speech he made in Chile in 1948 which forced him into hiding and then exile, and many other facets of his life. The Poetry Foundation also has a good profile on the poet, as does poets.org.

An interesting note: the 1994 Italian movie Il Postino (The Postman) is a story of how a postman’s life is changed when he strikes up a friendship with a poet in exile on Sardinia – and that poet is Pablo Neruda, who indeed spent several years of exile there.

The author of numerous works of poetry, Neruda received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1971. This poem is taken from 100 Love Sonnets, or Cien sonetos de amor, which Neruda dedicated to his wife, Matilde Urrutia (the poems were translated by Stephen Tapscott and published by the University of Texas Press).

Sonnet LXXIII

Maybe you’ll remember that razor-faced man
who slipped out from the dark like a blade
and – before we realized – knew what was there:
he saw smoke and concluded fire.

The pallid woman with black hair
rose like a fish from the abyss,
and the two of them built up a contraption,
armed to the teeth, against love.

Man and woman, they felled mountains and gardens,
they went down to the river, the scaled the walls,
they hoisted their atrocious artillery up the hill.

Then love knew it was called love.
And when I lifted my eyes to your name,
Suddenly your heart showed me my way.

L.L. Barkat is a writer, editor, poet, columnist, speaker and entrepreneur. She is the author of Stone Crossings: Finding Grace in Hard and Hidden Places, God in the Yard: Spiritual Practice for the Rest of Us, and InsideOut: Poems. Barkat is Managing Editor at The High Calling and staff writer for International Arts Movement’s The Curator. She’s also a co-editor here at TweetSpeak Poetry.

This poem is taken from InsideOut: Poems, published in 2009 by International Arts Movement.

Foyer

Who looks
at the new straw
hat, remembering
Grandma,

how she beat
brazen rays each
day by sneaking
under a brim

like that. And who
notices the wrought
iron roses now
hung askew

on our cherry
coat rack; she
wrung pits
out of red fruit

too, swatted flies,
rolled tart sweet
flesh, juice into
crust, but that is

another story;
I am asking you
about the roses
broken, and a

missing screw,
but you are busy
arranging tailored
black wool on

a cool hook worn
brass blue, we’re
just in the hall,
after all, we’re just

passing through.

The career of William Butler Yeats (1865-1939) spanned two centuries, and he became one of the foremost figures of English literature. He was a major force behind the Irish Literary Revival and was a co-founder of the famed Abbey Theater in Dublin. Active in politics, drama and literature, Yeats was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature in 1923. Born in Dublin, he died in France and is buried there.

This poem is taken from Early Poems, published in 1993 as a Dover Thrift Edition. Much of his early poetry was influenced by Irish folklore and myth.

The Lake Isle of Innisfree

I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,
And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made:
Nine bean rows will I have there, a hive for the honey bee,
And live alone in the bee-loud glade.

And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,
Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;
There midnight’s all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow,
And evening full of the linnet’s wings.

I will arise and go now, for always night and day
I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;
While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavement’s gray,
I hear it in the deep heart’s core.

Gwendolyn Brooks (1917-2000) wrote poetry for more than 70 years, and has the distinction of being the first black author to win the Pulitzer Prize (in 1950 for Annie Allen: Poems). She also received numerous other honors and recognitions, including a nomination for the National Book Award, the National Medal for the Arts, serving as poet laureate of Illinois and poet laureate of the United States, the Frost Medal, the Shelley Memorial Award, an award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and more than 75 honorary degrees from colleges and universities.

This poem is from Selected Poems (2006) but was first published in The Bean Eaters (1960).

A Lonely Love

Let it be alleys. Let it be a hall
Whose janitor javelins epithet and thought
To cheapen hyacinth darkness that we sought
And played we found, rot, make the petals fall.
Let it be stairways, and a splintery box
Where you have thrown me, scraped me with your kiss,
Have honed me, have released me after this
Cavern kindness, smiled away our shocks.
That is the birthright of our lonely love
In swaddling clothes. Not like that Other one.
Not lit by any fondling star above.
Not found by any wise man, either. Run.
People are coming. They must not catch us here
Definitionless in this strict atmosphere.

Brendan Galvin has published 21 books and chapbooks of poetry. He graduated from Boston College in 1960 with a B.S. degree in the natural sciences, and received his MFA and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Massachusetts. One work, Atlantic Flyway (1980) was short-listed for the Pulitzer Prize and Habitat: New and Selected Poems, 1965-2005 (2005) was a National Book Award finalist.

Many of Galvin’s poems reflect his interest and background in the nature and the natural sciences. “Pollen” was first published in Great Blue: New and Selected Poems in 1990 and included in Habitat in 2005.

“Pollen”

As when a breeze
slips off the water
and crosses a headland,
and even those limp zeroes
wavelets make, fragile as
smoke rings, erase themselves
from the viscid surface,
and sails slacken,
so the air
this afternoon slackens,
and the page blurs
under your eyes
as the massive invisible
orgy of flower
quickening flower
sifts through the atmosphere,
drifts at its peak,
rose to rose,
and from the roadside locust trees
birds stagger, drunk,
daring tires, kneeling in the grass.

Insistent as midges, grains
tease at your nostrils,
and you cry onto the page
for no human reason.
And if somewhere
a boy’s arm breaks the chains
of this lassitude
long enough
to toss a stone at a squirrel,
that pine exploding into gold
tilts you toward sleep
lightly. You whisper
how wings and the shadows of
wings circle you,
surrounding the years.

Richard Beban spent 30 years as a journalist and televisiona nd screen writer, and then became a poet. Since 1994, his poetryhad been published in numerous literary journals and websites and in 16 anthologies. He’s also been nominated for a Pushcart Prize, and co-authored numerous non-fiction books and collections. He and his wife, writer Kaaren Kitchell, live in Los Angeles.

His three published books of poetry include I Burn for You (1999), What the Heart Weighs (2004) and Young Girl Eating a Bird (2006). This poem is taken from What the Heart Weighs.

My Parents Watch the July Fourth Parade

Perhaps they were both dyslexic;
never clear on the difference
between marital & martial.
Thought the wedding march was
by John Phillip Sousa or Francis
Scott Key – bombs bursting in
the living room, kitchen, beat of
muffled drums, sharp staccato
racket of sticks on rims, crack of
ribs, crack of small arms fire,
small children abandoned in the
corners like spent shell casings.
The stars & stripes forever
imprinted – stars as blows hit the
skull, stripes from the slashing leather
belt across the backs of thighs. Red
welts, white skin, blue bruises never
shown at school where you stood for the
Pledge of Allegiance & learned how fine
a country this is & why our parents fought
so hard to keep it free. Learned the price
of war was high, but teacher said it
was worth it. Look at all we had
that children in other countries wanted.

Caroline Dellosso may be the youngest poet you’ve never heard of, but you will hear of her one day. She’s eight years old, and she’s started to write poetry. Her dad, author Mike Dellosso, decided to post a couple of her poems on his web site, and we were so impressed with what a good poet she already is that we decided to feature her here for National Poetry Month. Caroline lives with her family in Pennsylvania.

We have two poems by Caroline Dellosso.

                    Me In the Mirror
              My reflection in the mirror
                     Told me one day.
                           “I’ll see you.”
                          And he did.
              One day I walked past him
                      And we both said,
             “Wait, where is my mom?”
                      And finally I said,
         “Oh, she went to the bathroom,
         Lets’ talk about something else.”
                     And he said, “OK.”
        I said, “Let’s talk about you doing
               Everything I do and say.”
                                                                               “No way!”
                                                                            Sigh, oh well.

           Ants in My Pants
       I have ants in my pants,
                  I really do.
    They’re always laying eggs.
         They run in my pants
        And it tickles, because
       I have ants in my pants!
    And the ants aren’t moving
            to different pants.
        My mom doesn’t believe
         I have ants in my pants.
I said, “I never changed my pants,
                                                    That’s why
                                           I have ants in my pants!”