May 16 2022
Adrienne Rich was a highly influential poet and essayist whose focus on feminist and lesbian themes helped to bring these topics to the literary arena. She was born Adrienne Cecile Rich on this day May 16, 1929 in Baltimore, Maryland. What Kind of Times Are These There’s a place between two stands of trees where …
May 12 2022
Writer and poet Andrei Voznesensky was born on this day May 12, 1933 in Moscow, Soviet Union. Voznesensky was highly regarded in his lifetime as both a skilled poet and poetry reader, in fact, Robert Lowell once described Voznesensky as “one of the greatest living poets in any language.” Here is his poem “Russian-American Romance,” translated by …
May 11 2022
10 maggie and milly and molly and maywent down to the beach(to play one day) and maggie discovered a shell that sangso sweetly she couldn’t remember her troubles,and milly befriended a stranded starwhose rays five languid fingers were; and molly was chased by a horrible thingwhich raced sideways while blowing bubbles:and may came home with …
May 09 2022
Today we celebrate writer and musician Joy Harjo, current U.S. poet laureate, and the first Native American poet laureate. Harjo was born on this day May 9, 1951 in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and is a member of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation. Don’t Bother the Earth Spirit “Don’t bother the earth spirit who lives here. She is …
May 08 2022
The “poet laureate of Deep Ecology” Gary Snyder was born on this day May 8, 1930 in San Francisco, California. Mother Earth: Her Whales An owl winks in the shadowsA lizard lifts on tiptoe, breathing hardYoung male sparrow stretches up his neck,big head, watching— The grasses are working in the sun. Turn it green.Turn it sweet. …
May 07 2022
Here is an excerpt from “Nocturne” by Archibald MacLeish, born on this day May 7, 1892 in Glencoe, Illinois. The earth, still heavy and warm with afternoon,Dazed by the moon: The earth, tormented with the moon’s light,Wandering in the night: La, La, The moon is a lovely thing to see—The moon is an agony. Full moon, …
May 06 2022
Author, poet, and sailor Harry Martinson was born on this day May 6, 1904 in Jämshög, Sweden. Visit to the observatory We viewed a nebula inside a tube.To us a golden herd of mist it seemed.In larger tubes it might have gleamedas suns in thousands in their boundless space. Our dizziness of mind imaginedthat it …
May 05 2022
Poet Helen Maud Merrill (Helen M. Merrill, pen name Samantha Spriggins) was born on this day May 5, 1865 in Bangor, Maine. When the Gulls Come In When the gulls come in, and the shallow singsFresh to the wind, and the bell-buoy rings,And a spirit calls the soul from sleepTo follow over the flashing deep; …
May 04 2022
Sheikh Khwaja Abdullah Ansari was a Persian poet and mystic born on this day May 4, 1006 in the old citadel of Herat in the Ghaznavid Empire in Afghanistan. He was known as the “Sage of Herat.” I Came From the un-manifest I came,And pitched my tent, in the Forest of Material existence.I passed through …
Apr 27 2022
Glasgow, Scotland’s first Poet Laureate, Edwin Morgan, was born on this day April 27, 1920. The Picnic In a little rainy mist of white and greywe sat under an old tree,drank tea toasts to the powdery mountain,undrunk got merry, played catchwith the empty flask, on the pine needlescame down to where it rolled stealthily away …