Jun 29 2022
Our planet’s lush tropics cover 40% of the land, and account for approximately 80% of Earth’s biodiversity, yet it is under constant threat from human activity and climate change. Today is International Day of the Tropics, which was created as a reminder to appreciate and respect our rich, tropical lands. Here is a poem by …
Jun 25 2022
Daisy Time See, the grass is full of stars,Fallen in their brightness;Hearts they have of shining gold,Rays of shining whiteness. Buttercups have honeyed hearts,Bees they love the clover,But I love the daisies’ danceAll the meadow over. Blow, O blow, you happy winds,Singing summer’s praises,Up the field and down the fieldA-dancing with the daisies.
Jun 22 2022
This World Rainforest Day I am celebrating novelist, poet, environmentalist, diplomat, and mother of five, Astrid Cabral, who sings the songs of her Amazon home in her exemplary poetry. Some of Cabral’s most well-known books include Through Water (2003), Anteroom (2007), and Cage (2008). In Cage, Cabral explores the real and symbolic animals of the Amazon. She …
Jun 21 2022
Today marks the longest day of the year, the summer solstice, also known as midsummer and the first day of summer. The sun reaches its highest point in the sky for the year on this day. To celebrate the start of the season, here is a poem by Carl Sandburg, “Back Yard” from The Chicago …
Jun 19 2022
I, Too I, too, sing America. I am the darker brother.They send me to eat in the kitchenWhen company comes,But I laugh,And eat well,And grow strong. Tomorrow,I’ll be at the tableWhen company comes.Nobody’ll dareSay to me,“Eat in the kitchen,”Then. Besides,They’ll see how beautiful I amAnd be ashamed— I, too, am America. -Langston Hughes
Jun 10 2022
“You never have to change anything you got up in the middle of the night to write.” -Saul Bellow
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 …
Mar 20 2022
The Spring Now that the winter’s gone, the earth hath lostHer snow-white robes, and now no more the frostCandies the grass, or casts an icy creamUpon the silver lake or crystal stream;But the warm sun thaws the benumbed earth,And makes it tender; gives a sacred birthTo the dead swallow; wakes in hollow treeThe drowsy cuckoo, …
Feb 12 2022
Flirtation After all, there’s no needto say anything at first. An orange, peeledand quartered, flares like a tulip on a wedgewood plateAnything can happen. Outside the sunhas rolled up her rugs and night strewn saltacross the sky. My heart is humming a tuneI haven’t heard in years! Quiet’s cool flesh—let’s sniff and eat it. There …
Jan 23 2022
Here is “Bleecker Street, Summer” by Derek Walcott, born on this day January 23, 1930 in Castries, the capital of Saint Lucia located in the Caribbean. Walcott won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1992. Bleecker Street, Summer Summer for prose and lemons, for nakedness and languor,for the eternal idleness of the imagined return,for rare flutes …
