Tag: poetry
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‘I am I, with all the individuality of an earthworm.’ – Sylvia Plath, The Journals of Sylvia Plath 1950-1962
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‘I was nauseated at the sight of bobby pins. I would not touch them. Once, on the day I was going home from the hospital after having my tonsils out, a woman in my ward asked me to carry some bobby pins to the lady in the next bed. Revolted, I held out a stiff…
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‘Antoine St. Exupery once mourned the loss of a man and the secret treasures that he held inside him. I loved Exupery; I will read him again, and he will talk to me, not being dead, or gone. Is that life after death – mind living on paper and flesh living in offspring? Maybe. I…
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‘I am not content, because my lot is limiting, as are all others. People specialise; people become devoted to an idea; people “find themselves.” But the very content that comes from finding yourself is overshadowed by the knowledge that by doing so you are admitting you are not only a grotesque, but a special kind…
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‘to learn that you might-have-been more of an “artist” than you are if you had been born into a family of wealthy intellectuals. + to learn that you can never learn anything valid for truth, only momentary, transitory sayings that apply to you in your moment, your locality, and your present state of mind. +…
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‘Today is the first of August. It is hot, steamy and wet. It is raining. I am tempted to write a poem. But I remember what it said on one rejection slip: After a heavy rainfall, poems titled RAIN pour in from across the nation.’ – Sylvia Plath, The Journals of Sylvia Plath 1950-1962
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‘I may never be happy, but tonight I am content. Nothing more than an empty house, the warm hazy weariness from a day spent setting strawberry runners in the sun, a glass of cool sweet milk, and a shallow dish of blueberries bathed in cream. Now I know how people can live without books, without…
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I am the dust particles in sunlight.I am the round sun. To the bits of dust I say, Stay.To the sun, Keep moving. Rumi, extract from Say I Am You
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Solitary Animal – Marilyn Chin The solitary animal walks alone. She has no uterus. She has no bone.She slithers around dark bars and libraries. She carvesa beautiful girl on the cave wall. She dances with Aurora Borealis,but goes home alone. We are 7.5 billion. Thrust onto Earth together, we are not alone.We shout at the…
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‘The cemetery is just a melancholyMarina and rainIs the tallest girl I know.’ – James Galvin, extract from Grief’s Aspect. (quoted by Mark Doty in The Art of Description)
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Once…………………..I tried to give hate up But I was born to feel a great pettinessTo lie face-down in my catholic schoolgirl outfitand pound the cobblestones of the Royal Albert Hall – Hera Lindsay Bird, extract from Hate
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I am waiting for my number to be called and I am waiting for the Salvation Army to take over and I am waiting for the meek to be blessed and inherit the earth without taxes and I am waiting for forests and animals to reclaim the earth as theirs and I am waiting for…
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The Counter My days are burning My brain is a flower Hasten flower to bloom my days are burning Quietly the flower opens its petals My days are burning My brain is a flower My brain a flower lost to its own fragrance indifferent, idle – my days are burning – William Carlos Williams
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The Horse The horse movesindependentlywithout referenceto his load He has eyeslike a woman andturns themabout, throws back his earsand is generallyconscious ofthe world. Yet he pulls whenhe must andpulls well, blowingfog from his nostrilslike fumes fromthe twinexhausts of a car. – William Carlos Williams
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This is Just To Say I have eaten the plums that were in the icebox and which you were probably saving for breakfast Forgive me they were delicious so sweet and so cold – William Carlos Williams
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You enjoy a cigar and a clear view of Jersey. The tide is going out across the shingle, and nothing on earth can stop it. The smooth stones you pick up and examine under the moon’s light have been made blue from the sea. Next morning when you pull them from your trouser pocket, they…
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Now that lilacs are in bloom She has a bowl of lilacs in her room – T. S. Eliot, extract from Portrait of a Lady
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The moon is within me, and so is the sun. – Kabir
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I Taught Myself To Live Simply – Anna Akhmatova I taught myself to live simply and wisely, to look at the sky and pray to God, and to wander long before evening to tire my superfluous worries. When the burdocks rustle in the ravine and the yellow-red rowanberry cluster droops I compose happy verses about…
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Out on the sea it is raining too. It beats on no one. – Anne Carson, On Rain
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Lying in a Hammock at William Duffy’s Farm in Pine Island, Minnesota – James Wright Over my head, I see the bronze butterfly, Asleep on the black trunk, Blowing like a leaf in green shadow. Down the ravine behind the empty house, The cowbells follow one another Into the distances of the afternoon. To my…
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Stop acting so small. You are the universe in ecstatic motion. – Rumi
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It’s the kind of job where you lose something, something you spend the weekend looking for with tired eyes. – Geoff Hattersley (quoted by Andrew McMillan)
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Ocean, don’t be afraid. The end of the road is so far ahead it is already behind us. Don’t worry. Your father is only your father until one of you forgets. Like how the spine won’t remember its wings no matter how many times our knees kiss the pavement. Ocean, are you listening? The most…
Roseena Veronika Hussain 