Poetry

Reading: Strange Fruit by Seamus Heaney
Seamus Heaney (1939-2013) was a giant of Northern Irish poetry. He translated Beowulf into lively,  modern language. Heaney was an immensely popular ambassador of poetry. Today, I read 'Strange fruit' - what a muscular and earthly use of language: Strange Fruit Here is the girl's head like an exhumed gourd. Oval-faced, prune-skinned, prune-stones for teeth. ...
To my child
today I stage a rebirth of my desire to see the world through your eyes if you see the flowers stare at you from their blushing fields you are like a sun to them so I invited myself to your dream and do you know mine about the thankfulness of a well, the divine right ...
Reading: Old Couple by Charles Simic
Charles Simic (b. 1938) is an American poet born in Servia. His early childhood during World War 2 informed some of his poetry, that is said to be haunting and agonizing, but replete with gallows humor. He also wrote a lot of poems about everyday objects, such as spoons, knives and forks. I found this ...
A dream in the office
they hover over their plastic faces to greet you and shake you with their immaculate prosthetics do not to disturb the raging polyps of trust you came here, dressed in a thin illusion to overdose your mind on fluorescent dayshifts to do jawflips for a crustaceous boss who wanks silently under his desk in the ...
Reading: The Envoy Of Mr. Cogito by Zbigniew Herbert
Today, another Polish giant, Zbigniew Herbert (1924-1998). He has been called the most beloved Polish poet of his day, ahead of Milosz and Szymborska. I read a revolutionary poem set in a key that affects me, a poem about the stubborn messengers of our hollow truth, in a translation by Bogdana Carpenter: The Envoy Of Mr. ...
Reading: The Harbor by Carl Sandburg
Carl Sandburg (1878-1967) was a very American poet. He wrote a Lincoln biography and was the only poet who spoke for Congress. He was insanely famous in the US so we have to read one of his poems. Her goes: The Harbor Passing through huddled and ugly walls, By doorways where women haggard Looked from ...
Reading: Impossible Friendships by Adam Zagajewski
Adam Zagajewski (b. 1945) is another famous Polish poet. Browsing his poetry, I found this endearing list of impossible friendships, and I quote: Impossible friendships For example, with someone who no longer is, who exists only in yellowed letters. Or long walks beside a stream, whose depths hold hidden porcelain cups—and the talks about philosophy ...
Reading: On The Mountain by John Haines
John Haines (1924-2011) was a poet laureate of Alaska so imagine snow and huskies and winter cabins. I read a poem about a mountain that is praised for its precision. If you've ever walked on a serious mountain, this might remind you: On the mountain We climbed out of timber, bending on the steep meadow ...
Death is not my friend
your grave is paid until the end of the decade when a yellow bulldozer comes rolling on the churchyard gravel somebody is paid to do this, paid. it won't take long, they are discreet your stone becomes the pavement on which children meet or some guy commits a heinous crime and your memory is strung ...