Poets From The United States

"So much do I love wandering, So much I love the sea and sky, That it will be a piteous thing In one small grave to lie!"

"The nostalgia— not of memories But of what has never been!"

"And they shall know that in the ordering Of every world to come the law shall read That he who dares be lawless wears the wing Of bird and prophet and his light shall lead On through the darkness to eventual light, To undiscovered wealth, to newer need. ..."

"Work alone qualifies us for life, Sentoni. It is much more exquisite to be blown from the tree as a flower than to be shaken down as a shriveled and bitter fruit."

"My cousin Cleofante does not believe in inspiration. She shuns the false energy of all stimulants, even those of criticism and sympathy, when she sets herself to a task. What she does, she does alone—unencouraged, unadvised, unmoved. She has a man’s broad and vital technique, and a man’s ability for thinking straight and far. For years I have watched her work,—coldly, intelligently, solely with the power of her brain,—achieving effects that are in no way miracles, but are matters of technique and deliberation."

"Forgetting is the cost Of living cheerfully."

"Mine was a love so exquisite that I Rather than watch it wither chose to die: So dress my grave, O friend, with no poor flower Which in your quiet garden blooms an hour!"

"It's all right to tell a wife the brutal truth, but you've got to go sort of easy with your lady-love."

"Englishmen are like that. They love life more and value it less than any other people in the world."

"And I wonder if peace is enough for any man. ..."

"Like a fool I thought I was the arbiter of her destiny; and all the time Fate had happier plans for her."

"My life is like water that has gone over the dam and turned no mill wheels. Here I am, not happy, but not unhappy, as my days run on to the sea, idly—but not too swiftly—for I love living."

"... there's a great strangeness about love. ... Yes, I'm very sure that love is the strangest thing in the world—much stranger than death—or—or just life."

"No one can ever help loving anyone."

"And have we lost the right To look on a blooming bough Without remembering how Once with high promising We were a part of spring— We who are now the dead Leaves of other years strewn where flowers spread?"

"Women have no wilderness in them, They are provident instead, Content in the tight hot cell of their hearts To eat dusty bread."

"I am the wind that wavers, You are the certain land; I am the shadow that passes Over the sand."

"The Greeks had a word for it."

"Shutting one's eyes is an art, my dear. I suppose there's no use trying to make you see that—but that's the only way one can stay married."

"The success haters. ... That's what I call them—the people who have never got what they want and turned sour on everybody who has. The world's full of them. ... As soon as you've made good they begin to watch for you to fail. ..."

"To accuse is so easy that it is infamous to do so where proof is impossible!"

"TILLERTON: "To him that hath it shall be given—" She hath ... that's all. That's greatness. PRESCOTT: One sort of greatness, maybe. TILLERTON: Even the great can have only their own sort of greatness. PRESCOTT: And it's often only that they're great sponges. TILLERTON: Often, yes, or great roses for whose blooming the trees have been pruned and stripped. But they make the beauty of the world and that's enough."

"This world is a very unsafe place. It's all shifting sands, Ned. Shifting sands and changing winds."

"Adam Had 'em."

"You may have tangible wealth untold; Caskets of jewels and coffers of gold. Richer than I you can never be — I had a Mother who read to me."

"Over 30 years ago, Donald Trump took out full page ads calling for my execution. On the day he was arrested and arraigned, here is my ad in response."

"I love to think that if my blood should be So privileged to sink where his has sunk, I shall not pass from Earth entirely But when the banquet rings, when healths are drunk,"

"Under the little crosses where they rise The soldier rests. Now round him undismayed The cannon thunders, and at night he lies At peace beneath the eternal fusillade."

"Be mindful of the men they were, and raise Your glasses to them in one silent toast."

"There’s a long, long trail a-winding Into the land of my dreams, Where the nightingales are singing And a white moon beams; There’s a long, long night of waiting Until my dreams all come true, Till the day when I’ll be going down That long, long trail with you."

"Cheer up! the worst is yet to come!"

"I have a rendezvous with Death At some disputed barricade, When Spring comes round with rustling shade And apple blossoms fill the air— I have a rendezvous with Death When Spring brings back blue days and fair."

"Still, I don’t feel guilty. If I’m indeed moving backward and dragging all of [B]lack America down with me, I couldn’t care less."

"Problem is, they both disappeared from my life, first my dad, and then my hometown, and suddenly I had no idea who I was, and no clue how to become myself."

"When we were younger, me, Marpessa, and the rest of the kids on the block would jet over to Hominy’s house after school, because what could be cooler than watching an hour of Little Rascals with a Little Rascal?"

"You're supposed to wolf whistle! Like this…” Recklessly eyeballing her the whole way, he pursed his lips and let go a wolf whistle so lecherous and libidinous it curled both the white woman's pretty painted toes and the dainty red ribbon in her blond hair. Now it was her turn. And my father stood there, lustful and black, as she just as defiantly not only recklessly eyeballed him back but recklessly rubbed his dick through his pants"

"Massa…sometimes we just have to accept who we are and act accordingly. I’m a slave. That’s who I am. It’s the role I was born to play. A slave who just also happens to be an actor. But being black ain’t method acting.”"

"Silence can be either protest or consent, but most times it’s fear."

"During Black History Month, my father used to watch the nightly television footage of the Freedom buses burning, the dogs snarling and snapping, and say to me, "You can't force integration, boy. The people who want to integrate will integrate." I've never figured out to what extent, if at all, I agree or disagree with him, but it's an observation that's stayed with me. Made me realize that for many people integration is a finite concept. Here, in America, "integration" can be a cover-up. "I'm not racist. My prom date, second cousin, my president is black (or whatever)."

"But where my father saw an opportunity for information exchange, public advocacy, and communal counsel, Foy saw a midlife springboard to fame."

"We’ll hear argument first this morning in case 09-2606…in case 09-2606, Me v. the United States of America."

"Light enough now to watch the trees go by— a sleep like sickness in the rattling train. Men's bodies joggle on the opposite seat and tired greasy faces half awake stir restlessly and breathe a stagnant sigh. The stale air thickens on the grimy pane reeking of musty smoke and woolly feet. Versailles—a bridge of shadow on a lake dawn-blue and pale, the color of the sky. Paris at last!—and a great joy like pain in my heart. We scuffle down the corridor. "Lieutenant." "Sir." "In half an hour we meet at another station—your orders are to take these men by subway to the Gare du Nord.""

"At long last, marking the ninetieth anniversary of the Armistice, an American poet takes his place in the front rank of the War Poet's parade."

"In the words of Acoma poet Simon Ortiz: "The future will not be mad with loss and waste though the/memory will/Be there: eyes will become kind and deep, and the bones of/this nation/Will mend after the revolution.""

"Continual diminishment and loss of Indigenous languages is a constant concern and issue. Diminishment and loss add to the burden of Indigenous colonization because “the problem” may seem insurmountable. Valiant efforts are constantly ongoing in grassroots ways, namely self-generated tribal community projects to revitalize Indigenous languages. Personal and family dynamics result in positive gains — younger people are learning Indigenous languages to some degree. What’s really missing is an activistic, vibrant, spirited, and culturally and socially engaging Indigenous consciousness movement that can energize, inspire, and vitalize more than anything else."

"Indigenous literary intellectuals are committed to being a part of the discourse of aesthetic sustainability — if not the leaders of it — articulating they have a role and task in healing the human condition — society and culture — so they, as living and thriving beings, shall always be regenerative rather than degenerative!"

"Feeling, thinking, and being absolutely aware of our role as communal human beings within a holistic universe will do wonders for us and all of creation because that will make us be aware of sustainability as a principle of continuance. Indigenous storytellers, writers, poets have a vital role in this dynamic of continuance"

"I purposely and intentionally use the term Indigenous to refer directly to Indigenous American peoples because the term is neutral; its meaning is based on Indigenous American peoples being native and/or aboriginal to the lands of their origin...Along with an insistence upon our own terminology, there is a necessary awareness or consciousness that has to do with our Indigeneity, and that has very direct bearing upon the land, culture, and community of Indigenous America. Ultimately, this consciousness is at the core of ourselves who are from and of the land, culture, and community of the Indigenous Americas. There is no going around this fact either: the knowledge of land, culture, and community as known, experienced, ascertained, evolved, created by Indigenous peoples is basic and primary. This was apparent to the first Europeans who experienced first landfall in the Americas; Europeans knew very little or next to nothing about the Indigenous lands of the continents and adjacent islands; they relied, in fact, practically and necessarily, upon Indigenous native peoples. In other words, Europeans from the very beginning depended upon Indigenous land, culture, and community for knowledge they needed to survive and thrive. And today, this is still the case. All knowledge-consciousness comes first from a basic and primary source: the land, culture, and community of the Indigenous Americas."

"Indigenous literature is Indigenous knowledge; Indigenous writers and poets are the instigators of that knowledge."

"We are not separate from one another; we differ ethnically; sometimes we speak our own distinct languages; our cultures are not the same and we have our own life goals. Yet at the same time we share the same world which is all around us. In some ways, we are not separate from one another at all; we are all part of the same general world and the same general human condition. Critical thinking — deep thoughts and ideas about ourselves and our relationship to others, to me that’s what critical thinking is — is crucial to the human condition now more than ever. As a human society and culture, we need to think about the condition of the world more than ever before. Indigenous peoples of the Americas who were and are the original human culture and society of this part of the world are deeply concerned. To me, this is the source of contemporary Indigenous literary criticism; it is concerned with addressing the condition of human society and culture."