Poets From The United States

"In darkness and in hedges I sang my sour tone and all my love was howling conspicuously alone."

"Up the reputable walks of old established trees They stalk, children of the nouveaux riches; chimes Of the tall Clock Tower drench their heads in blessing."

"Riot in Algeria, in Cyprus, in Alabama; Aged in wrong, the empires are declining, And China gathers, soundlessly, like evidence. What shall I say to the young on such a morning?— Mind is the one salvation?—also grammar?— No; my little ones lean not toward revolt."

"Though trees turn bare and girls turn wives, We shall afford our costly seasons; There is a gentleness survives That will outspeak and has its reasons. There is a loveliness exists, Preserves us, not for specialists."

"I don't think about my writing as being about fame. I think of it in a communal context. Yet it's naive and apolitical to deny that elements of privilege accrue to visibility. Certainly, a visibly lesbian artist is doing something that many lesbians can't do in their own work lives. That visibility is the result of community building, of something that is given to the lesbian artist from the lesbian community. When I think about these issues, it seems all the more reason to be scrupulous about how to return things to the community and to place my life in perspective. I've worked hard, but I certainly could not be doing this by myself. The other thing I know about power is what I've learned from Audre Lorde, who said that if we don't use our power, it will be turned against us. I think there is an important distinction between power over and power with. I'm interested in how we develop power with others. I think it's important that my having access to my own power in my writing doesn't mean draining it away from the community or using it in opposition to others but, rather, using my power collectively with others to build a transformative future."

"It's important to deal directly with lesbian issues, whether or not one does that as an open lesbian teacher. It's important not to just shove lesbian issues to one side but to deal with them head on in the classroom, especially if one is teaching women's studies. The controversy right now is over a woman teacher bringing lesbian issues into the classroom. In another era you couldn't be a married woman and teach. It really is about what's acceptable to do as a woman occupying a position in an educational system that's supposed to be a replication of heterosexuality. Before you even start talking about what books you're going to use, you have to be ready to address that root premise."

"I wrote that poem ["All the Women Caught in Flaring Light"] because, at the time I was writing the book [Crime Against Nature], I would read at women's cultural spaces and lesbians would come up and tell me heartrending stories. I felt a responsibility to tell some of them. I guess it's what happens when you're a writer in a culture of repressed groups...I think the concept of writing or art as just self-expression or self-fulfillment is a Eurocentric and sterile patriarchal idea...Because it goes only one way. And it's not a way of conceiving of art that acknowledges that you are able to make art only because things come to you from your community. The image of the individualistic, egocentric artist-white, male, and heterosexual-is premised on him creating all by himself in defiance of his culture. But that's not how I have made my art, nor is it how most people in repressed cultures create. You make art only in the matrix of your community and you're pretty foolish if you don't think that that's true. Responsibility isn't a grim thing, you know, in that context. It's just what's real You are fed, and you feed."

"I begin to understand that a white woman of the South can live and write, but not of the dead heroes. She can live and write a new kind of honor, the daily, conscious actions of women in true rebellion. ("Rebellion")"

"I understood finally that this heroic will to endure is still not the same as the will to change, the true rebellion. ("Rebellion")"

"It was the nature of the thing: No moon outlives its leaving night, No sun its day. And I went on Rich in the loss of all I sing To the threshold of waking light, To larksong and the live, gray dawn. So night by night, my life has gone."

"They wear their godhead lightly. They look out from their hill and say, To themselves, "We have nowhere to go but down; The great destination is to stay.""

"I happened to find Your picture. That picture. I stopped there cold, Like a man raking piles of dead leaves in his yard Who has turned up a severed hand."

"The sleek, expensive girls I teach, Younger and pinker every year, Bloom gradually out of reach."

"—Before we drained out one another’s force With lies, self-denial, unspoken regret And the sick eyes that blame; before the divorce And the treachery. Say it: before we met. Still, I put back your picture. Someday, in due course, I will find that it’s still there."

"She's up there—Old Glory—where lightnings are sped; She dazzles the nations with ripples of red; And she'll wave for us living, or droop o'er us dead— The flag of our country forever!"

"Sweetest li'l' feller, Ev'ry-body knows; Dun-no what to call 'im, But he mighty lak' a rose!"

"The Lüger hovered lightly in its glove."

"No prayers or incense rose up in those hours Which grew to be years, and every day came mute Ghosts from the ovens, sifting through crisp air, And settled upon his eyes in a black soot."

"No light, no light in the blue Polish eye."

"So there stood Matthew Arnold and this girl With the cliffs of England crumbling away behind them, And he said to her, "Try to be true to me, And I'll do the same for you, for things are bad All over, etc., etc." ... But all the time he was talking she had in mind The notion of what his whiskers would feel like On the back of her neck."

"And sometimes I bring her a bottle of Nuit d' Amour."

"Much casual death had drained away their souls."

"She got to looking out At the lights across the channel, and really felt sad, Thinking of all the wine and enormous beds And blandishments in French and the perfumes."

"To have been brought All the way down from London, and then be addressed As a sort of mournful cosmic last resort Is really tough on a girl, and she was pretty."

"And then she said one or two unprintable things."

"Running to fat, but dependable as they come."

"Science, that was going to save the world in H. G. Wells' time, is regimented, strait-jacketed, scared shitless, its universal language diminished to one word, security."

"Your flag and my flag— And how it flies to-day! In your land and my land, And half the world away! Rose-red and blood-red, The stripes forever gleam; Snow-white and soul-white— The good forefathers' dream; Sky-blue and true-blue, with stars to shine aright— The gloried guidon of the day, a shelter through the night."

"Who hath a book Hath friends at hand, And gold and gear At his command; And rich estates, If he but look, Are held by him Who hath a book. Who hath a book Hath but to read And he may be A king, indeed. His kingdom is His inglenook— All this is his Who hath a book."

"Forever on Thanksgiving Day, The heart will find the pathway home."

"The thing that goes the farthest towards making life worthwhile, That costs the least and does the most is just a pleasant smile."

"He always said "Good mornin'," An' emphasized the "good," As if he’d make it happy For each one, if he could. "Good mornin'!" Just "Good mornin'" To ev'ryone he met; He said it with a twinkle That no one could forget."

"A silver-scaled dragon with jaws flaming red Sits at my elbow and toasts my bread. I hand him fat slices, and then, one by one, He hands them back when he sees they are done."

"The long-haired Yak has long black hair, He lets it grow — he doesn't care. He lets it grow and grow and grow, He lets it trail along the stair. Does he ever go to the barbershop? NO! How wild and woolly and devil-may-care A long-haired Yak with long black hair Would look when perched in a barber chair!"

"He hangs in the hall by his black cravat, The ladies faint, and the children holler: Only my Daddy could look like that, And I love my Daddy like he loves his Dollar."

"Now touch the air softly, Step gently. One, two... I’ll love you till roses Are robin’s-egg blue; I’ll love you till gravel Is eaten for bread, And lemons are orange, And lavender’s red."

"Your vict'ries won—your revolution ended— Your constitution newly made—and mended— Your fund of wit—your intellectual riches— Plans in the closet—in the senate speeches— Will make this age of heroes, wits and sages The first in story to the latest ages!— Go on—and prosper with your projects blest, Till your millennium rises in the west:— We wish success to your politic scheming, Rule ye the world!—and then—be rul'd by women!"

"And I’ll love you as long As the furrow the plow, As However is Ever, And Ever is Now."

"For here, ye fair, no servile rites bear sway, Nor force ye—(though ye promise)—to obey: Blest in the mildness of tins temp'rate zone, Slaves to no whims, or follies—but your own.— Here custom, check'd in ev'ry rude excess, Confines its influence to the arts of dress, O'er charms eclips'd the side-long hat displays, Extends the hoop, or pares away the stays, Bedecks the fair with artificial gear, Breast-works in front, and bishops in the rear:— The idol rears, on beauty's dazzling throne, Mankind her slaves, and all the world her own; Bound by no laws a husband's whims to fear, Obey in life, or burn upon his bier; She views with equal eye, sublime o'er all, A lover perish—or a lap-dog fall— Coxcombs or monkeys from their chains broke loose— And now a husband dead—and now a goose."

"I know a place all fennel-green and fine Far from the white ice cap, the glacial flaw, Where shy mud hen and dainty porcupine Dance in delight by a quivering pawpaw;"

"With what high chiefs I play'd my early part, With Parsons first, whose eye, with piercing ken, Reads through their hearts the characters of men; Then how I aided, in the foll'wing scene, Death-daring Putnam—then immortal Greene— Then how great Washington my youth approv'd, In rank preferred, and as a parent lov'd."

"Oh, give me a home where the buffalo roam, Where the deer and antelope play, Where never is heard a discouraging word And the sky is not clouded all day."

"His list'ning sons the sire shall oft remind, What parent sages first in Congress join'd; The faithful Hancock grac'd that early scene, Great Washington appear'd in godlike mien, Jay, Laurens, Clinton, skill'd in ruling men, And he, who earlier, held the farmer's pen. 'Twas Lee, illustrious, at the father's head, The daring way to independence led. The self-taught Sherman urg'd his reasons clear, And all the Livingstons to freedom dear; What countless names in fair procession throng, With Ruttledge, Johnson, Nash, demand the song!"

"Not ringed but rare, not gilled but polyp-like, having sprung up overnight— These mushrooms of the gods, resembling human organs uprooted, rooted only on the air,"

"And life is a rain-swept mirror Through which perpetually A girl with bright hair flowing, Dappled dark coat blowing, Into the unknown, knowing, Walks with me."

"Tasting of the sweet damp woods and of the rain one inch above the meadow: It was like feasting upon air."

"Some days elaps'd, I jogg'd quite brave on And found my Trumbull at New-Haven; Than whom, more humour never man did Possess—nor lives a soul more candid— But who, unsung, would know hereafter, The repartees, and peals of laughter, Or how much glee those laughters yield one, Maugre the system Chesterfieldian! Barlow I saw, and here began My friendship for that spotless man; Whom, though the world does not yet know it, Great nature form'd her loftiest poet. But Dwight was absent at North-Hampton, That bard sublime, and virtue's champion. To whom the charms of verse belong, The father, of our epic song!"

"Thinking of you this evening, I think of mystery; I think of umbrellas of crystal Shading a cinnamon sea;"

"The lariat snaps; the cowboy rolls His pack, and mounts and rides away. Back to the land the cowboy goes."

"See the great cabin nigh, its doors unfold, Shew fleeting forms from mirrors fix'd in gold! O'er painted ceilings brighter prospects rise, And rural scenes again delight our eyes."