April is National Poetry Month

Willits Library National Poetry Month Poems of the Day – April 8, 2010

THREE BY EMILY

* * *

Exultation is the going

Of an inland soul to sea,

Past the houses – past the headlands –

Into deep Eternity –

Bred as we, among the mountains,

Can the sailor understand

The divine intoxication

Of the first league out from land?

* * *

Between My Country – and the Others –

There is a Sea –

But Flowers – negotiate between us –

As Ministry.

* * *

There is no Frigate like a Book

To take us Lands away

Nor any Coursers like a Page

Of prancing Poetry –

This Traverse may the poorest take

Without oppress of Toll –

How frugal is the Chariot

That bears the Human soul.

EMILY DICKINSON

Ukiah Library National Poetry Month: Quote of the Day

Poetry's

work

is the

clarification

and

magnification

of

being"

Jane Hirshfield

Nine Gates: Entering the Mind of Poetry

HarperCollins 1997

April is National Poetry Month

Happy Birthday William Wordsworth


April is National Poetry Month, Ukiah Library Poem of the Day
The World is too much with us

written 200 years ago and still relevant:

The world is too much with us; late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers:
Little we see in Nature that is ours;
We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!
This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon;
The winds that will be howling at all hours,
And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers;
For this, for everything, we are out of tune,
It moves us not.--Great God! I'd rather be
A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn;
So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,
Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;
Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea
;Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn.

Willits Library National Poetry Month Poem of the Day – April 7, 2010

WILLIAM WORDSWORTH’S BIRTHDAY!
Wordsworth’s greatest poems were written during the time he
lived with Dorothy, his sister and muse.

To My Sister

It is the first mild day of March:
Each minute sweeter than before
The redbreast sings from the tall larch
That stands beside our door.

There is a blessing in the air,
Which seems a sense of joy to yield
To the bare trees, and mountains bare,
And grass in the green field.

My sister! (‘tis a wish of mine)
Now that our morning meal is done,
Make haste, your morning task resign;
Come forth and feel the sun….

No joyless forms shall regulate
Our living calendar:
We from to-day, my Friend, will date
The opening of the year.

Love, now a universal birth,
From heart to heart is stealing,
From earth to man, from man to earth:
--It is the hour of feeling.

One moment now may give us more
Than years of toiling reason:
Our minds shall drink at every pore
The spirit of the season.

Some silent laws our hearts will make,
Which they shall long obey:
We for the year to come may take
Our temper from to-day.

And from the blessed power that rolls
About, below, above,
We’ll frame the measure of our souls:
They shall be tuned to love….

April is National Poetry Month

Ukiah Library National Poetry Month Poem of the Day for April 3, 2010

ELAINE EQUI

Etudes

Autumn is a solitude
Winter is a fortitude
Spring is an altitude
Summer is an attitude

Summer is a multitude
Autumn is an aptitude
Winter is a Quaalude
Spring is a prelude

Spring is a lassitude
Summer is a longitude
Autumn is a gratitude
Winter is an interlude

Winter is a beatitude
Spring is a platitude
Summer is a verisimilitude
Autumn is a semi-nude

from the tiny



Willits Library National Poetry Month Poem of the Day - April 3, 2010
　　
Wendell Berry
Woods

I part the out thrusting branches
and come in beneath
the blessed and the blessing trees.
Though I am silent
there is singing around me.
Though I am dark
there is vision around me.
Though I am heavy
there is flight around me.

April is Poetry Month

Donna Kerr and I, Eliza Wingate, will be posted poetry most days in April. We are both out of town this week, but here is the first poems.

Willits Library National Poetry Month Poem of the Day – April 1, 2010
CONRAD AIKEN
from sonnet sequence, FROM AND IN THE HUMAN HEART
"Green, green, and green again…"
Green, green, and green again, and greener still,
spring towards summer bends the immortal bow,
and northward breaks the wave of daffodil,
and northward breaks the wave of summer’s snow:
green, green, and green again, and greener yet,
wide as this forest is, which counts its leaves,
wide as this kingdom, in a green sea set,
which round its shores perpetual blossom weaves –
green, green, and green again, and green once more,
the season finds its term – then greenest, even,
when frost at twilight on the leaf lies hoar,
and one cold star shines bright in greenest heaven:
but love, like music, keeps no seasons ever;
like music, too, once known is known forever.

Ukiah Library National Poetry Month Poem of the Day April 2, 2010
ROBERT BLY
from the New Yorker

Wanting Sumptuous Heavens

No one grumbles among the oyster clans;
And lobsters play their bone guitars all summer.
Only we, with our opposable thumbs, want
Heaven to be, and God to come again.
There is no end to our grumbling; we want
Comfortable earth and sumptuous Heaven.
But the heron standing on one leg in the bog
Drinks his dark rum all day, and is content.