Adrienne Rich (1929-2012)

Adrienne Cecile Rich, como Sylvia Plath já prenunciava nos seus diários, marcou uma geração. Morreu ontem, mas as suas palavras continuam. Como estas, por exemplo.

"In Those Years"

In those years, people will say, we lost track

of the meaning of we, of you

we found ourselves

reduced to I

and the whole thing became

silly, ironic, terrible:

we were trying to live a personal life

and, yes, that was the only life

we could bear witness to

But the great dark birds of history screamed and plunged

into our personal weather

They were headed somewhere else but their beaks and pinions drove

along the shore, through rages of fog

where we stood, saying I

Citado a partir de: Poem Hunter

Those Winter Sundays by Robert Hayden : The Poetry Foundation

Those Winter Sundays by Robert Hayden : The Poetry Foundation

Sundays too my father got up early

and put his clothes on in the blueblack cold,

then with cracked hands that ached

from labor in the weekday weather made

banked fires blaze. No one ever thanked him.

I’d wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking.breaking. / When In A Ballad of Remembrance (1962), the line between these two lines reads: "and smell the iron and velvet bloom of heat." While this line was deleted, the version in A Ballad of Remembrance is still a sonnet. There are other variants between both versions; mostly relating to where the line breaks.

When breaking. / When In A Ballad of Remembrance (1962), the line between these two lines reads:"and smell the iron and velvet bloom of heat." While this line was deleted, the version in A Ballad of Remembrance is still a sonnet. There are other variants between both versions; mostly relating to where the line breaks. the rooms were warm, he’d call,

and slowly I would rise and dress,

fearing the chronic angers of that house,

Speaking indifferently to him,

who had who had In A Ballad of Remembrance: who’d driven out the cold

and polished my good shoes as well.

What did I know, what did I know

of love’s austereaustere Grave, sober; and lacking adornment and lonely offices?

Robert Hayden, “Those Winter Sundays” from Collected Poems of Robert Hayden, edited by Frederick Glaysher. Copyright ©1966 by Robert Hayden. Reprinted with the permission of Liveright Publishing Corporation.
Source: Collected Poems of Robert Hayden (Liveright Publishing Corporation, 1985)

Image source

Convenience

Convenience - W.S. Merwin

We were not made in its image
but from the beginning we believed in it
not for the pure appeasement of hunger
but for its availability
it could command our devotion
beyond question and without our consent
and by whatever name we have called it
in its name love has been set aside
unmeasured time has been devoted to it
forests have been erased and rivers poisoned
and truth has been relegated for it
we believe that we have a right to it
even though it belongs to no one
we carry a way back to it everywhere
we are sure that it is saving something
we consider it our personal savior
all we have to pay for it is ourselves

Source: The New York Review of Books

One-minute poetry

            "I robbed the Woods" by Emily Dickinson

I robbed the Woods—
The trusting Woods.
The unsuspecting Trees
Brought out their Burs and mosses
My fantasy to please.
I scanned their trinkets curious—I grasped—I bore away—
What will the solemn Hemlock—
What will the  Oak tree say?

Image

Why do poets write?

I don't believe that poetry can save the world. I do believe that the forces in our wish to share something of our experience by turning it into something and giving it to somebody: that is poetry. Muriel Rukeyser, The Education of a Poet. Via American Poets Project

"Fog" by Carl Sandburg

"Fog" by Carl Sandburg

The fog comes
on little cat feet.

It sits looking
over harbor and city
on silent haunches
and then moves on.

Budapeste

(Post pré-programado para publicação a 19 de Agosto)

Atmosphere

Atmosphere by Robert Lee Frost
Inscription for a Garden Wall

Winds blow the open grassy places bleak;

But where this old wall burns a sunny cheek,

They eddy over it too toppling weak

To blow the earth or anything self-clear;

Moisture and color and odor thicken here.

The hours of daylight gather atmosphere.

Photo by A.A.

Fire and Ice

"Fire and Ice" by Robert Frost

Some say the world will end in fire;     
Some say in ice.
From what I've tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To know that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.

Imagem: 

Georges Lemmen (1865-1916), Plage à Heist, 1891

Oil on wood

H. 37.5; W. 45.7 cm

Paris, Musée d'Orsay

© RMN (Musée d'Orsay) / Gérard Blot

Mushrooms

Overnight, very
Whitely, discreetly,
Very quietly

Our toes, our noses
Take hold on the loam,
Acquire the air.

Nobody sees us,
Stops us, betrays us;
The small grains make room.

Soft fists insist on
Heaving the needles,
The leafy bedding,

Even the paving.
Our hammers, our rams,
Earless and eyeless,

Perfectly voiceless,
Widen the crannies,
Shoulder through holes. We

Diet on water,
On crumbs of shadow,
Bland-mannered, asking

Little or nothing.
So many of us!
So many of us!

We are shelves, we are
Tables, we are meek,
We are edible,

Nudgers and shovers
In spite of ourselves.
Our kind multiplies:

We shall by morning
Inherit the earth.
Our foot’s in the door.

"Mushrooms" by Sylvia Plath

What I most appreciate about this poem is how the richness of sound patterns is somewhat lessened by the “multiplication” of visual “stimuli”, replicating the “quiet multiplication” of the fungi. In spite of their discretion, these mushrooms are indeed an uncanny sight.
Plath’s immersion in popular culture contributed to this poetry that resonates so well with our visual culture and visual learning. (And her persistent popularity may also have something to do with that...)

Poetry for children

Behold the duck.

It does not cluck.

A cluck it lacks.

It quacks.

It is specially fond

Of a puddle or pond.

When it dines or sups,

It bottoms ups.

The Duck, Ogden Nash