Thomas Moore
Sad Memory brings the light Of other days around me. — Thomas Moore, from “The Light of Other Days,” The Oxford Book of English Verse 1250–1918. Editor: Arthur Quiller-Couch. (Oxford University Press March 26, 1963)
Category: Academic
Jan Zwicky
The sound of wind in leaves,that was what puzzled me, it took me yearsto understand that it was music.Into silence, a gesture.A sentence: that it speaks.This is the mystery: meaning.Not that these folds of rock existbut that their beauty, here,now, nails us to the sky. — Jan Zwicky, from “The Geology of Norway,” The Harvard… Continue reading Jan Zwicky
Ralph Waldo Emerson
These roses under my window make no reference to former roses or to better ones; they are for what they are; they exist with God today. There is no time for them. There is simply the rose; it is perfect in every moment of its existence. But man postpones or remembers; he does not live… Continue reading Ralph Waldo Emerson
C.T. Salazar
I could believe the soul is a crater—the impact ofyour hands on my chest. Fingertips & lips, forest& fire. You taste like cinnamon, or cyanide. — C.T. Salazar, from “You Called Me Castaway and I Called You,” micro collection This Might Have Meant Fire: Poems, INCH quarterly (no. 39, Summer 2019)
Thomas Moore
The Light Of Other Days OFT, in the stilly night, Ere slumber’s chain has bound me,Fond Memory brings the light Of other days around me: The smiles, the tears Of boyhood’s years, The words of love then spoken; The eyes that shone, Now dimm’d and gone, The cheerful hearts now broken!Thus, in the stilly night, … Continue reading Thomas Moore
Nathan Brown
Poetic approaches to the limits of fabrication are not so historically determined. Sometime around 1862, Emily Dickinson starts a poem with “I cannot live with You –”, then proceeds to unfold a labyrinth of grammatical, theological, and syllogistic implications before arriving at the following decisive formulation: “So We must meet apart – / You there… Continue reading Nathan Brown
James Baldwin
Societies never know it, but the war of an artist with his society is a lover’s war, and he does, at his best, what lovers do, which is to reveal the beloved to himself and, with that revelation, to make freedom real. — James Baldwin, “The Creative Process,” Creative America. (The National Cultural Center /… Continue reading James Baldwin
Stephen Crane
I saw a creature, naked, bestial, Who, squatting upon the ground, Held his heart in his hands, And ate of it. I said, “Is it good, friend?” “It is bitter—bitter,” he answered; “But I like it Because it is bitter, And because it is my heart. — Stephen Crane, “In the Desert,” Twentieth-Century American Poetry… Continue reading Stephen Crane
John Keats
The weariness, the fever, and the fret Here, where men sit and hear each other groan; Where palsy shakes a few, sad, last gray hairs, Where youth grows pale, and spectre-thin, and dies; Where but to think is to be full of sorrow And leaden-eyed despairs. — John Keats, from “Ode… Continue reading John Keats
Pierre Reverdy
I saw you I saw you in the distance in front of the wall I saw the hole of your shadow on the wall There was still some sand left And your bare feet Your footprints that went on and on How would I have known you The… Continue reading Pierre Reverdy
The Vale of Soul-Making 