If the lost word is lost, if the spent word is spentIf the unheard, unspokenWord is unspoken, unheard;Still is the spoken word, the Word unheard,The Word without a word, the Word withinThe world and for the world;And the light shone in the darkness andAgainst the Word the unstilled world still whirledAbout the center of the… Continue reading T.S. Eliot
[Humanity i love you] Humanity i love youbecause you would rather black the boots ofsuccess than enquire whose soul dangles from hiswatch-chain which would be embarassing for both parties and because youunflinchingly applaud allsongs containing the words country home andmother when sung at the old howard Humanity i love you becausewhen you’re hard up you… Continue reading E.E. Cummings
Because I know that time is always timeAnd place is always and only placeAnd what is actual is actual only for one timeAnd only for one placeI rejoice that things are as they are andI renounce the blessèd faceAnd renounce the voiceBecause I cannot hope to turn againConsequently I rejoice, having to construct somethingUpon which… Continue reading T.S. Eliot
Humanity, I love youbecause you are perpetuallyputting the secret of lifein your pants and forgetting5it’s there and sitting down on it. — E.E. Cummings, from “Humanity, I Love You,” first published as “La Guerre II” in XLI Poems (The Dial Press, 1925)
Portrait of the Author The birches are mad with green pointsthe wood’s edge is burning with their green,burning, seething—No, no, no.The birches are opening their leaves oneby one. Their delicate leaves unfold coldand separate, one by one. Slender tasselshang swaying from the delicate branch tips—Oh, I cannot say it. There is no word.Black is split… Continue reading William Carlos Williams
But weave, weave the sunlight in your hair. — T.S. Eliot, from “La Figlia che Piange,” quoted in The Hyacinth Girl: T.S. Eliot’s Hidden Muse by Lyndall Gordon (Virago Press, 2022)
Outside, the sun arises from its cradle in the tree-tops of the forest. Shadows of pines are dreams the sun shakes from its eyes. The sun arises. Gold-glowing child, it steps into the sky and sends a birth-song slanting down gray dust streets and sleepy windows of the southern town. – Jean Toomer, from “Kabnis,”… Continue reading Jean Toomer
[you shall above all things be glad and young] you shall above all things be glad and youngFor if you’re young,whatever life you wear it will become you;and if you are gladwhatever’s living will yourself become.Girlboys may nothing more than boygirls need:i can entirely her only love whose any mystery makes every man’sflesh put space… Continue reading E.E. Cummings
Exquisite lonelinessBound of mine own capriceI fly on the wings of an unknown chordThat ye hear not,Can not discernMy music is weird and untamedBarbarous, wild, extreme,I fly on the note that ye hear notOn the chord that ye can not dream. — Ezra Pound, from “Anima Sola,” Collected Early Poems (New Directions, 1976) 976)
I’d rather learn from one bird how to sing / than teach ten thousand stars how not to dance. – E, E. Cummings, from [you shall above all things be glad and young] , 100 Selected Poems (Grove Press, January 10, 1994)
The Vale of Soul-Making 