![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.thelefortreport.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/laureate.jpg\" "\\"laureate\\"")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
This is the beginning of what appears to be a great year for poetry in our lives.<\/p>\n
Someone finally had the sense to gather in one compendium, the poems of all the American poets who have been appointed over the last 75 years to the office of “Poet Laureate.”\u00a0 The sensible one here is Elizabeth Hun Schmidt, “Forwarded” and abetted by none other than justly-popular poet, Billy Collins (who held the Poet Laureate office from 2001 until 2003). \u00a0The book is a treasure trove for those who love American poetry (legions, I know). \u00a0The surprise is that the book, while presenting some of the best poetry by the normal suspects of 20th and 21st Century American poetry (Frost, Lowell, Bishop, Williams, Lowell, Kumin, Brodsky, Haas, Gluck, Pinsky, Merwin, etc.),\u00a0 manages to introduce us to some great poetry from poets that were previously unfamiliar to us (we’re ashamed to admit: Kay Ryan, Rita Dove, Stephen Spender, Leonie Adams and Louise Bogan).<\/p>\n
Below is a sampling of our favorites from this fine collection. \u00a0Please give a close read, and give poetry a chance to immeasurably illumine this life.<\/p>\n
The first reminds us of the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival, the Live Oak Festival and other enchanting environs where folk music flourishes.<\/p>\n
At midnight tears
\nRun in your ears.<\/p>\n
Miss Murphy in first grade
\nwrote its name in chalk
\nacross the board and told us
\nit was roaring down the stormtracks
\nof the Milky Way at frightful speed
\nand if it wandered off its course
\nand smashed into the earth
\nthere’d be no school tomorrow.
\nA red-bearded preacher from the hills
\nwith a wild look in his eyes
\nstood in the public square
\nat the playground’s edge
\nproclaiming he was sent by God
\nto save every one of us,
\neven the little children.
\n“Repent, ye sinners!” he shouted,
\nwaving his hand-lettered sign.
\nAt supper I felt sad to think
\nthat it was probably
\nthe last meal I’d share
\nwith my mother and my sisters;
\nbut I felt excited too
\nand scarcely touched my plate.
\nSo mother scolded me
\nand sent me early to my room.
\nThe whole family’s asleep
\nexcept for me. They never heard me steal
\ninto the stairwell hall and climb
\nthe ladder to the fresh night air.
\nLook for me, Father, on the roof
\nof the red brick building
\nat the foot of Green Street\u2014
\nthat’s where we live, you know, on the top floor.
\nI’m the boy in the white flannel gown
\nsprawled on this coarse gravel bed
\nsearching the starry sky,
\nwaiting for the world to end.<\/p>\n
She wanted a little room for thinking:
\nbut she saw diapers steaming on the line,
\na doll slumped behind the door.
\nSo she lugged a chair behind the garage
\nto sit out the children’s naps<\/p>\n
Sometimes there were things to watch–
\nthe pinched armor of a vanished cricket,
\na floating maple leaf. Other days
\nshe stared until she was assured
\nwhen she closed her eyes
\nshe’d only see her own vivid blood.<\/p>\n
She had an hour, at best, before Liza appeared building a palace. Later If you were drowning, I\u2019d come to the rescue, If you were a bird, I \u2018d cut a record If you were Chinese, I\u2019d learn the languages, If you loved volcanoes, I\u2019d be lava <\/strong>an introductory lecture<\/p>\n This morning we shall spend a few minutes Notice, in conclusion, I think continually of those who were truly great. What is precious is never to forget Near the snow, near the sun, in the highest fields In addition to these great poets and poems, we were struck by a portion of the introduction to the collection. \u00a0In these times and with recent political events and histrionics we would all do well to stop, read and consider the words of John F. Kennedy and the verses of Robert Frost, who was Poet Laureate from 1958-1959, and whom JFK invited to speak at Kennedy’s Inauguration in 1961.\u00a0 Kennedy had this to say:<\/p>\n “I asked Robert Frost to come and speak at the Inauguration…because I felt he had something important to say to those of us who are occupied with the business of G0vernment, that he would remind us that we are dealing with life, the hopes and fears of millions of people….\u00a0 He said it well in a poem called “Choose Something Like a Star,” in which he speaks of the fairest star in sight and says:<\/p>\n It asks a little of us here.<\/em><\/p>\n It asks of us a certain height,<\/em><\/p>\n So when at times the mob is swayed<\/em><\/p>\n To carry praise or blame too far,<\/em><\/p>\n We may choose something like a star<\/em><\/p>\n To stay our minds on and be staid.<\/em><\/p>\n In other words, let us be methodical and slower to anger, and let us resist the urge to canonize or excoriate.\u00a0 Instead, let’s be thoroughly thoughtful and give wisdom at least a toehold’s chance before speaking or acting rashly.\u00a0 We have miles to go on this front before we sleep (yours truly, especially).<\/p>\n And as for poetry itself, in Tom Stoppard’s play “The Real Thing,” the main character has this to say:\u00a0 “I don’t think writers are sacred, but words are.\u00a0 They deserve respect.\u00a0 If you get the right ones in the right order, you can nudge the world a little, or make a poem children will speak for you when you’re dead.”<\/p>\n We hope that poetry will nudge your world a little this year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" This is the beginning of what appears to be a great year for poetry in our lives. Someone finally had the sense to gather in one compendium, the poems of all the American poets who have been appointed over the last 75 years to the office of “Poet Laureate.”\u00a0 The sensible one here is Elizabeth […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3893","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-poetry"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelefortreport.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3893","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelefortreport.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelefortreport.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelefortreport.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelefortreport.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3893"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelefortreport.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3893\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelefortreport.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3893"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelefortreport.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3893"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelefortreport.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3893"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\npouting from the top of the stairs.
\nAnd just\u00a0what<\/em> was mother doing
\nout back with the field mice? Why,<\/p>\n
\nthat night when Thomas rolled over and
\nlurched into her, she would open her eyes
\nand think of the place that was hers
\nfor an hour–where
\nshe was nothing,
\npure nothing, in the middle of the day.<\/p>\nLove Song<\/strong><\/h1>\n
by Joseph Brodsky<\/strong><\/h2>\n
\nwrap you in my blanket and pour hot tea.
\nIf I were a sheriff, I\u2019d arrest you
\nand keep you in the cell under lock and key.<\/p>\n
\nand listen all night long to your high-pitched trill.
\nIf I were a sergeant, you\u2019d be my recruit,
\nand boy i can assure you you\u2019d love the drill.<\/p>\n
\nburn a lot of incense, wear funny clothes.
\nIf you were a mirror, I\u2019d storm the Ladies,
\ngive you my red lipstick and puff your nose.<\/p>\n
\nrenlentlessly erupting from my hidden source.
\nAnd if you were my wife, I\u2019d be your lover
\nbecause the church is firmly against divorce.<\/p>\nMoney<\/strong><\/h1>\n
by Howard Nemerov<\/strong><\/h2>\n
\nUpon the study of symbolism, which is basic
\nTo the nature of money. I show you this nickel.
\nIcons and cryptograms are written all over
\nThe nickel: one side shows a hunchbacked bison
\nBending his head and curling his tail to accommodate
\nThe circular nature of money. Over him arches
\nUNITED STATES OF AMERICA, and, squinched in
\nBetween that and his rump, E PLURIBUS UNUM,
\nA Roman reminiscence that appears to mean
\nAn indeterminately large number of things
\nAll of which are the same. Under the bison
\nA straight line giving him a ground to stand on
\nReads FIVE CENTS. And on the other side of our nickel
\nThere is the profile of a man with long hair
\nAnd a couple of feathers in the hair; we know
\nSomehow that he is an American Indian, and
\nHe wears the number nineteen-thirty-six.
\nRight in front of his eyes the word LIBERTY, bent
\nTo conform with the curve of the rim, appears
\nTo be falling out of the sky Y first; the Indian
\nKeeps his eyes downcast and does not notice this;
\nTo notice it, indeed, would be shortsighted of him.
\nSo much for the iconography of one of our nickels,
\nWhich is now becoming a rarity and something of
\nA collectors\u2019 item: for as a matter of fact
\nThere is almost nothing you can buy with a nickel,
\nThe representative American Indian was destroyed
\nA hundred years or so ago, and his descendants\u2019
\nRelations with liberty are maintained with reservations,
\nOr primitive concentration camps; while the bison,
\nExcept for a few examples kept in cages,
\nIs now extinct. Something like that, I think,
\nIs what Keats must have meant in his celebrated
\nOde on a Grecian Urn.<\/p>\n
\nA number of circumstances sometimes overlooked
\nEven by experts: (a) Indian and bison,
\nConfined to obverse and reverse of the coin,
\nCan never see each other; they are looking
\nIn opposite directions, the bison past
\nThe Indian\u2019s feathers, the Indian past
\nThe bison\u2019s tail; (c) they are upside down
\nTo one another; (d) the bison has a human face
\nSomewhat resembling that of Jupiter Ammon.
\nI hope that our studies today will have shown you
\nSomething of the import of symbolism
\nWith respect to the understanding of what is symbolized.<\/p>\nI Think Continually of Those Who Were Truly Great<\/strong><\/h1>\n
By Stephen Spender<\/strong><\/h1>\n
\nWho, from the womb, remembered the soul’s history
\nThrough corridors of light where the hours are suns
\nEndless and singing. Whose lovely ambition
\nWas that their lips, still touched with fire,
\nShould tell of the Spirit clothed from head to foot in song.
\nAnd who hoarded from the Spring branches
\nThe desires falling across their bodies like blossoms.<\/p>\n
\nThe essential delight of the blood drawn from ageless springs
\nBreaking through rocks in worlds before our earth.
\nNever to deny its pleasure in the morning simple light
\nNor its grave evening demand for love.
\nNever to allow gradually the traffic to smother
\nWith noise and fog the flowering of the spirit.<\/p>\n
\nSee how these names are feted by the waving grass
\nAnd by the streamers of white cloud
\nAnd whispers of wind in the listening sky.
\nThe names of those who in their lives fought for life
\nWho wore at their hearts the fire’s center.
\nBorn of the sun they traveled a short while towards the sun,
\nAnd left the vivid air signed with their honor.<\/p>\n