I just ran across for the first time this week, the New York Times ‘Poetry Pairings’ series. From the NYT website:
In our weekly “Poetry Pairing” series we collaborate with the Poetry Foundation to feature a work from its American Life in Poetry project alongside content from The Times that somehow echoes, extends or challenges the poem’s themes.
I don’t reproach the spring
for starting up again.
I can’t blame it
for doing what it must
year after year.
I know that my grief
will not stop the green.
The grass blade my bend
but only in the wind.
It doesn’t pain me to see
that clumps of alders above the water
have something to rustle with again.
I take note of the fact
that the shore of a certain lake
is still—as if you were living—
as lovely as before.
I don’t resent
the view for its vista
of a sun-dazzled bay.
I am even able to imagine
some non-us
sitting at this minute
on a fallen birch trunk.
I respect their right
to whisper, laugh,
and lapse into happy silence.
I can even allow
that they are bound by love
and that he holds her
with a living arm.
Something freshly birdish
starts rustling in the reeds.
I sincerely want them
to hear it.
I don’t require changes
from the surf,
now diligent, now sluggish,
obeying not me.
I expect nothing
from the depths near the woods,
first emerald,
then sapphire,
then black.
There’s one thing I won’t agree to:
my own return.
The privilege of presence—
I give it up.
I survived you by enough,
and only by enough,
to contemplate from afar.
……………
Wislawa Szymborska
David Lehman, author of The Last Avant-Garde, and editor of The Best American Poetry series, shared on NPR his three favorite poems for 2011. “The Mysterious Arrival of an Unusual Letter” by Mark Strand was one of the three.
Strand’s poem, a prose poem, leverages mystery over logic and, appropriately, is written as a prose poem. Read the poem here.
“To bring inspiration and innovation to every athlete in the world.”
- Nike Mission Statement
My mission is to be a unique driving experience.
My mission is to be putty in your hands.
My mission is to be your favorite pair of jeans.
My mission is to whisper in your ear in
Several pre-selected Romance languages. To star
In a movie that takes Sundance by storm.
(I hope Penelope Cruz will be in it
Even though she will contractually throw pans
Of ink on my head and shoot me colorfully
With a sleepy pistol and make her lips do that
Pouty thing upon which we can hang
The Collected Works of Henry James.)
Which reminds me. My mission is
to rewrite the dull parts of the Kama Sutra.
Because, listen, people! What’s a man without a dream?
I say he’s calamari soup. I say he’s a man without
A mission statement. This is why my mission
Is to be a global partner and a preferred
Provider. to serve nutritious food to
A hungry world. To leave it all on the field,
To go hard when coach calls my number.
My mission is to write one thing you must
Slip under your pillow. My mission is:
Be the pillow. My mission is: Be the night.
My mission is to bring inspiration and innovation
To every recluse in town, to every jaw-dropping
Wearer of a white mini, to every captain of
A space station, to every radio listener too shy
To call in, to even the stranger who left a nice note
On my windshield that time. To you, in especial.
My mission is to be in business for eternity.
……………
Joseph Di Prisco. Zyzzyva. Vol. XXVII, No. 3, Winter 2011.
This quote appears on the back cover of the January 2012 issue of Poetry Magazine:
We talk about survivor’s guilt, but not about observer’s guilt. For journalists this is particularly acute, as we are paid to watch suffering and paid more during war. For poets, it’s even worse.
I cut some roses from my garden, then went back in and put them in a vase. I put the vase on the dining room table and sat there staring at them for a while. They were yellow verging on orange with a red border. It was as though they were in motion, some private sea with tiny waves swirling about. Several dolphins were leaping under a clear, blue sky. I saw a man on a raft in the distance, just a speck really, shouting something and waving a white flag, but then he was gone. I went back to work, trying to solve some problems. Three thousand units shipped there, six thousand over there, nine thousand there, and so on and so on. I saw that it would never be enough. Everybody needed their units. And the planet was shrinking. You could feel it getting smaller and smaller. I stood up and went back outside. The raven had its eye on me. And I was watching it. It wanted to speak. It had something to say. I took a few steps toward it. “Yew, yew,” it said. “Me, me?” I said. “What about me? I come in peace. I mean you no harm. But enough about me. I hear you are afraid of nothing. Tell me, is that true?” The bird just stared at me and said, “Yew, yew,” again, and this time I took it to be in a sort of accusatory manner. So I said, “All right, I confess, it’s me, I’m the one, I’m the source of all the problems. So what do you want me to do about it? If it wasn’t me, it would be somebody else.” And then the bird flew off, right in the middle of my speech. I was just warming up. That was just my opening volley. He’d made his point, though. It was me. That bird didn’t mince words. Perhaps he will return, and we can talk again. I walked around the yard, always with the roses in view. There’s no way to explain what they do, or why they do it. Well, breeding, of course, but that’s just some madman tinkering with the secrets of the universe. The roses, still, have minds of their own. They’re just humoring the madman. Dried roses have been found in Egyptian tombs thousands of years old. I think they know what they’re doing, and it’s beyond us to even think about. But they’re slowly revealing something, that’s all. Just shut up and don’t ask too many questions. A car pulled into my driveway. It was Dustin. “Sorry to bother you like this, pal, but they need more units in Ethiopia, Addis Ababa, to be precise,” he said. “Ethiopia?” I said. “I didn’t know we did business there.” “Oh yeah, big business. We’re hot there. Can you do it right away. They need ten thousand units,” he said. “I’ll see what I can do,” I said. “Sorry to ruin your day off, but in this business the clock never stops ticking, as they say. Hey, thanks, Skip. I got to run,” he said. And, with that, he backed out of the driveway and sped down the road, narrowly missing a neighbor’s dog. King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba want their units. The man on the raft is waving. He wants his units, too. So much pressure. The earth is trembling. The mystery brews in the soil, then pokes its way out and starts to open. We gasp, jump back, speechless, weak, fall to the ground, worshipping.
……………
James Tate. “The Raven Speaks.” Raritan 23.1 (2003) and Return to the City of White Donkeys.