Poet of the week - Nancy Willard

Choosing a Stone
Nancy Willard

The tide pulls back, leaving its cargo of stones
on the broad counter of sand.
A boy takes only black stones halved with a white thread,
like a parcel too private to open.
His mother gathers stones that mimic food:
two quartz eggs and a granite potato
and a loaf of bread with a cold crust.

This man hunts the white stones,
smooth as unblemished fruit
made, he feels, for his hand alone.
He picks one up, fingers a hairline crack.
Throws it back. This woman saves stones
on the verge of extinction. Thin as a cat's ear,
they shine like coins rubbed faceless
for luck, for safe crossing.

From In the Salt Marsh, Alfred A. Knopf, 2004.

Poet of the week - Yannis Ritsos

Part 3 of A Greek Miscellany. (See previous posts.)

People and Suitcases
Yannis Ritsos

Don't leave your wet towel on the table.
It's time to start straightening up.
In a month or so, another summer will be over.
What a sad demobilization, putting away bathing suits,
sunglasses, short-sleeves, sandals,
twilight colors on a luminous sea. Soon,
the outdoor cinemas will be closed, their chairs
stacked in a corner. The boats will sail
less often. Safely back home, the lovely tourist girls
will sit up late, shuffling through color glossies
of swimmers, fishermen, oarsmen--not us.
Already, up in the loft, our suitcases wait to find out
when we'll be leaving, where we're going this time,
and for how long. You also know that inside
those scuffed, hollow suitcases there's a bit of string,
a couple of rubber bands, and not a single flag.

From Late Into the Night, translated by Martin McKinsey. Copyright 1995, Oberlin College Press.

Click here for more on Yannis Ritsos.

A Greek Miscellany, part 2

In the spirit of the opening ceremonies at the Athens Olympics, we'd like to present Colin Wood's version of Odysseus' encounter with the Cyclops:

Odysseus and the Cyclops movie. You'll need Quicktime in order to watch...

(Sometimes we like Classics Lite - be sure to check out the anachronistic dialogue and Odysseus' sporty cowboy bandanna. Who knew?)

A Greek Miscellany

The Athens Olympics are in full swing, so we thought we'd post some Greek poetry in lieu of a "Poet of the week" feature.

WINTER 1942
Manolis Anagnostakis

The calendar once more dawned Sunday.

Seven days
One after the other
Bound together
All the same
Like the jet-black beads
Of seminary rosaries.

One, four, fifty-two

Six whole days for one
Six days waiting
Six days thinking
For one day
For just one day
For just one hour
Afternoon and sun.

Identical Hours
Without awareness
Trying to shine
On a background of pages
The colour of mourning.

A day of dubious joy
Perhaps just one hour
A few moments.
In the evening the waiting begins again
Again another week, four, fifty-two

………………………………

Today it's been raining since morning
A fine yellow sleet.

© Translation: Philip Ramp . Reprinted from Modern Greek Poetry.

From Three Poems of Rock and Sea
Pavlos D. Pezaros

Greece,
Every time I write your name
- As I fill in the backs of envelopes -
In foreign letters
I cry.

From Poetry Greece, Issue 3, Winter 2001/2001.

Poet of the week - Gwendolyn Brooks

the sonnet-ballad
Gwendolyn Brooks

Oh mother, mother, where is happiness?
They took my lover's tallness off to war,
Left me lamenting. Now I cannot guess
What I can use an empty heart-cup for.
He won't be coming back here any more.
Some day the war will end, but, oh, I knew
When he went walking grandly out that door
That my sweet love would have to be untrue.
Would have to be untrue. Would have to court
Coquettish death, whose impudent and strange
Possessive arms and beauty (of a sort)
Can make a hard man hesitate - and change.
And he will be the one to stammer, "Yes."
Oh mother, mother, where is happiness?


From "Appendix to The Anniad: leaves from a loose-leaf
war diary" in Annie Allen by Gwendolyn Brooks, published
by Harper. Copyright © 1949 by Gwendolyn Brooks. All rights reserved.

Read more about Gwendolyn Brooks at The Academy of American Poets website and Modern American Poetry. Listen to Brooks reading two of her poems on National Public Radio's All Things Considered.

(Our opinion: Brooks should have been a Poet Laureate.)

!#@*

Or, in this case, simply &.

&
Rex Wilder

Do I have to spell it out? And is a grand-
parent or sacred text, respect on demand
Certainly, a star on every language's
Hollywood Boulevard, but no teenager's
First choice when heady impatience
Walks into the room, her future tense
All beguilement. Eternity's stunt double,
Space with impeccable timing, trouble
Looked forward to: the ampersand insists
On promiscuity, on strangers' trysts,
No previous likeness necessary until later,
When they get to know each other better.
One line, one pick-up line to prove
No match is inconsequential, or love.

From The Southern Review, Volume 39, Number 4 (Autumn 2003).

We found this on the Poetry Daily website.

Poet of the week - Randall Mann

While browsing Poetry Daily, we found this piece by Randall Mann...

The Heron
Randall Mann

A pond the color of Oriental teas.
A heron refusing to look anywhere but east.

Mangroves flecked with a fire,
deep-set birches rife

with the wait for night. In stone,
the heron stares: the stoic tones

of the sky a storied procession of palms;
their red-tipped fronds, overhanging lamps.

Water-bird, it has been centuries since I felt
anything for you. You have been left:

look around. Why does the owl
rest on a goddess's shoulder while you wade so low?


From Complaint in the Garden, 2003 Kenyon Review Prize in Poetry for a First Book, (Zoo Press).