A Poem for You: A Wartime Dream by Lesyk Panasiuk

2025-04-03T16:27:25-04:00

A Wartime Dream Lesyk Panasiuk translated from the Ukrainian by Katie Farris and Ilya Kaminsky Emptiness lives inside a radio  and newspapers are now printed without letters. I walk up the street but I don’t (do I?) hear my own steps. I notice an acquaintance across the street, and call out to him to say  hello, but bullets of silence fly from my mouth. I start shouting with my hands but my fingers are bent, crooked at my fingers. But it’s just (or is it?) a dream, just a dream which pretends it is an emptiness, inside a radio.      ТІЛЬКИБ СОН Радіо всередині пусте і чорне і газети тепер друкують без букв Іду вулицею але не чую власних кроків помічаю знайомого з іншого боку вулиці і гукаю його щоб привітатись але з мого рота вилітають кулі мовчання які чомусь не схожі на кулі тиші Починаю кричати йому руками але мої пальці вигнуті мої пальці криві й покручені Та це тільки сон тільки сон   [...]

A Poem for You: A Wartime Dream by Lesyk Panasiuk2025-04-03T16:27:25-04:00

A Poem for You: Ways to Measure Trees by MaKshya Tolbert

2025-02-11T10:40:52-05:00

Ways to Measure Trees MaKshya Tolbert         Level II: Basic Assessment All my life I was a hammer: I struck at everything I touched. Then I commit a few Thursdays to trees. I am not gentle but I could be. Around one tree, I try my basic circling steps, tap the tree’s bark with my mallet and listen for the difference: alive? dead? alive? dead? alive? still alive? I muscle coils of clay and learn the same lesson again and again– could be clay trees family trees literal trees: I hear the precarious things. I go phone-my-forester asking [...]

A Poem for You: Ways to Measure Trees by MaKshya Tolbert2025-02-11T10:40:52-05:00

A Poem for You: A Phosphorescence by James Cervantes

2024-12-04T13:16:50-05:00

A Phosphorescence James Cervantes I discovered phosphorescence one day clearing pine needles from an acre plot in the mountains. I raked and scratched large piles, then became obsessed with the base of one tree, raking harder and deeper until black, matted clumps of needles came up to reveal a glow. Fire, I thought, afraid for the forest. But no smoke, no burn smells. There could be light without fire, like that moment of warmth I mistook for fire, a gentle touch on your arm that was light and would be no more than that. Copyright © 2024 by James Cervantes. Originally [...]

A Poem for You: A Phosphorescence by James Cervantes2024-12-04T13:16:50-05:00

A Poem for You: A Christmas Carol By Christina Rossetti

2024-12-04T13:12:19-05:00

A Christmas Carol By Christina Rossetti In the bleak midwinter, frosty wind made moan, Earth stood hard as iron, water like a stone; Snow had fallen, snow on snow, snow on snow, In the bleak midwinter, long ago. Our God, Heaven cannot hold Him, nor earth sustain; Heaven and earth shall flee away when He comes to reign. In the bleak midwinter a stable place sufficed The Lord God Almighty, Jesus Christ. Enough for Him, whom cherubim, worship night and day, Breastful of milk, and a mangerful of hay; Enough for Him, whom angels fall before, The ox and ass and camel [...]

A Poem for You: A Christmas Carol By Christina Rossetti2024-12-04T13:12:19-05:00

A Poem for You: Delayza’s Necklace by Max Early

2024-12-04T12:58:38-05:00

Delayza’s Necklace Max Early We enter to sounds of bells. The hall’s warmth evokes an imprint of my small self standing by my grandparents. Their presence I sense in drums and singers’ voices. Collective breath of all colors hovers above the leaping herd. Eagle and hawk feathers adorn the deer dance’s rhythmic scent— forest evergreen, damp earth. Delayza puts her hand in mine. The seated crowd hinders her view. I lift her above the masses— a butterfly beyond reach. Her irises bloom to the choir and drumbeats rumbling nearby snowflakes. I set her among the gold straw flecks glistening on the [...]

A Poem for You: Delayza’s Necklace by Max Early2024-12-04T12:58:38-05:00

A Poem for You: Untitled by Lance Henson

2024-12-04T12:43:04-05:00

Untitled Lance Henson Here is a place where nothing can die Darkness that lives beneath the leaves We bring our nights there without knowing We bring our fear there before the singing begins We bring our silent names there hoping we are forgiven We bring our hands there scented of a river We bring our prayers that hide and watch us The landscape where we have held the loose feathers Of a fallen bird And awakened in the land of the unseen Here is a place where nothing can die ... Copyright © 2024 by Lance Henson. Originally published in Poem-a-Day [...]

A Poem for You: Untitled by Lance Henson2024-12-04T12:43:04-05:00

A Poem for You: As if some little Arctic flower by Emily Dickinson

2024-12-04T12:39:15-05:00

As if some little Arctic flower Emily Dickinson As if some little Arctic flower, Upon the polar hem, Went wandering down the latitudes, Until it puzzled came To continents of summer, To firmaments of sun, To strange, bright crowds of flowers, And birds of foreign tongue! I say, as if this little flower To Eden wandered in — What then? Why, nothing, only, Your inference therefrom! This poem is in the public domain. Published in Poem-a-Day on December 1, 2024, by the Academy of American Poets.

A Poem for You: As if some little Arctic flower by Emily Dickinson2024-12-04T12:39:15-05:00

A Poem for You: Chinese Dream 61 by Timothy Yu 

2024-10-22T10:58:15-04:00

Chinese Dream 61 Timothy Yu  Cartoons. Computer-generated smiles and fixed eyes fill my daughter’s screen, show her form is content, content form. She’s over unicorns. Now she plays a child who always knows best. There’s nothing to fear except when we near an evening when the moon’s not giving light, turning away. It’s late for attitude, but it’s now that rude words are a parent’s heritance. Is she white? Race is something her father has, a way of arresting play away from her, in Timothy’s long trail of ancestors, immigrants, grasping arms out of elsewhere, of whom she’ll be one. The [...]

A Poem for You: Chinese Dream 61 by Timothy Yu 2024-10-22T10:58:15-04:00

A Poem for You: Value City by Idra Novey

2024-10-15T10:11:35-04:00

Value City Idra Novey Under the marked-down dresses, we conjured trips to Oslo. Also to Lima. Mel says the game was my idea, hiding behind hundreds of hems, inventing trips to cities we knew only as pleasing arrangements of letters, places we’d likely never see. Mel says it’s how she remembers me: cross-legged, knotting lengths of licorice, traveling the planet under racks of final sales.   A rhinestone belt fell on my head once, she says, and I kept on talking about Alaska, the claws of King Crabs we’d crack open and taste the arctic, find out what we were missing [...]

A Poem for You: Value City by Idra Novey2024-10-15T10:11:35-04:00

A Poem for You: Dedicated to All Human Beings Who Suffer by Yang Licai

2024-09-30T16:15:36-04:00

Dedicated to All Human Beings Who Suffer Yang Licai translated from the Chinese by Joshua Edwards and Lynn Xu 1. No, Behind the truth are other truths   2. Rain makes a painting on the earth  In the classical manner Meticulously depicting what’s hidden from view: Mountain, forest, valley, gorge Building, vehicle, person  Beasts, cattle, creeping things, and flying fowl Gradually expressing the outline  From invisible to visible  From solid state to a state of change  Is this a form of justice?  Rain, and representations of rain  Shrouds, and the shroud’s ability to obscure and to change  This is like one [...]

A Poem for You: Dedicated to All Human Beings Who Suffer by Yang Licai2024-09-30T16:15:36-04:00

Contact Info

B03 New South Building, Princeton University

Phone: 609.258.9980

Go to Top