Poem – Page 7 – Princeton Writes

A Poem for You: Breath for Metal by Ching-In Chen

admin2023-09-11T14:14:20-04:00

Breath for Metal Ching-In Chen This a story I’ve kept in soft orange inside my steel body. I’ve wanted to wait until I’ve cooled to hum, until my touch wouldn’t burn. I’ve practiced to gentle not to be odd. To remember me a calm line transmitting not artificial sugar smile melts a rainy spring I do not want to feel a tug you wait again for what’s dissolved into scent for this week. Copyright © 2023 by Ching-In Chen. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on September 5, 2023, by the Academy of American Poets.

A Poem for You: Breath for Metal by Ching-In Chenadmin2023-09-11T14:14:20-04:00

A Poem for You: After Anchorage IV Joan Naviyuk Kane

admin2023-09-11T12:44:01-04:00

After Anchorage IV Joan Naviyuk Kane of gadolinium, November-veined, copper on the tongue & summoning sleep & ether though wide-awake after click & whir & click again of excision & extraction & artery notched & every hand in the dim back room summoned to press the bloodied breast to bone & told to find calm & stay calm & O type O negative & calm & fuck the radiologist who would remember the day years after, bumbling mutters & with whiskey-thick fingers on black Friday & routine gone awry & no luck for transfusion & hours later [...]

A Poem for You: After Anchorage IV Joan Naviyuk Kaneadmin2023-09-11T12:44:01-04:00

A Poem for You: —From “Rainier” by Kris Johnson

admin2023-09-11T12:28:22-04:00

—From "Rainier" by Kris Johnson I am in love with this mountain that all summer long threatens to killmy father. Swallow him in the pale blue Emmons, crush him beneath an avalancheor send him sliding down the Kautz - his crampons falling on pre-dawn ice. This mountain I love will one day knock on the door of my mother's home, unearth the graves of my relatives and carry hyacinths and coffins down the Duwamish, out into the Sound.

A Poem for You: —From “Rainier” by Kris Johnsonadmin2023-09-11T12:28:22-04:00

A Poem for You: A Moving Grove by Iryna Shuvalova

admin2023-09-11T12:16:46-04:00

a moving grove Iryna Shuvalova Translated from the Ukrainian by Uilleam Blacker go escape while you can go escape buy tickets for the last water train which as it subsides reveals curbs pavements the riverside the anatomy of the sinewy city that lies naked and unfamiliar like a man in your bed go—escape while you can take all your belongings everything that’s yours split lips cut knees the cracked jar of a head from which memory slowly seeps and all you can leave just leave behind the evening lights in the windows the beloved exposed throat of the sky the [...]

A Poem for You: A Moving Grove by Iryna Shuvalovaadmin2023-09-11T12:16:46-04:00

A Poem for You: September Tomatoes BY KARINA BOROWICZ

admin2023-05-08T15:01:37-04:00

September Tomatoes BY KARINA BOROWICZ The whiskey stink of rot has settled in the garden, and a burst of fruit flies rises when I touch the dying tomato plants. Still, the claws of tiny yellow blossoms flail in the air as I pull the vines up by the roots and toss them in the compost. It feels cruel. Something in me isn’t ready to let go of summer so easily. To destroy what I’ve carefully cultivated all these months. Those pale flowers might still have time to fruit. My great-grandmother sang with the girls of her village as they pulled the flax. [...]

A Poem for You: September Tomatoes BY KARINA BOROWICZadmin2023-05-08T15:01:37-04:00

A Poem for You: Diagnosis BY MEENA ALEXANDER

admin2023-05-08T14:49:47-04:00

Diagnosis BY MEENA ALEXANDER So how will it end? You want it straight? He looked me in the eye: You will lose weight, Become more and more tired. This kind will not enter your bones or brain. I stared at him, ravished. Could not pluck my eyes from his old man face. — Later the cuneiform earth Skimmed in snow Inviolate bones Torn ligament of language. A skeletal beauty Stars still uncover. — Come dawn a young doctor In reddening shirt sleeves, His voice quick, prickly undersong— No grandeur here, Just breath assuaging its own battery. Flash of sempiternal spring? A [...]

A Poem for You: Diagnosis BY MEENA ALEXANDERadmin2023-05-08T14:49:47-04:00

A Poem for You: Evening Hawk BY ROBERT PENN WARREN

admin2023-05-08T13:04:38-04:00

Evening Hawk BY ROBERT PENN WARREN From plane of light to plane, wings dipping through Geometries and orchids that the sunset builds, Out of the peak's black angularity of shadow, riding The last tumultuous avalanche of Light above pines and the guttural gorge, The hawk comes. His wing Scythes down another day, his motion Is that of the honed steel-edge, we hear The crashless fall of stalks of Time. The head of each stalk is heavy with the gold of our error. Look! Look! he is climbing the last light Who knows neither Time nor error, and under Whose eye, unforgiving, the [...]

A Poem for You: Evening Hawk BY ROBERT PENN WARRENadmin2023-05-08T13:04:38-04:00

A Poem for You: Every Job Has a First Day BY REBECCA GAYLE HOWELL

admin2023-05-08T13:00:44-04:00

Every Job Has a First Day BY REBECCA GAYLE HOWELL Slade was pulling minnows out of the dry river the day we met. Puddles, more or less, was what was left. But what could live wanted to and tried, treading narrow circles, a glide of brittle ﬁns. He wore those rubber boots, though the sun was an anvil, and very little wet; he smiled, I remember that, his nickel smile right at me, his ﬁngers letting fall the small ﬁsh muscles into a bag ﬁlled with yellow tap. I didn’t ask his name, or what it was he thought he was doing, [...]

A Poem for You: Every Job Has a First Day BY REBECCA GAYLE HOWELLadmin2023-05-08T13:00:44-04:00

A Poem for You: How to Triumph Like a Girl BY ADA LIMÓN

admin2023-05-08T12:55:01-04:00

How to Triumph Like a Girl BY ADA LIMÓN I like the lady horses best, how they make it all look easy, like running 40 miles per hour is as fun as taking a nap, or grass. I like their lady horse swagger, after winning. Ears up, girls, ears up! But mainly, let’s be honest, I like that they’re ladies. As if this big dangerous animal is also a part of me, that somewhere inside the delicate skin of my body, there pumps an 8-pound female horse heart, giant with power, heavy with blood. Don’t you want to believe it? Don’t you [...]

A Poem for You: How to Triumph Like a Girl BY ADA LIMÓNadmin2023-05-08T12:55:01-04:00

A Poem for You: Gitanjali 35 BY RABINDRANATH TAGORE

admin2023-05-08T12:50:03-04:00

Gitanjali 35 BY RABINDRANATH TAGORE Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high; Where knowledge is free; Where the world has not been broken up into fragments by narrow domestic walls; Where words come out from the depth of truth; Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection; Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way into the dreary desert sand of dead habit; Where the mind is led forward by thee into ever-widening thought and action Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.

A Poem for You: Gitanjali 35 BY RABINDRANATH TAGOREadmin2023-05-08T12:50:03-04:00

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