Poem – Page 8 – Princeton Writes

A Poem for You: Paris and Helen BY JUDY GRAHN

admin2023-05-08T12:39:36-04:00

Paris and Helen BY JUDY GRAHN He called her: golden dawn She called him: the wind whistles He called her: heart of the sky She called him: message bringer He called her: mother of pearl barley woman, rice provider, millet basket, corn maid, flax princess, all-maker, weef She called him: fawn, roebuck, stag, courage, thunderman, all-in-green, mountain strider keeper of forests, my-love-rides He called her: the tree is She called him: bird dancing He called her: who stands, has stood, will always stand She called him: arriver He called her: the heart and the womb [...]

A Poem for You: Paris and Helen BY JUDY GRAHNadmin2023-05-08T12:39:36-04:00

A Poem for You: Belle Isle, 1949 BY PHILIP LEVINE

admin2023-05-08T12:34:43-04:00

Belle Isle, 1949 BY PHILIP LEVINE We stripped in the first warm spring night and ran down into the Detroit River to baptize ourselves in the brine of car parts, dead fish, stolen bicycles, melted snow. I remember going under hand in hand with a Polish highschool girl I'd never seen before, and the cries our breath made caught at the same time on the cold, and rising through the layers of darkness into the final moonless atmosphere that was this world, the girl breaking the surface after me and swimming out on the starless waters towards the lights of Jefferson Ave. [...]

A Poem for You: Belle Isle, 1949 BY PHILIP LEVINEadmin2023-05-08T12:34:43-04:00

A Poem for You: Testament by Connie Voisine

admin2023-05-08T12:30:48-04:00

Testament BY CONNIE VOISINE The cat wants to be a strong thing—a hand, a tree. The girl wants to be a pirate, in a tree. The tree wants to be the pond with its face of shining. The pond wants to be the sun who dumps its sugar on the grass. The grass wants to be the foot, its sole, its heel. The foot wants to be the brain who always gets to choose. The brain wants to be the feet dumb in their shoes. The shoe wants to be the buckle that the girl shines with a cloth. The buckle wants [...]

A Poem for You: Testament by Connie Voisineadmin2023-05-08T12:30:48-04:00

A Poem for You: How You Know BY JOE MILLS

admin2023-05-08T12:24:53-04:00

How You Know BY JOE MILLS How do you know if it’s love? she asks, and I think if you have to ask, it’s not, but I know this won’t help. I want to say you’re too young to worry about it, as if she has questions about Medicare or social security, but this won’t help either. “You’ll just know” is a lie, and one truth, “when you still want to be with them the next morning,” would involve too many follow-up questions. The difficulty with love, I want to say, is sometimes you only know afterwards that it’s arrived or left. Love [...]

A Poem for You: How You Know BY JOE MILLSadmin2023-05-08T12:24:53-04:00

A Poem for You: Flight BY IDRISSA SIMMONDS

admin2023-05-08T12:19:54-04:00

Flight BY IDRISSA SIMMONDS I call to ask my mother the name of the street where we bought the suitcases when we left Brooklyn. A better question would have been how did it feel to be sliced from the rib of Pine and Loring and sent, like a kite, up North. Or tell me what your mother said to you in her grand rear room the night we left, seated on the edge of her bed in her nightgown, muted in the low light. So many bellies in the house. Cacophony of kreyol and Brooklyn buk and sweet sweat across the walls. [...]

A Poem for You: Flight BY IDRISSA SIMMONDSadmin2023-05-08T12:19:54-04:00

A Poem for You:Never Describe the Sky as Azure BY PHILIP METRES

admin2023-05-08T12:11:51-04:00

Never Describe the Sky as Azure BY PHILIP METRES unless it’s made of stone. لاجورد Lāzhward migrating from Persia, smuggled from Farsi to Arabic & thrown like a wingless bird across the sky-dark sea until its version spills from English mouths. Lapis lazuli. O trap of beauty, you are a fiction ... Exhausted at day’s end of an oven-summer I duck out of the house [...]

A Poem for You:Never Describe the Sky as Azure BY PHILIP METRESadmin2023-05-08T12:11:51-04:00

A Poem for You: The Mothering Blackness BY MAYA ANGELOU

admin2023-05-08T12:13:20-04:00

The Mothering Blackness BY MAYA ANGELOU She came home running back to the mothering blackness deep in the smothering blackness white tears icicle gold plains of her face She came home running She came down creeping here to the black arms waiting now to the warm heart waiting rime of alien dreams befrosts her rich brown face She came down creeping She came home blameless black yet as Hagar’s daughter tall as was Sheba’s daughter threats of northern winds die on the desert’s face She came home blameless

A Poem for You: The Mothering Blackness BY MAYA ANGELOUadmin2023-05-08T12:13:20-04:00

A Poem for You: Rock Me, Mercy

admin2023-05-08T11:43:17-04:00

Rock Me, Mercy BY YUSEF KOMUNYAKAA The river stones are listening because we have something to say. The trees lean closer today. The singing in the electrical woods has gone dumb. It looks like rain because it is too warm to snow. Guardian angels, wherever you're hiding, we know you can't be everywhere at once. Have you corralled all the pretty wild horses? The memory of ants asleep in daylilies, roses, holly, & larkspur. The magpies gaze at us, still waiting. River stones are listening. But all we can say now is, Mercy, please, rock me.

A Poem for You: Rock Me, Mercyadmin2023-05-08T11:43:17-04:00

A Poem for You: A Memory of Us by Safia Elhillo

admin2023-05-01T12:22:25-04:00

A Memory of Us BY SAFIA ELHILLO when i think of us i think of the lakewater near longtown, what might not technically constitute a lake but i prefer that word for the open mouth of its vowel, how it called us to its throat & held us there, in the sun, the high points of our faces slick with light & its arc around our shoulders, the soft gathering of flesh around our knees, the lone chair we found near the shore where we took turns posing, jutting out an eloquent hip, cackling in the bright language of flowers for whom [...]

A Poem for You: A Memory of Us by Safia Elhilloadmin2023-05-01T12:22:25-04:00

A Poem for You: I Dare You by Dorianne Laux

admin2023-04-11T10:35:21-04:00

I Dare You by Dorianne Laux It’s autumn, and we’re getting rid of books, getting ready to retire, to move some place smaller, more manageable. We’re living in reverse, age-proofing the new house, nothing on the floors to trip over, no hindrances to the slowed mechanisms of our bodies, a small table for two. Our world is shrinking, our closets mostly empty, gone the tight skirts and dancing shoes, the bells and whistles. Now, when someone comes to visit and admires our complete works of Shakespeare, the hawk feather in the open dictionary, the iron angel on a shelf, we say [...]

A Poem for You: I Dare You by Dorianne Lauxadmin2023-04-11T10:35:21-04:00

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