"The Golden Shovel" by Terrance Hayes

The Golden Shovel
by Terrance Hayes

after Gwendolyn Brooks

I. 1981

When I am so small Da’s sock covers my arm, we
cruise at twilight until we find the place the real

men lean, bloodshot and translucent with cool.
His smile is a gold-plated incantation as we

drift by women on bar stools, with nothing left
in them but approachlessness. This is a school

I do not know yet. But the cue sticks mean we
are rubbed by light, smooth as wood, the lurk

of smoke thinned to song. We won’t be out late.
Standing in the middle of the street last night we

watched the moonlit lawns and a neighbor strike
his son in the face. A shadow knocked straight

Da promised to leave me everything: the shovel we
used to bury the dog, the words he loved to sing

his rusted pistol, his squeaky Bible, his sin.
The boy’s sneakers were light on the road. We

watched him run to us looking wounded and thin.
He’d been caught lying or drinking his father’s gin.

He’d been defending his ma, trying to be a man. We
stood in the road, and my father talked about jazz,

how sometimes a tune is born of outrage. By June
the boy would be locked upstate. That night we

got down on our knees in my room. If I should die
before I wake. Da said to me, it will be too soon.


II. 1991

Into the tented city we go, we-
akened by the fire’s ethereal

afterglow. Born lost and cool-
er than heartache. What we

know is what we know. The left
hand severed and school-

ed by cleverness. A plate of we-
ekdays cooking. The hour lurk-

ing in the afterglow. A late-
night chant. Into the city we

go. Close your eyes and strike
a blow. Light can be straight-

ened by its shadow. What we
break is what we hold. A sing-

ular blue note. An outcry sin-
ged exiting the throat. We

push until we thin, thin-
king we won’t creep back again.

While God licks his kin, we
sing until our blood is jazz,

we swing from June to June.
We sweat to keep from we-

eping. Groomed on a die-
t of hunger, we end too soon.

Terrance Hayes, “The Golden Shovel” from Lighthead. Copyright © 2010 by Terrance Hayes. 



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"Sci-Fi" by Tracy K. Smith

Today's poem comes from the 2017 US poet laureate, Tracy K. Smith. As a lover of all things sci-fi, I found myself a sucker for this poem of hers.


Sci-Fi
by Tracy K. Smith

There will be no edges, but curves.
Clean lines pointing only forward.

History, with its hard spine & dog-eared
Corners, will be replaced with nuance,

Just like the dinosaurs gave way
To mounds and mounds of ice.

Women will still be women, but
The distinction will be empty. Sex,

Having outlived every threat, will gratify
Only the mind, which is where it will exist.

For kicks, we'll dance for ourselves
Before mirrors studded with golden bulbs.

The oldest among us will recognize that glow—
But the word sun will have been re-assigned

To the Standard Uranium-Neutralizing device
Found in households and nursing homes.

And yes, we'll live to be much older, thanks
To popular consensus. Weightless, unhinged,

Eons from even our own moon, we'll drift
In the haze of space, which will be, once

And for all, scrutable and safe.




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"Blackberry-Picking" by Seamus Heaney

Blackberry-Picking
by Seamus Heaney

for Philip Hobsbaum

Late August, given heavy rain and sun
For a full week, the blackberries would ripen.
At first, just one, a glossy purple clot
Among others, red, green, hard as a knot.
You ate that first one and its flesh was sweet
Like thickened wine: summer's blood was in it
Leaving stains upon the tongue and lust for
Picking. Then red ones inked up and that hunger
Sent us out with milk cans, pea tins, jam-pots
Where briars scratched and wet grass bleached our boots.
Round hayfields, cornfields and potato-drills
We trekked and picked until the cans were full,
Until the tinkling bottom had been covered
With green ones, and on top big dark blobs burned
Like a plate of eyes. Our hands were peppered
With thorn pricks, our palms sticky as Bluebeard's.

We hoarded the fresh berries in the byre.
But when the bath was filled we found a fur,
A rat-grey fungus, glutting on our cache.
The juice was stinking too. Once off the bush
The fruit fermented, the sweet flesh would turn sour.
I always felt like crying. It wasn't fair
That all the lovely canfuls smelt of rot.
Each year I hoped they'd keep, knew they would not.





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"The Vacation" by Wendell Berry

The Vacation
by Wendell Berry

Once there was a man who filmed his vacation. 
He went flying down the river in his boat
with his video camera to his eye, making
a moving picture of the moving river
upon which his sleek boat moved swiftly 
toward the end of his vacation. He showed
his vacation to his camera, which pictured it, 
preserving it forever: the river, the trees,
the sky, the light, the bow of his rushing boat 
behind which he stood with his camera 
preserving his vacation even as he was having it 
so that after he had had it he would still
have it. It would be there. With a flick
of a switch, there it would be. But he
would not be in it. He would never be in it.

Poem copyright ©2012 by Wendell Berry



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"Ego-Tripp(ed)" by Mahogany L. Browne

Mahogany L. Browne has a new poem/book out entitled "Black Girl Magic," challenging societal conditioning and celebrating black girls. The book invites readers to find their own magic. [You can purchase her book on amazon here.] Her work is powerful and wonderful.
 

Ego-Tripp(ed)
by Mahogany L. Browne

& then the poet became G  D/like
just’a rolling his tongue everywhere
like G O D must’ve
when the earth got birth(ed) & even

           after the fertile soil turned
over on herself/  & the sky--a mix

between “blue&what you looking @?”

(that was sometime afta the 5th day)

when the crumbling grit shook her grin

loose    crossed each arm & said

     “Man? Nah…we good”




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"Riches I Hold in Light Esteem" by Emily Bronte

I read this poem two years ago in "Very Far Away from Anywhere Else" by Ursula K. Le Guin and thought it was a nice little poem. I spent a good amount of time looking for it this morning because all I could remember was it was written by one of the Bronte sisters and it was in some short Le Guin book. Those clues were barely enough to get me there. I'm glad I found it.


Riches I Hold In Light Esteem
by Emily Jane Brontë


Riches I hold in light esteem
And Love I laugh to scorn
And lust of Fame was but a dream
That vanished with the morn–
And if I pray, the only prayer 
That moves my lips for me 
Is–'Leave the heart that now I bear 
And give me liberty.'

Yes, as my swift days near their goal 
'Tis all that I implore 
Through life and death, a chainless soul 
With courage to endure!



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"I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day" by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Merry Christmas to those who celebrate! Happy December 25th to the rest. To those who have it, enjoy your day of rest. To those who work or serve, thank you and God bless.


I Heard The Bells On Christmas Day
by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow


I heard the bells on Christmas day
Their old familiar carols play, 
And wild and sweet the words repeat
Of peace on earth, good will to men. 

I thought how, as the day had come, 
The belfries of all Christendom
Had rolled along th'unbroken song
Of peace on earth, good will to men. 

And in despair I bowed my head: 
'There is no peace on earth, ' I said 
'For hate is strong, and mocks the song
Of peace on earth, good will to men.' 

Then pealed the bells more loud and deep: 
'God is not dead, nor doth He sleep; 
The wrong shall fail, the right prevail, 
With peace on earth, good will to men.'

Till, ringing, singing on its way, 
The world revolved from night to day
A voice, a chime, a chant sublime, 
Of peace on earth, good will to men. 



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"My Childhood Home I See Again" by Abraham Lincoln

This poem is in honor of visiting my parents for Christmas (although I hope my homecoming feels nothing like this).


My Childhood Home I See Again  
by Abraham Lincoln


I 

My childhood's home I see again, 
And sadden with the view; 
And still, as memory crowds my brain, 
There's pleasure in it too. 

O Memory! thou midway world 
'Twixt earth and paradise, 
Where things decayed and loved ones lost 
In dreamy shadows rise, 

And, freed from all that's earthly vile, 
Seem hallowed, pure, and bright, 
Like scenes in some enchanted isle 
All bathed in liquid light. 

As dusky mountains please the eye 
When twilight chases day; 
As bugle-tones that, passing by, 
In distance die away; 

As leaving some grand waterfall, 
We, lingering, list its roar-- 
So memory will hallow all 
We've known, but know no more. 

Near twenty years have passed away 
Since here I bid farewell 
To woods and fields, and scenes of play, 
And playmates loved so well. 

Where many were, but few remain 
Of old familiar things; 
But seeing them, to mind again 
The lost and absent brings. 

The friends I left that parting day, 
How changed, as time has sped! 
Young childhood grown, strong manhood gray, 
And half of all are dead. 

I hear the loved survivors tell 
How nought from death could save, 
Till every sound appears a knell, 
And every spot a grave. 

I range the fields with pensive tread, 
And pace the hollow rooms, 
And feel (companion of the dead) 
I'm living in the tombs. 

II 

But here's an object more of dread 
Than ought the grave contains-- 
A human form with reason fled, 
While wretched life remains. 

Poor Matthew! Once of genius bright, 
A fortune-favored child-- 
Now locked for aye, in mental night, 
A haggard mad-man wild. 

Poor Matthew! I have ne'er forgot, 
When first, with maddened will, 
Yourself you maimed, your father fought, 
And mother strove to kill; 

When terror spread, and neighbors ran, 
Your dange'rous strength to bind; 
And soon, a howling crazy man 
Your limbs were fast confined. 

How then you strove and shrieked aloud, 
Your bones and sinews bared; 
And fiendish on the gazing crowd, 
With burning eye-balls glared-- 

And begged, and swore, and wept and prayed 
With maniac laught[ter?] joined-- 
How fearful were those signs displayed 
By pangs that killed thy mind! 

And when at length, tho' drear and long, 
Time smoothed thy fiercer woes, 
How plaintively thy mournful song 
Upon the still night rose. 

I've heard it oft, as if I dreamed, 
Far distant, sweet, and lone-- 
The funeral dirge, it ever seemed 
Of reason dead and gone. 

To drink it's strains, I've stole away, 
All stealthily and still, 
Ere yet the rising God of day 
Had streaked the Eastern hill. 

Air held his breath; trees, with the spell, 
Seemed sorrowing angels round, 
Whose swelling tears in dew-drops fell 
Upon the listening ground. 

But this is past; and nought remains, 
That raised thee o'er the brute. 
Thy piercing shrieks, and soothing strains, 
Are like, forever mute. 

Now fare thee well--more thou the cause, 
Than subject now of woe. 
All mental pangs, by time's kind laws, 
Hast lost the power to know. 

O death! Thou awe-inspiring prince, 
That keepst the world in fear; 
Why dost thos tear more blest ones hence, 
And leave him ling'ring here? 



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"Love Is" by Nikki Giovanni

I often find it difficult not to post Nikki Giovanni poems.

Love Is
by Nikki Giovanni


Some people forget that love is 
tucking you in and kissing you 
'Good night' 
no matter how young or old you are
Some people don't remember that 
love is 
listening and laughing and asking 
questions 
no matter what your age
Few recognize that love is 
commitment, responsibility 
no fun at all 
unless

Love is 
You and me 



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"Still Burning" by Gerald Stern

My inaugural Creative Writing class has ended for the semester. Teaching that class was better than I imagined. I'm looking forward to more years of this.


Still Burning
by Gerald Stern

Me trying to understand say whence
say whither, say what, say me with a pencil walking,
say reading the dictionary, say learning medieval
Latin, reading Spengler, reading Whitehead,
William James I loved him, swimming breaststroke
and thinking for an hour, how did I get here?
Or thinking in line, say the 69 streetcar
or 68 or 67 Swissvale,
that would take me elsewhere, me with a textbook
reading the pre-Socratics, so badly written,
whoever the author was, me on the floor of
the lighted stacks sitting cross-legged,
walking afterwards through the park or sometimes
running across the bridges and up the hills,
sitting down in our tiny diningroom,
burning in a certain way, still burning.


Gerald Stern, “Still Burning” from American Sonnets. Copyright © 2002 by Gerald Stern.




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"Eating Together" by Li-Young Lee

Eating Together
by Li-Young Lee

In the steamer is the trout   
seasoned with slivers of ginger, 
two sprigs of green onion, and sesame oil.   
We shall eat it with rice for lunch,   
brothers, sister, my mother who will    
taste the sweetest meat of the head,   
holding it between her fingers   
deftly, the way my father did   
weeks ago. Then he lay down   
to sleep like a snow-covered road   
winding through pines older than him,   
without any travelers, and lonely for no one.

Li-Young Lee, “Eating Together” from Rose. Copyright © 1986 by Li-Young Lee.





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"Describing Tattoos to a Cop" by Brenda Hillman

Brenda Hillman is an activist-poet who wrote this poem after traveling to D.C. to protest the Keystone Pipeline. I recommend listening to her read the poem here.


Describing Tattoos to a Cop
by Brenda Hillman

After Ed Sanders

We’d been squatting     near the worms
            in the White House lawn, protesting 
the Keystone Pipeline =$=$=$=$=$=$=>>;
            i could sense      the dear worms 
   through    the grillwork fence, 
            twists & coils   of flexi-script, remaking
the soil    by resisting it    ...    
                           After the ride in the police van 
             telling jokes, our ziplocked handcuffs
pretty tight,
                      when the presiding officer asked:

— Do you have any tattoos?
— Yes, officer, i have two.
— What are they?
— Well, i have a black heart on my inner thigh & 
             an alchemical sign on my ankle.
— Please spell that?
— Alchemical. A-L-C-H-E-M-I-C-A-L.
— What is that?
— It’s basically a moon, a lily, a star & a flame.

He started printing in the little square

MOON, LILY, STAR


Young white guy, seemed scared. One blurry 
      tattoo on his inner wrist    ...     i should have asked 
            about his, but couldn’t
 cross that chasm.     Outside,   Ash
Wednesday in our nation’s capital.     Dead
               grass, spring trees 
about to burst, two officers
           beside the newish van. Inside,
              alchemical notes for the next time —




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"For the Consideration of Poets" by Haki R. Madhubuti

Haki R. Madhubuti (born Donald Luther Lee) published this poem in 2004, but it could have been written years and years ago or yesterday and feel just as striking.



For the Consideration of Poets
by Haki R. Madhubuti

where is the poetry of resistance, 
                     the poetry of honorable defiance 
unafraid of lies from career politicians and business men, 
not respectful of journalist who write 
official speak void of educated thought 
without double search or sub surface questions 
that war talk demands? 
where is the poetry of doubt and suspicion 
not in the service of the state, bishops and priests, 
not in the service of beautiful people and late night promises, 
not in the service of influence, incompetence and academic 
         clown talk?



Haki Madhubuti, "For the Consideration of Poets" from Run Toward Fear © 2004 by Haki R. Madhubuti.



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"Where Have You Gone" by Mari Evans

Mari Evans has a nice big portrait on Mass Ave in Indianapolis. I'm finally taking a look at her poetry. 

Where Have You Gone 
by Mari Evans

Where have you gone

with your confident 
walk with 
your crooked smile


why did you leave 
me 
when you took your 
laughter 
and departed 
are you aware that 
with you 
went the sun 
all light 
and what few stars 
there were?


where have you gone 
with your confident 
walk your 
crooked smile the 
rent money 
in one pocket and 
my heart 
in another . . . 



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"This Is Just To Say" by William Carlos Williams

Yesterday my dad told me about how people are revamping/rewriting "This Is Just To Say." The song lyric variations are awesome. A twitter account is tweeting out different versions here: https://twitter.com/JustToSayBot. I may just have to convince my students to give this creative writing exercise a try.

This Is Just To Say
By William Carlos Williams

I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox

and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast

Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold

William Carlos Williams,''This Is Just to Say'' from The Collected Poems: Volume I, 1909-1939, copyright ©1938 by New Directions Publishing Corp.



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"Counting" by Margarita Engle

Having been to Cuba, I'm a sucker for anything related to the country so I was already drawn to the works of Cuban-American Margarita Engle. This particular piece is interesting for both its message and for how Engle takes on another voice and perspective.  

Counting
by Margarita Engle

Harry Franck, from the United States of America - Census Enumerator

I came to Panama planning to dig
the Eighth Wonder of the World,
but I was told that white men
should never be seen working
with shovels, so I took a police job,
and now I've been transferred
to the census.

I roam the jungle, counting laborers
who live in shanties and those who live
on the run, fugitives who are too angry
to keep working for silver in a system
where they know that others
earn gold.

When islanders see me coming,
they're afraid of trouble, even though
I can't arrest them anymore—now
all I need is a record of their names, ages,
homelands, and colors.

The rules of this census confound me.
I'm expected to count white Jamaicans
as dark and every shade of Spaniard
as semi-white, so that Americans
can pretend
there's only one color
in each country.

How am I supposed to enumerate
this kid with the Cuban accent?
His skin is medium, but his eyes
are green.

And what about that Puerto Rican
scientist, who speaks like a New York
professor,
or the girl who says she doesn't know
where she was born or who her parents
are—she could be part native, or part French,
Jamaican, Chinese ...

She could even be part American,
from people who passed through here
way back
in gold rush days.

Counting feels just as impossible
as turning solid mountains
into a ditch.

Margarita Engle, "Counting (Harry Franck from the United States of America Census Enumerator)" from Silver People: Voices from the Panama Canal.  Copyright © 2014 by Margarita Engle.




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"Another Country" by Jim Harrison

In honor of my homesickness for the UP, here is a poem by Michigan's Jim Harrison.


Another Country
by Jim Harrison

I love these raw moist dawns with
a thousand birds you hear but can’t
quite see in the mist.
My old alien body is a foreigner
struggling to get into another country.
The loon call makes me shiver.
Back at the cabin I see a book
and am not quite sure what that is.



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"Under a Soprano Sky" by Sonia Sanchez

My creative writing students have been working on integrating sound devices into their poetry. Sonia Sanchez (born Wilsonia Benita Driver) is a great example of a poet who creates rhythm with subtle sound devices. My personal favorite sound repetition in this poem occurs in the lines: "...I wooed the world/ with thumbs/ while yo-yos hummed." The repeated sounds in those lines are continued in the following lines as well. Artfully done.


Under a Soprano Sky 
by Sonia Sanchez


once i lived on pillars in a green house 
boarded by lilacs that rocked voices into weeds. 
i bled an owl's blood 
shredding the grass until i 
rocked in a choir of worms. 
obscene with hands, i wooed the world 
with thumbs 
while yo-yos hummed. 
was it an unborn lacquer i peeled? 
the woods, tall as waves, sang in mixed 
tongues that loosened the scalp 
and my bones wrapped in white dust 
returned to echo in my thighs. 

i hear a pulse wandering somewhere 
on vague embankments. 
O are my hands breathing? I cannot smell the nerves. 
i saw the sun 
ripening green stones for fields. 
O have my eyes run down? i cannot taste my birth. 

2. 

now as i move, mouth quivering with silks 
my skin runs soft with eyes. 
descending into my legs, i follow obscure birds 
purchasing orthopedic wings. 
the air is late this summer. 

i peel the spine and flood 
the earth with adolescence. 
O who will pump these breasts? I cannot waltz my tongue. 

under a soprano sky, a woman sings, 
lovely as chandeliers. 




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"Winter Poem" by Nikki Giovanni

Nikki Giovanni has recently become one of my favorite poets, so this is likely the first of many of her poems I will post here. 


Winter Poem
by Nikki Giovanni

once a snowflake fell
on my brow and i loved
it so much and i kissed
it and it was happy and called its cousins
and brothers and a web
of snow engulfed me then
i reached to love them all
and i squeezed them and they became
a spring rain and i stood perfectly
still and was a flower 




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"Nothing Gold Can Stay" by Robert Frost

On Sunday I went to a Celebration of Life for a former student. Her brother talked about how they had shared a love for poetry, and read this poem by Robert Frost. It was a beautiful, touching moment. In their honor, today's poem:

Nothing Gold Can Stay

Robert Frost

Nature’s first green is gold, 
Her hardest hue to hold. 
Her early leaf’s a flower; 
But only so an hour. 
Then leaf subsides to leaf. 
So Eden sank to grief, 
So dawn goes down to day. 
Nothing gold can stay. 





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"A Blessing" by James Wright

Welcome to the first entry of The Poet's Watch.

My name is Becca Downs and I am an English teacher in Indianapolis. This year I began teaching a Creative Writing, which has become my baby. (Actually I'd make a poor mother if that's the case--I'm drowning in grading still and flying by the seat of my pants most days. But I'm trying.)
Prior to this semester I had planned on utilizing a certain almanac as a poetry resource for my students, but that particular website is no longer in service. I'm sure I'm not the only teacher, writer, or human being who appreciated that daily muse, so this is my attempt at bandaging the wound.
I hope this blog is useful to those looking for daily inspiration for artistic, educational, or sanity purposes. I will do my best to showcase brilliant poetic pieces each day--whether from published poets or my own up-and-coming young scholars.

Below is "A Blessing" by James Wright--a request by an early believer in this blog.

A Blessing

BY JAMES WRIGHT

Just off the highway to Rochester, Minnesota, 

Twilight bounds softly forth on the grass. 

And the eyes of those two Indian ponies 

Darken with kindness. 

They have come gladly out of the willows 

To welcome my friend and me. 

We step over the barbed wire into the pasture 

Where they have been grazing all day, alone. 

They ripple tensely, they can hardly contain their happiness   

That we have come. 

They bow shyly as wet swans. They love each other. 

There is no loneliness like theirs.   

At home once more, 

They begin munching the young tufts of spring in the darkness.   

I would like to hold the slenderer one in my arms, 

For she has walked over to me   

And nuzzled my left hand.   

She is black and white, 

Her mane falls wild on her forehead, 

And the light breeze moves me to caress her long ear 

That is delicate as the skin over a girl’s wrist. 

Suddenly I realize 

That if I stepped out of my body I would break 

Into blossom.


James Wright, “A Blessing” from Above the River: The Complete Poems and Selected Prose.Copyright 1990 by James Wright.

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