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queer-classic-writers · 10 months

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Emily Dickinson (1830-1886)

American author of nearly 1800 poems, out of which only 10 were published during her lifetime

notable works: "Because I could not stop for Death", "I dreaded that first Robin, so", "Hope is the thing with feathers" and many other poems

her poems were unusual for her time, making use of slant rhyme (half rhyme) and unconventional punctuation and capitalization

influenced by Ralph Waldo Emerson

she had a life-long affair with her childhood friend and sister-in-law Susan Huntigton Gilbert Dickinson, and never married

she was reluctant to go out and socialize and was seen as an eccentric, oftentimes refusing to leave her house or even her bedroom and only corresponding through letters

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"I started Early – Took my Dog – And visited the Sea – The Mermaids in the Basement Came out to look at me –

And Frigates – in the Upper Floor Extended Hempen Hands – Presuming Me to be a Mouse – Aground – opon the Sands –

But no Man moved Me – till the Tide Went past my simple Shoe – And past my Apron – and my Belt And past my Bodice – too –

And made as He would eat me up – As wholly as a Dew Opon a Dandelion's Sleeve – And then – I started – too –

And He – He followed – close behind – I felt His Silver Heel Opon my Ankle – Then My Shoes Would overflow with Pearl –

Until We met the Solid Town – No One He seemed to know – And bowing – with a Mighty look – At me – The Sea withdrew."

("I started Early – Took my Dog", Emily Dickinson, around 1862)

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indigokashmir · 7 months

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Floral Beauty: An Appreciation of Nature's Splendour

Exploring the Enchanting World of Flowers and the Kaleidoscope of Natural Hue.

This poem by Amy Lowell paints a vivid picture of a garden in early spring, where a variety of flowers are waiting to bloom. It captures the anticipation and beauty of a garden in its pre-blossom state, with the promise of different flowers about to burst into colour.

The Little Garden" by Amy Lowell

A little garden on a bleak hillside Where deep the heavy, dazzling mountain snow Lies far into the spring. The sun's pale glow Is scarcely able to melt patches wide About the single rose bush. All denied Of nature's tender ministries. But no, — For wonder-working faith has made it blow With flowers many hued and starry-eyed. Here sleeps the sun long, idle summer hours; Here butterflies and bees fare far to rove Amid the crumpled leaves of poppy flowers; Here four o'clocks, to the passionate night above Fling whiffs of perfume, like pale incense showers. A little garden, loved with a great love!

Below are a selection of photos from spring and summer, showing the beauty of nature.

#Gardens #Gardening #Flowers #Poetry #American poems #amy lowell

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damadelocaso · 7 months

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Elm

by Silvia Plath

For Ruth Fainlight

I know the bottom, she says. I know it with my great tap root:

It is what you fear.

I do not fear it: I have been there.

Is it the sea you hear in me,

Its dissatisfactions?

Or the voice of nothing, that was your madness?

Love is a shadow.

How you lie and cry after it

Listen: these are its hooves: it has gone off, like a horse.

All night I shall gallop thus, impetuously,

Till your head is a stone, your pillow a little turf,

Echoing, echoing.

Or shall I bring you the sound of poisons?

This is rain now, this big hush.

And this is the fruit of it: tin-white, like arsenic.

I have suffered the atrocity of sunsets.

Scorched to the root

My red filaments burn and stand, a hand of wires.

Now I break up in pieces that fly about like clubs.

A wind of such violence

Will tolerate no bystanding: I must shriek.

The moon, also, is merciless: she would drag me

Cruelly, being barren.

Her radiance scathes me. Or perhaps I have caught her.

I let her go. I let her go

Diminished and flat, as after radical surgery.

How your bad dreams possess and endow me.

I am inhabited by a cry.

Nightly it flaps out

Looking, with its hooks, for something to love.

I am terrified by this dark thing

That sleeps in me;

All day I feel its soft, feathery turnings, its malignity.

Clouds pass and disperse.

Are those the faces of love, those pale irretrievables?

Is it for such I agitate my heart?

I am incapable of more knowledge.

What is this, this face

So murderous in its strangle of branches?——

Its snaky acids hiss.

It petrifies the will. These are the isolate, slow faults

That kill, that kill, that kill.

#sylvia plath #poetry #american poems #elm #olmo #feminine urge #intense #escorpio author

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pd-lyons · 9 months

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two american poems/ pd lyons poetry project

Women Buying Guns In America Smash the fuckin’ TV walk barefoot in the snow Pierce ourselves with steel Chew tequila worms ‘til the hand of god wipes our mouths Piss wherever, say whatever fuck whoever Fearless with the night of any street of any place And no Thelma and Louise We don’t die Don’t even get caught We hide Disguised as geriatric cunts Happy enough to sleep now Two ends of the same…

View On WordPress

#american poems #poetry #poetry project

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americanpoems · 9 months

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I am inert When you are around. You sap my strength and resolve. My energy is sucked Into your great abyss That place, that void From which your laziness wells. I get caught in your vortex of chill and inaction I struggle against your web of nothingness in vain. It's pull is stronger than my will and power. Months go by without accomplishment, action; a to-do list with no check marks That's what you do to me. I struggle as the years go by nothing to show for it. I hate that I can't get away from the force of that drain as I watch my lifetime disappear How I wish for a weapon a magic bullet a word a thought a deed that could free me from the abyss that is destroying my life. But I am inert when you are around. And nothing can change.

#poems on tumblr #american poems #poems #poems and poetry #poetry #doesn't rhyme #non rhyming poems #I am inert

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theoptia · 1 year

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Marie Howe, from Magdalene: Poems; "The Teacher"

Text ID: So, I thought I had to become more than / I was, more than I'd been. / but that wasn't it. It seemed rather that / something had to go. Something had to / be let go of.

#marie howe #magdalene: poems #poetry #american literature #lit #miscellanea #f

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c0unterclockwise · 9 months

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I wish I could eat dirt the way you do. Clamp it between my wisdom teeth, spit out the worms and turn the mulch into stone and gem and something. I wish I could make

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becckks · 1 year

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Whatever happened to 2014 Tumblr... miss her

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thoughtkick · 28 days

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Listen to the wind it talks. Listen to the silence it speaks. Listen to your heart it knows.

Native American Proverb

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daweyt · 4 months

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Louise Glück, from “Poems: 1962-2012; Persephone The Wanderer", published c. 2012.

#Louise Glück #Poems: 1962-2012 #American Literature #Quotes #Poetry #W #Lit #Dark Academia #Litblr

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peppers-ghost-posts · 2 years

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Winter Stars by Sarah Teasdale

I went out at night alone;

The young blood flowing beyond the sea

Seemed to have drenched my spirit’s wings—

I bore my sorrow heavily.

But when I lifted up my head

From shadows shaken on the snow,

I saw Orion in the east

Burn steadily as long ago.

From windows in my father’s house,

Dreaming my dreams on winter nights,

I watched Orion as a girl

Above another city’s lights.

Years go, dreams go, and youth goes too,

The world’s heart breaks beneath its wars,

All things are changed, save in the east

The faithful beauty of the stars.

#favourite poet #poems #winter #sarah teasdale #pulitzer prize #poetry #war poems #american poems

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majestativa · 4 months

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The slime of all my yesterdays rots in the hollow of my skull.

— Sylvia Plath, The Collected Poems, (1981)

#American #Sylvia Plath #The Collected Poems #(1981)

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quotefeeling · 5 months

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Listen to the wind it talks. Listen to the silence it speaks. Listen to your heart it knows.

Native American Proverb

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edwardian-girl-next-door · 9 months

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"Some long-forgot, enchanted, strange, Sweet garden of a thousand years ago,"

~ Edna St. Vincent Millay, from "Interim"

via southerncrossreview.org

#edna st. vincent millay #quotes #literature quotes #literary quotes #lit quotes #quotations #literary quotations #fragments #20th century poetry #20th century literature #american literature #american lit #poetry #poem #american poetry #american author #poetry fragments

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uovoc · 2 months

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my sister and I both agree that one of the best parts about china was how there's food everywhere. And not just, like, bags of chips, but real hot, cooked, tasty food. You hike to the top of a mountain and there's a guy with a cart selling chicken skewers and freshly steamed corn on the cob. When you hike to the top of a mountain in america, what do you get? Nothing. An uninterrupted view of nature. Where did we go wrong as a country

#patter #actually I do know why it's different. it's different traditions of nature appreciation #American wilderness appreciation which is defined by lack of visible human activity #versus going somewhere to see one specific landscape feature that people have been writing poems about for thousands of years #so long as certain features are preserved it doesn't really matter if there's a McDonald's behind you

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americanpoems · 9 months

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I am almost asleep beyond the rim of the waking world not yet to the realm of dream not fully alive, but not dead dead to the world they say. Heart beating, but slow and slowing Liminal neither conscious nor unconscious soon to slumber now to nod sleep

#poems on tumblr #poems #poems and poetry #american poems #stupid poems

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