It's world poetry day so here are some (more) of my favorite poems:
What You Missed That Day You Were Absent from Fourth Grade by Brad Aaron Modlin
All Trains Are Going Local by Timothy Liu
Rural Boys Watch the Apocalypse by Keaton St. James (@boykeats)
HOPE YOU’RE WELL. PLEASE DON’T READ THIS. by Lev St. Valentine (@dogrotpdf)
Time of Love by Claribel Alegría
Every Job Has a First Day by Rebecca Gayle Howell
ALL THAT WANTING, RIGHT? by Devin Kelly
Reading by A.R. Ammons
things i want to ask you by Helga Floros
Night Bird by Danusha Laméris
Prayer for Werewolves by Stephanie Burt
The Two Times I Loved You the Most In a Car by Dorothea Grossman
The Yearner by Rachel Long
If I Had Three Lives by Sarah Russell
I Dream on a Crowded Subway Train with My Eyes Open But My Body Swaying by Chen Chen
We Have Not Long to Love by Tennessee Williams
Jesus at the Gay Bar by Jay Hulme
Cracks by Dieu Dinh
and here's part one <3
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Small Kindnesses
I’ve been thinking about the way, when you walk
down a crowded aisle, people pull in their legs
to let you by. Or how strangers still say “bless you”
when someone sneezes, a leftover
from the Bubonic plague. “Don’t die,” we are saying.
And sometimes, when you spill lemons
from your grocery bag, someone else will help you
pick them up. Mostly, we don’t want to harm each other.
We want to be handed our cup of coffee hot,
and to say thank you to the person handing it. To smile
at them and for them to smile back. For the waitress
to call us honey when she sets down the bowl of clam chowder,
and for the driver in the red pick-up truck to let us pass.
We have so little of each other, now. So far
from tribe and fire. Only these brief moments of exchange.
What if they are the true dwelling of the holy, these
fleeting temples we make together when we say, “Here,
have my seat,” “Go ahead—you first,” “I like your hat.”
-Danusha Laméris
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Insha’Allah
by Danusha Laméris
I don’t know when it slipped into my speech
that soft word meaning, “if God wills it.”
Insha’Allah I will see you next summer.
The baby will come in spring, insha’Allah.
Insha’Allah this year we will have enough rain.
So many plans I’ve laid have unraveled
easily as braids beneath my mother’s quick fingers.
Every language must have a word for this. A word
our grandmothers uttered under their breath
as they pinned the whites, soaked in lemon,
hung them to dry in the sun, or peeled potatoes,
dropping the discarded skins into a bowl.
Our sons will return next month, insha’Allah.
Insha’Allah this war will end, soon. Insha’Allah
the rice will be enough to last through winter.
How lightly we learn to hold hope,
as if it were an animal that could turn around
and bite your hand. And still we carry it
the way a mother would, carefully,
from one day to the next.
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I’ve been thinking about the way, when you walk / down a crowded aisle, people pull in their legs / to let you by. Or how strangers still say “bless you” / when someone sneezes, a leftover / from the Bubonic plague. “Don’t die,” we are saying. / And sometimes, when you spill lemons / from your grocery bag, someone else will help you/ pick them up. Mostly, we don’t want to harm each other. / We want to be handed our cup of coffee hot, / and to say thank you to the person handing it. To smile / at them and for them to smile back. For the waitress / to call us honey when she sets down the bowl of clam chowder, / and for the driver in the red pick-up truck to let us pass. / We have so little of each other, now. So far / from tribe and fire. Only these brief moments of exchange. / What if they are the true dwelling of the holy, these / fleeting temples we make together when we say, “Here, / have my seat,” “Go ahead — you first,” “I like your hat.”
— Small Kindnesses, Danusha Laméris
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I’ve been thinking about the way, when you walk
down a crowded aisle, people pull in their legs
to let you by. Or how strangers still say “bless you”
when someone sneezes, a leftover
from the Bubonic plague. “Don’t die,” we are saying.
And sometimes, when you spill lemons
from your grocery bag, someone else will help you
pick them up. Mostly, we don’t want to harm each other.
We want to be handed our cup of coffee hot,
and to say thank you to the person handing it. To smile
at them and for them to smile back. For the waitress
to call us honey when she sets down the bowl of clam chowder,
and for the driver in the red pick-up truck to let us pass.
We have so little of each other, now. So far
from tribe and fire. Only these brief moments of exchange.
What if they are the true dwelling of the holy, these
fleeting temples we make together when we say, “Here,
have my seat,” “Go ahead—you first,” “I like your hat.”
'Small Kindnesses', by Danusha Laméris
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What we do not know lies in darkness. / The way the unsayable rests at the back of the tongue. / So let us sing of it—for the earth is a dark loam / and the night sky an unfathomable darkness.
Danusha Laméris, Bonfire Opera: Poems; “O Darkness”
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What we do not know lies in darkness. / The way the unsayable rests at the back of the tongue. / So let us sing of it—for the earth is a dark loam / and the night sky an unfathomable darkness.
Danusha Laméris, Bonfire Opera: Poems; “O Darkness”
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What we do not know lies in darkness. / The way the unsayable rests at the back of the tongue. / So let us sing of it—for the earth is a dark loam / and the night sky an unfathomable darkness.
Danusha Laméris, Bonfire Opera: Poems; “O Darkness”
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hello i adore your work so much!! i hope you’re having a lovely day. i’d like to request a web-weave on the intersection between love and fruit (like peeling oranges for someone or sharing a peach etc.)
Chaia Heller, After Language
Anne Carson, Decreation
Elvis Presley, I Slipped, I Stumbled, I Fell
William Adolphe Bouguereau, Les Oranges (detail)
Wikipedia definition of the Albanian word for ‘grape’, rrush
Madeline Miller, The Song of Achilles
Richard Siken, Scheherazade
A vandalised Wikipedia article on mandarins (via @goopy-amethyst)
Nana Mouskouri, Love Tastes Like Strawberries
Lady Lamb, Bird Balloons
Ross Gay, Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude
Denis Sarazhin
Danusha Laméris, Small Kindnesses
Christopher Citro, Our Beautiful Life When It’s Filled with Shrieks
Haley Heynderickx, Jo
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“…the thing with feathers…”
Danusha Lameris, “Insha ’Allah” // Vampire Diaries, s8e1 // Richard Siken, “Self-Portrait Against Red Wallpaper” // Voltaire, Candide // Franz Wright “Voice” // Anna Akhmatova, quoted by Lydia Chukovskaya, “The Akhmatova Journals” // quote by Morgan Nikola-Wren, art by @griefmother on IG // Franz Wright, “Night Walk” // John Green, The Anthropocene Reviewed // Emily Dickinson, “Hope”
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“How lightly we learn to hold hope, with a cautious care that it may turn and bite us, disappoint us. And yet we do hold it, carry it the way a mother would, and we do it from one day to the next. May you be reminded to carry your own hopes lightly, carefully, trusting in possibilities even without certainty." — Danusha Laméris
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“(…)
Whatever your grief,
however long you’ve carried it —
may something
come to you,
quick and unexpected,
whisk away
the bristled edge
in its sharp
and tender beak.”
—Danusha Laméris, Goldfinches
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Be kind. Always.
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Small Kindnesses - Danusha Laméris
I’ve been thinking about the way, when you walk
down a crowded aisle, people pull in their legs
to let you by. Or how strangers still say “bless you”
when someone sneezes, a leftover
from the Bubonic plague. “Don’t die,” we are saying.
And sometimes, when you spill lemons
from your grocery bag, someone else will help you
pick them up. Mostly, we don’t want to harm each other.
We want to be handed our cup of coffee hot,
and to say thank you to the person handing it. To smile
at them and for them to smile back. For the waitress
to call us honey when she sets down the bowl of clam chowder,
and for the driver in the red pick-up truck to let us pass.
We have so little of each other, now. So far
from tribe and fire. Only these brief moments of exchange.
What if they are the true dwelling of the holy, these
fleeting temples we make together when we say, “Here,
have my seat,” “Go ahead—you first,” “I like your hat.”
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April 7, 2023: Insha’Allah, Danusha Laméris
Insha’Allah
Danusha Laméris
I don’t know when it slipped into my speech
that soft word meaning, “if God wills it.”
Insha’Allah I will see you next summer.
The baby will come in spring, insha’Allah.
Insha’Allah this year we will have enough rain.
So many plans I’ve laid have unraveled
easily as braids beneath my mother’s quick fingers.
Every language must have a word for this. A word
our grandmothers uttered under their breath
as they pinned the whites, soaked in lemon,
hung them to dry in the sun, or peeled potatoes,
dropping the discarded skins into a bowl.
Our sons will return next month, insha’Allah.
Insha’Allah this war will end, soon. Insha’Allah
the rice will be enough to last through winter.
How lightly we learn to hold hope,
as if it were an animal that could turn around
and bite your hand. And still we carry it
the way a mother would, carefully,
from one day to the next.
--
More like this: Kul, Fatimah Asghar
Today in:
2022: To the Woman Crying Uncontrollably in the Next Stall, Kim Addonizio
2021: You Mean You Don’t Weep at the Nail Salon?, Elizabeth Acevedo
2020: Let Me Begin Again, Philip Levine
2019: Hammond B3 Organ Cistern, Gabrielle Calvocoressi
2018: Siren Song, Margaret Atwood
2017: A Sunset, Ari Banias
2016: Coming, Philip Larkin
2015: The Taxi, Amy Lowell
2014: Winter Sunrise Outside a Café Near Butte, Montana, Joe Hutchison
2013: The Last Night in Mithymna, Linda Gregg
2012: America [Try saying wren], Joseph Lease
2011: Boston, Aaron Smith
2010: How Simile Works, Albert Goldbarth
2009: Crossing Over, William Meredith
2008: The World Wakes Up, Andrew Michael Roberts
2007: Hour, Christian Hawkey
2006: For the Anniversary of My Death, W.S. Merwin
2005: The Last Poem About the Snow Queen, Sandra M. Gilbert
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