We present this work in honor of the 30th anniversary of the poet’s death.
Henriette Hardenberg German 1894 – 1993
Like rare animals they move up and down And lie deep at the bottom of the sea; Moon-colored is the stone, like a wound Set in flowering plumage.
I fear this hidden motion, Like wind held up in branches; So few fingers, in figures, Will excite thoughts in me.
The sea divides so that I can reach it – In swaying underbrush of crystal night – This hand, extended flat yet softly sunk, There before my pallid face.
I don’t know whether the little bones, Rinsed by the sea, will drift and mingle, Or if, wrapped in clouds, They will reach up for music and dance.
I know that dreams without fragrance, Like dead fingers rigid in the joints, Do not give shrouded magic For which the living call in sleep.
We present this work in honor of the 15th anniversary of the poet’s death.
Tahereh Saffarzadeh Persian 1936 – 2008
A lone tree I am in this far reaching desert on this sorrowful plain I have no soul mate no one whose steps tread in unison with mine the friendly murmur of streams the happy rush of springs die in a space far away and my ear fills with parched strains of solitude In this desert I have terrifying companions; hail of pain, cloud of fear, and wild downpour of sorrows within me howls the clamor of wolves of loneliness. In this darkness of night my heart does not quicken with thoughts of tomorrow.
In honor of New Zealand Labour Day, we present this tribute to the season.
Jessie Mackay Kiwi 1864 – 1938
O June has her diamonds, her diamonds of sheen, Meet for a queen’s neck, if Death had e’er a queen! June has her blue days, jewels of delight, Set in the ivory of Alp-land white,— But October, October’s the lady o’ the year!
O January’s garland is redder than the rose, And the wine-red ruby of January glows All the way to madness and half the way to sin, When sleep is in the poppy and fire is in the whin! But October, October’s the lady o’ the year!
October will ride in a mantle o’ the vair, With the flower o’ the quince in her dew-wet hair; October will ride to the gates of the day, With the bluebells ringing on her maiden way;— For October, October’s the lady o’ the year!
We present this work in honor of the poet’s 95th birthday.
Jayanta Mahapatra Indian 1928 – 2023
Of that love, of that mile walked together in the rain, only a weariness remains.
I am that stranger now my mirror holds to me; the moment’s silence hardly moves across the glass. I pity myself in another’s guise.
And no one’s back here, no one I can recognize, and from my side I see nothing. Years have passed since I sat with you, watching the sky grow lonelier with cloudlessness, waiting for your body to make it lived in.
We present this work in honor of the poet’s 150th birthday.
Guilldermo Valencia Colombian 1873 – 1943
That I love you, without rival, you knew it and the Lord knows it; never flirt the erratic grass to the friendly forest how your being joined my sad soul
And in my memory your life persists with the sweet murmur of a song already the nostalgia of your love mitigates my mourning that resists oblivion.
Diaphanous spring that does not run out, you live in me and in my austere aridity your freshness mixes drop by drop.
You went to my desert the palm tree, To my bitter skin the seagull, And you will only die when I die!
We present this work in honor of the poet’s 75th birthday.
Ntozake Shange American 1948 – 2018
loose in the brush pines my grandfather farmed learned yiddish to better wash windows the french windows the sixteen paned windows the terraced windows of a restricted town he made violins of pine varnished them tuned them let music carry his daughters out of the town away from the farm that burned down scrubby pines brush pines obliterate the ruins of the barn the pine needles scratch the air each time my father wipes the tears from his cheeks but not from the windows there were never streaks on the windows.
We present this work in honor of the poet’s 85th birthday.
Les Murray Australian 1938 – 2019
The word goes round Repins, the murmur goes round Lorenzinis, at Tattersalls, men look up from sheets of numbers, the Stock Exchange scribblers forget the chalk in their hands and men with bread in their pockets leave the Greek Club: There’s a fellow crying in Martin Place. They can’t stop him.
The traffic in George Street is banked up for half a mile and drained of motion. The crowds are edgy with talk and more crowds come hurrying. Many run in the back streets which minutes ago were busy main streets, pointing: There’s a fellow weeping down there. No one can stop him.
The man we surround, the man no one approaches simply weeps, and does not cover it, weeps not like a child, not like the wind, like a man and does not declaim it, nor beat his breast, nor even sob very loudly—yet the dignity of his weeping
holds us back from his space, the hollow he makes about him in the midday light, in his pentagram of sorrow, and uniforms back in the crowd who tried to seize him stare out at him, and feel, with amazement, their minds longing for tears as children for a rainbow.
Some will say, in the years to come, a halo or force stood around him. There is no such thing. Some will say they were shocked and would have stopped him but they will not have been there. The fiercest manhood, the toughest reserve, the slickest wit amongst us
trembles with silence, and burns with unexpected judgements of peace. Some in the concourse scream who thought themselves happy. Only the smallest children and such as look out of Paradise come near him and sit at his feet, with dogs and dusty pigeons.
Ridiculous, says a man near me, and stops his mouth with his hands, as if it uttered vomit— and I see a woman, shining, stretch her hand and shake as she receives the gift of weeping; as many as follow her also receive it
and many weep for sheer acceptance, and more refuse to weep for fear of all acceptance, but the weeping man, like the earth, requires nothing, the man who weeps ignores us, and cries out of his writhen face and ordinary body
not words, but grief, not messages, but sorrow, hard as the earth, sheer, present as the sea— and when he stops, he simply walks between us mopping his face with the dignity of one man who has wept, and now has finished weeping.
Evading believers, he hurries off down Pitt Street.
We present this work in honor of the Jamaican holiday, National Heroes’ Day.
Roger Mais Jamaican 1905 – 1955
Men of ideas outlive their times An idea held by such a man does not end with his death His life bleeding away goes down Into the earth, and they grow like seed The idea that is not lost with the waste of a single life Like seed springing up a multitude.
They hanged Gordon from a boom Rigged in front of the Court House They hanged him with eighteen others for company And Jesus had but two But the ideas for which Gordon lived Did not hang with him And the great social revolution for which Jesus died Did not die with him Two men they nailed with Jesus side by side Eighteen went to hang with Gordon from the new-rigged boom But the idea of equality and justice with Gordon Went into the ground and sprung up like seed, a multitude
A hundred years the seed was a-growing in the ground A hundred years is not too long A hundred years is not too soon A hundred years is a time and a season And all things must wait a time and a season And the time and the season for each growing thing
Is the way, and there is no other
The time and the season of its growing and bearing fruit
Are inherent in the nature of the seed And inherent in it is its growth and its fruit
And this is the way and there is no other
A hundred years is not too long
For the seed to burst its husk under the ground
And cleave a path and press upward
And thrust a green blade in triumph at the sun Do not be anxious for the house that is a-building For the unsown acres under the plough For all things await a time and a season.
The dream given to one man in the night
Not night nor darkness can call it back again
They hanged George William Gordon for the dream
He had been given in the night That he carried in his breast Thinking to put the dream to death With the man they put to shameful death But they give immortality to the dream That time the man is put to death For the dream is all It is all of a man that there is and immortal And all of immortality of a man there is.
A long time ago they hanged George William Gordon But not so long ago A log time ago They put Jesus on the Cross But not so long For all things have a time and a season A long time ago The pea doves took the sweetwood seeds And let them fall on the valley bottoms That are now the virgin forest of the great backlands Of new timber, a long time Were the bare rock-spure growing That is now a matted forest floor Where the wild birds took and dropped The little sweet kernels of the tall timbers A long time ago, but not so long For all things have a time and a season And a hundred years is not too long And a hundred years is not too soon. They hanged Gordon with eighteen others They nailed Jesus between two thieves But the ideas these men lived for did not die with them A single grain of corn will yield an ear of corn And an ear of corn in two generations will sow a field And these things befall between a moon and a moon All things await a time and a season And twice a hundred years is not too long Or twice a hundred years too soon.
We present this work in honor of the poet’s 105th birthday.
María Teresa Sánchez Nicaraguan 1918 – 1994
The children of God have no roof, and hungry, they wander like specters; and they are thirsty, and find no shade for their sun. The pride of small, despotic human gods
rages over them, who break the harmony of the wind with their noises.
Sow the deserts with wheat, sweeten the water of the seas; appease the wrath of God: he who has built the world can destroy it.
Poets Corner 