Female Poets

Song of the Worker’s Wife

02-06 Jones
Alice Gray Jones
Welsh
1852 – 1943

My hands are none too white,
Nor lovely nor tender either,
They’re rough and ugly to your sight,
Because of the constant labour,
But my hands are not complaining,
There’s no whinging in my breast,
When I recall my tidy house, containing,
My happy little family, like a Nest.

The kids would go early to bed,
And I’d set to doing the wash,
The little snow white clothes all aired,
I’d get them up so nice and posh,
I’d sew a button on David’s shirt,
And put a nail in Sam’s shoe,
And I’d mend Enid’s red skirt-
Those chores that all mothers do.

And Oh! They were all around me,
Like glad little chicks in a throng,
And my single purpose was to see,
My children happy, fit and strong,
To keep an eye on their progress,
To care for them all day long,
To keep their language spotless:
I was happy, all smiles and song.

But, alas, they’ve all grown up,
And all have left the nest,
They’ll no more come home to sup,
And their old toys are all at rest!
The workbox for mending their things,
And for putting a nail in Sam’s shoe,
Is now quite useless- a bird without wings;
A mam’s initiative unwanted, no more for her to do!

To a Steam Roller

We present this work in honor of the 50th anniversary of the poet’s death.

02-05 Moore
Marianne Moore
American
1887 – 1972

The illustration
is nothing to you without the application.
You lack half wit. You crush all the particles down
into close conformity, and then walk back and forth
on them.

Sparkling chips of rock
are crushed down to the level of the parent block.
Were not ‘impersonal judgment in aesthetic
matters, a metaphysical impossibility,’ you

might fairly achieve
It. As for butterflies, I can hardly conceive
of one’s attending upon you, but to question
the congruence of the complement is vain, if it exists.

On the Removal of Prince Ōtsu’s Remains to the Futagami Mountains

We present this work in honor of the 1,320th anniversary of the poet’s death.

01-29 Oku
Princess Ōku
Japanese
661 – 702

From tomorrow ever
Shall I regard as brother
The twin-peaked mountain of Futagami-
I, daughter of man!
I would break off the branch
Of the flowering staggerbush
Growing on the rocky shore;
But no one says he lives
To whom I would show it!

Where the Pelican Builds

We present this work in honor of Australia Day.

01-26 Foott
Mary Hannay Foott
Australian
1846 – 1918

The horses were ready, the rails were down,
But the riders lingered still
One had a parting word to say,
And one had his pipe to fill.

Then they mounted, one with a granted prayer,
And one with a grief unguessed.
“We are going,” they said, as they rode away
“Where the Pelican builds her nest!”

They had told us of pastures wide and green,
To be sought past the sunset’s glow;
Of rifts in the ranges by opal lit;
And gold “neath the river’s flow.

And thirst and hunger were banished words
When they spoke of that unknown West;
No drought they dreaded, no flood they feared,
Where the pelican builds her nest!

The creek at the ford was but fetlock deep
When we watched them crossing there;
The rains have replenished it thrice since then,
And thrice has the rock lain bare.

But the waters of Hope have flowed and fled,
And never from blue hill’s breast
Come back – by the sun and the sands devoured
Where the pelican builds her nest!

Jewels

01-25 Bernal
Emilia Bernal
Cuban
1884 – 1964

 

Amber. Marble. Sapphire. The jingling babble
of magic treasure. May my bold desires
make the most of such enchantment. Let me
stir them around with my hand.

Alabaster and azure. Day’s blood.
Stones in a heap. Roses made of milk.
Great laughter of light. My longing grasps
and tumbles the precious jewels.

Sea. Sky. Sun in my arms!
Fire
of bright diamonds playing!
Malachite, topaz. Serpentine ribbons
sparkling in my hands! Caught
in my fingers, wreaths of turquoise,
lapis lazuli, jade, aquamarine!

 

Translation by Liz Henry

First Poem

01-23 Sulpicia
Sulpicia
Italian
c. 40 B.C.

 

At last. It’s come. Love,
the kind that veiling
will give me reputation more
than showing my soul naked to someone.
I prayed to Aphrodite in Latin, in poems;
she brought him, snuggled him
into my bosom.
Venus has kept her promises:
let her tell the story of my happiness,
in case some woman will be said
not to have had her share.
I would not want to trust
anything to tablets, signed and sealed,
so no one reads me
before my love—
but indiscretion has its charms;
it’s boring
to fit one’s face to reputation.
May I be said to be
a worthy lover for a worthy love.

 

Translation by Lee Pearcy

Thoughts of a Little Girl

We present this work in honor of the poet’s 150th birthday.

01-19 Camarillo
María Enriqueta Camarillo
Mexican
1872 – 1968

I think flowers can see
and clouds play a game,
that when the wind whispers,
the leaves understand.
They sway and they dance
in the mad-cap breeze.

Sometimes in the morning
to the meadow I go,
where the daisies are playing
in the wind.

First the wind whispers,
then runs, jumps, and tickles their feet.
And the daisies, their heads sweetly nodding,
laugh, sway, and shiver in glee.

To

01-12 Albrecht
Sophie Albrecht
German
1757 – 1840

When your kiss hovers on my lips,
And each of my nerves trembles,
When your cheek lies hot on my cheek,
And your breast clings to mine,
Ha! who can say then exactly what I feel,
And maybe this is a deep sin,
My fearful soul calls often with a shudder,
And yet with passionate lingering
My mouth stays glowing at your lips,
Hotter grows my cheek, instead of fleeing
I press you drunkenly more firmly to my breast,
Oh what holds me more strongly—Do you know, by best one?

The Swifts

We present this work in honor of the poet’s 125th birthday.

01-07 Pitter
Ruth Pitter
English
1897 – 1992

Flying low over the warm roof of an old barn,
Down in a flask to the water, up and way with a cry,
And a wild swoop and a swift turn
And a fever of life under a thundery sky,
So they go, so they go by.

And high and high and high in the diamond light,
They soar and they shriek in the sunlight when heaven is bare,
With the pride of life in their strong flight
And a rapture of love to lift them, to hurtle them there,
High and high in the diamond air.

And away with the summer, away like the spirit of glee
Flashing and calling, and strong on the wing, and wild in their play,
With a high cry to the high sea,
And a heart for the south, a heart for the diamond Day,
So they go over, so go away.