poetry - Encouragement (Page 6)

poetry

Emily Dickinson, "The Sunset stopped on Cottages" (950)

I want Dickinson's confidence, though I can't help but think it hubris.

poetry

Kyla Houbolt, "morning"

A few of my more fateful encounters have been with those obsessed with simplifying.

poetry

Matsuo Bashō, "Lady Butterfly"

Bashō witnesses a butterfly with resplendent, patterned wings hovering over an orchid.

poetry

Emily Dickinson, "To fight aloud is very brave" (126)

Dickinson says "To fight aloud is very brave," and "brave" catches me unguarded. I don't think I've ever been "brave."

poetry

D. Nurkse, "Psalm to Be Read with Closed Eyes"

The apocalypse was easier before.

poetry

Adam Zagajewski, “Auto Mirror”

Those who drive wherever they like, whenever they like—I've been jealous of them for so long.

poetry

Emily Dickinson, "Our share of night to bear" (133)

...your literal self is on full display during a move.

poetry

Kyla Houbolt, "But What Do You Know?"

Parts. That's what Houbolt begins with. "[M]aybe the problem is that God has been split up / into parts."

poetry

Kay Ryan, "Pinhole"

"Hope is a discipline," Mariame Kaba says.

poetry

Andrea Cohen, "Night"

Andrea Cohen's "Night" sketches the mystery of night so well that I find myself lost in it.

poetry

Kobayashi Issa, "Mosquito at my ear"

Issa laments one of the more miserable summer experiences. A literal bloodsucker, not content with biting and stealing, makes its presence felt loudly.

poetry

Jane Hirshfield, "Sonoma Fire"

The world is burning.

poetry

Yehuda Amichai, "Forgetting Someone"

Yehuda Amichai takes an everyday error—leaving a light on too long—and finds it apt for describing one of our hardest pains, that of having to forget someone.

poetry

Emily Dickinson, "The difference between Despair / and Fear" (305)

The outstanding question of Dickinson's "The difference between Despair / and Fear" is why the difference has to be known.

poetry

Kay Ryan, "Chop"

I've watched too many videos from those who follow waddling ducks.

poetry

"Things Fall Apart," or Auden's Animals & Ryan Boyd's "Wolves"

Ryan Boyd's poem "Wolves" elegantly testifies to our present madness.

poetry

Rae Armantrout, "Anti-Short Story"

In recent days, the problem of tone has asserted itself rather forcefully. Those subject to second-class citizenship meet a litany of demands about their tone.

poetry

Victoria Chang, "Watchers"

Your truest thoughts, developed in the intimacy of your mind by means of dialogue with the world, deserve better than to be ripped from your possession.

poetry

Emily Dickinson, "If I can stop one heart from breaking" (919)

Dickinson is practical, not obsessed with sounding practical.

poetry

Jane Hirshfield, "Everything Has Two Endings"

Grief and pain are tied to a loss of communication. There's a numbness in knowing you can't be heard.

poetry

Matsuo Bashō, "Seek on high bare trails..."

Can wisdom be summed up? Made into a brief but elegant legacy?

poetry

Wendell Berry, "Be Still in Haste"

"Be Still in Haste"—strictly, an imperative, but as it regards "Haste," an invitation to meditation.

poetry

Jane Mead, "The Geese"

So much of my being is wrapped up in places I am comfortable. I'm not always clear on how to achieve those places.

poetry

Yosa Buson, "New Year's Day"

When I first wrote on this poem, I thought it expressed how the newness of Spring, the promise of renewal, was nothing but a murky, wintery swamp...

poetry

Humberto Ak'abal, "If Birds"

Truth be told, in a world where noise-cancelling headphones are needed, the "mic drop" appears profoundly countercultural.