won't you celebrate with me? • National Poetry Month

won't you celebrate with me?

won’t you celebrate with me
what i have shaped into
a kind of life? i had no model.
born in babylon
both nonwhite and woman
what did i see to be except myself?
i made it up
here on this bridge between
starshine and clay,
my one hand holding tight
my other hand; come celebrate
with me that everyday
something has tried to kill me
and has failed.

by Lucille Clifton
Courtesy The Poetry Foundation

Dear Amy Nehzooukammyatootill, • National Poetry Month

I discovered this gem using The Poetry Foundation app, which literally whirls poetry at you on your mobile device. Download it today and take poetry with you everywhere!

Dear Amy Nehzooukammyatootill, 

If I were to ask you a question about your book

and sum it up into one word it would be, Why?

I think I like Walt Whitman better than you. I just don't

get literature, but for a fast hour and a half read, your book

takes the cake. I like how you organized the lines

in that one poem to represent a growing twisting bonsai tree.

Are you going to get a rude reaction when you meet

that one guy in that one poem? I guess you never know.

You are very young to be a poet. I also like how your poems take

up an entire page (it makes our reading assignment go faster).

In class we spend so much time dissecting your poems

and then deeply analyzing them. I think I like Walt Whitman

better than you, but don’t take offense—you are very good too!

You are young, You are young and pure and really just want

to have a good time. Thank you we have taken a debate

and you are a far better poet than Walt Whitman. And I loved

how your poems were easy to read and understand. Hello

my name is Alicia. We read you book and I just loved it.

We also read Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass. There

was no competition there. I liked your book a whole lot better.

It was an easy read. But poetry is not my favorite type

of literature. Sometimes I am offered drinks and guys

try to talk to me but I too just brush it off and keep dancing.

Every once and a while the creepy mean guys try to offer you

things and then they say something. What would you do?

Lastly, I was wondering if you ever wrote a poem that really

didn’t have a deeper meaning but everyone still tried

to give it one anyways? Walt Whitman is better than you.

By Aimee Nezhukumatathil

courtesy The Poetry Foundation 

The cup of Eliyahu • National Poetry Month

The cup of Eliyahu

In life you had a temper. 

Your sarcasm was a whetted knife. 

Sometimes you shuddered with fear 

but you made yourself act no matter 

how few stood with you. 

Open the door for Eliyahu 

that he may come in.

Now you return to us 

in rough times, out of smoke 

and dust that swirls blinding us. 

You come in vision, you come 

in lightning on blackness. 

Open the door for Eliyahu 

that he may come in.

In every generation you return 

speaking what few want to hear 

words that burn us, that cut 

us loose so we rise and go again 

over the sharp rocks upward. 

Open the door for Eliyahu 

that he may come in.

You come as a wild man, 

as a homeless sidewalk orator, 

you come as a woman taking the bima, 

you come in prayer and song, 

you come in a fierce rant. 

Open the door for Eliyahu 

that she may come in.

Prophecy is not a gift, but 

sometimes a curse, Jonah 

refusing. It is dangerous 

to be right, to be righteous. 

To stand against the wall of might. 

Open the door for Eliyahu 

that he may come in.

There are moments for each 

of us when you summon, when 

you call the whirlwind, when you 

shake us like a rattle: then we 

too must become you and rise. 

Open the door for Eliyahu 

that we may come in.

by Marge Piercy

Courtesy The Poetry Foundation 

What Kind of Times Are These • National Poetry Month

A poem of resistance for Valerie, whose birthday is today, during National Poetry Month.

What Kind of Times Are These

There's a place between two stands of trees where the grass grows uphill

and the old revolutionary road breaks off into shadows

near a meeting-house abandoned by the persecuted

who disappeared into those shadows.

I've walked there picking mushrooms at the edge of dread, but don't be fooled

this isn't a Russian poem, this is not somewhere else but here,

our country moving closer to its own truth and dread,

its own ways of making people disappear.

I won't tell you where the place is, the dark mesh of the woods

meeting the unmarked strip of light—

ghost-ridden crossroads, leafmold paradise:

I know already who wants to buy it, sell it, make it disappear.

And I won't tell you where it is, so why do I tell you

anything? Because you still listen, because in times like these

to have you listen at all, it's necessary

to talk about trees.

By Adrienne Rich

From Collected Poems: 1950-2012

Courtesy The Poetry Foundation

Filling Station • National Poetry Month

Click here to hear Elizabeth Bishop read this marvelous poem.

Filling Station

Oh, but it is dirty!
—this little filling station,
oil-soaked, oil-permeated
to a disturbing, over-all
black translucency.
Be careful with that match!

Father wears a dirty,
oil-soaked monkey suit
that cuts him under the arms,
and several quick and saucy
and greasy sons assist him
(it’s a family filling station),
all quite thoroughly dirty.

Do they live in the station?
It has a cement porch
behind the pumps, and on it
a set of crushed and grease-
impregnated wickerwork;
on the wicker sofa
a dirty dog, quite comfy.

Some comic books provide
the only note of color—
of certain color. They lie
upon a big dim doily
draping a taboret
(part of the set), beside
a big hirsute begonia.

Why the extraneous plant?
Why the taboret?
Why, oh why, the doily?
(Embroidered in daisy stitch
with marguerites, I think,
and heavy with gray crochet.)

Somebody embroidered the doily.
Somebody waters the plant,
or oils it, maybe. Somebody
arranges the rows of cans
so that they softly say:
esso—so—so—so
to high-strung automobiles.
Somebody loves us all.

by Elizabeth Bishop
from The Complete Poems, 1927-1979
courtesy The Poetry Foundation

Remember — National Poetry Month

When was the last time you memorized a poem? Why not remember Remember?

Remember

Remember me when I am gone away,

         Gone far away into the silent land;

         When you can no more hold me by the hand,

Nor I half turn to go yet turning stay.

Remember me when no more day by day

         You tell me of our future that you plann'd:

         Only remember me; you understand

It will be late to counsel then or pray.

Yet if you should forget me for a while

         And afterwards remember, do not grieve:

         For if the darkness and corruption leave

         A vestige of the thoughts that once I had,

Better by far you should forget and smile

         Than that you should remember and be sad.

by Christina Rosetti

Courtesy The Poetry Foundation and The Times ("30 Great Poems Everyone Should Know")

Poem in Your Pocket Day: Invictus — National Poetry Month

It's Poem in Your Pocket Day! Print the poem below and carry it around in your pocket. Pull it out from time to time, re-read it, think about it, share it with a friend, discuss it with a colleague.

Invictus

Out of the night that covers me,

      Black as the pit from pole to pole,

I thank whatever gods may be

      For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance

      I have not winced nor cried aloud.

Under the bludgeonings of chance

      My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears

      Looms but the Horror of the shade,

And yet the menace of the years

      Finds and shall find me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,

      How charged with punishments the scroll,

I am the master of my fate,

      I am the captain of my soul.

by W.E. Henley

courtesy The Poetry Foundation