Good Morning!

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“Censorship is to art as lynching is to justice.”
― Henry Louis Gates Jr, author of
The African Americans: Many Rivers to Cross

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“If this nation is to be wise as well as strong, if we are to achieve
our destiny, then we need more new ideas for more wise men
reading more good books in more public libraries. These libraries
should be open to all—except the censor. We must know all the
facts and hear all the alternatives and listen to all the criticisms.
Let us welcome controversial books and controversial authors.
For the Bill of Rights is the guardian of
our security as well as our liberty.”
― John F. Kennedy,
Saturday Review, October 1960 issue

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13 poets born in May
a little whimsy, a little
romance, and some
Truth – shrill as
an alarm clock

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May 5

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1890 – Christopher Morley born in Haverford, Pennsylvania; prolific American journalist, novelist, poet, and essayist. He also produced stage productions and gave college lectures. Known for his novels, Kitty Foyle, Parnassus on Wheels, and The Haunted Bookshop, as well as his poetry collections The Old Mandarin, and On Vimy Ridge, and his essay collection, Off the Deep End. He suffered a series of strokes in 1951, and died at age 66 in 1957.

Animal Crackers

by Christopher Morley

Animal crackers and cocoa to drink,
That is the finest of suppers I think;
When I’m grown up and can have what I please
I think I shall always insist upon these.
What do YOU choose when you’re offered a treat?
When Mother says, “What would you like best to eat?”
Is it waffles and syrup, or cinnamon toast?
It’s cocoa and animals that I love most!

The kitchen’s the cosiest place that I know;
The kettle is singing, the stove is aglow,
And there in the twilight, how jolly to see
The cocoa and animals waiting for me.

Daddy and Mother dine later in state,
With Mary to cook for them, Susan to wait;
But they don’t have nearly as much fun as I
Who eat in the kitchen with Nurse standing by;
And Daddy once said, he would like to be me
Having cocoa and animals once more for tea.

“Animal Crackers” from Poems by Christopher Morley – Kessinger Publishing 2004 edition

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1980 – Sandra Beasley born in Vienna, Virginia; American poet and non-fiction writer; after graduating magna cum laude the University of Virginia, and earning an MFA from American University, she worked for several years as an editor at The American Scholar magazine before leaving to write full-time. She has published four poetry collections: Theories of Falling; I Was the Jukebox, which won the 2009 Barnard Women Poets Prize; Count the Waves; and Made to Explode; and a memoir, Don’t Kill the Birthday Girl: Tales from an Allergic Life.

Flour Is Firm

by Sandra Beasley

    The Traveler’s Vade Mecum, line 4234

Baking two parts flour to one part water
could stop a bullet. So good soldiers
carried their hardtack over their hearts.
Break it down with a rifle butt, flood it,
fry it in pig fat to make hellfire stew.
Gnaw it raw and praise the juice.

Does wheat prepare for this as it grows,
seeking the light in a half-thawed field?
Do stalks know their strength is merely
in their number? What is ground down
we name flour in promise that it will be
made useful. Otherwise, it’s just dust.

Sheet iron crackers.
Teeth-dullers.
Would you call it starving, if a man dies
with hardtack still tucked in his pocket?
Can you call it food, if the bullet comes only
at the moment he gives in and swallows?

“Flour is Firm” © 2016 by Sandra Beasley from The Traveler’s Vade Mecum, edited by Helen Klein Ross – Red Hen Press

This is an anthology project in which poems were written by 67 poets from around the world, based on lines from the original The Traveler’s Vade Mecum, published in 1853. The 1853 book contained thousands of numbered short lines for travelers and their friends and families to reference by line number in telegrams or brief letters so each can look up the line numbers in their respective copies of the Vade Mecum in order to decipher each other’s messages. Here are a couple of examples of phrases: “There was a great want of civility” and “The children wish to be affectionately remembered”

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May 6

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1913 – Douglas Stewart born and grew up in Eltham, New Zealand, to an Australian family – his father was a lawyer. Australian poet, short story writer, essayist, anthologist, and playwright. He studied writing and journalism at the University of Wellington, and worked as a journalist in New Zealand. Stewart moved to Australia in 1938, and after being rejected on medical grounds by the Australian military for WWII service, he volunteered as an air raid warden.  He was the literary editor (1938-1958) of The Bulletin, an influential Australian weekly magazine, which often featured poetry by Banjo Paterson. An avid outdoorsman, he went trout fishing with fellow Aussie poet David Campbell.  He published 13 collections of poetry, five verse plays, and edited several poetry anthologies. His poetry collections include: The green lions; Glencoe; Sun orchids; and The Birdsville Track. In 1967, his Collected Poems: 1936-1967 won both the Sydney Myer Award for best volume of poetry of the year, and the Grace Leven Prize for Poetry. In 1979, he was honored as Office of the Order of Australia. Stewart died in February 1985 at age 71.

Firewheel Tree

by Douglas Stewart

Round and round, those wheels of fire,
My hurt, my fear, delight, desire,
Hung whirling in that dark-green tree.
I could not tell, so fast they spun
Like scarlet star and crimson sun
In all the leaves’ intricacy,
What incandescence clear or sombre
Might light one flower from another,
Delight or fear or agony;
But all in that same shape they blazed
Of flame whirled into symmetry.
And round they went – I stood amazed
In hurt, in fear, delight, desire,
To see my life in wheels of fire
Go round that dark and silent tree.

“Firewheel Tree” from Collected Poems: 1936-1967, © 1967 by Douglas Stewart – Angus & Robertson

The Firewheel Tree is native to the Australian rainforest, and its large vivid orange-red flowers resemble exploding fireworks.

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1937 – Robin Fulton Macpherson born on the Isle of Arran, off the west coast of Scotland; Scottish poet, translator, essayist, and critic. He earned an MA in 1959 and PhD in 1972 from Edinburgh University. He then held Edinburgh’s Writers’ Fellowship (1969-1971).  He was a senior lecturer at Stavanger University (1973-2006). While based in Norway, he was still involved in the Scottish literary scene as editor of Lines Review (1967-1976), and editing works of Iain Crichton Smith and Robert Garioch. His poetry collections include: Selected Poems; Fields of Focus; Coming down to Earth; A Northern Habitat;  Unseen Islands and other poems; and Arrivals of Light.

From a landscape in April

by Robin Fulton Macpherson

Snowflake grinds against snowflake.
Grass creaks like old furniture.

I spread silence on the fields.

I bring home thick squares of it
to hang on my noisy walls.

“From a landscape in April” © 2006 by Robin Fulton Macpherson, from The Thing that Mattered Most: Scottish poems for children, edited by Julie Johnstone for Scottish Poetry Library – B & W Publishing

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1942 – Ariel Dorfman born in Buenos Aires, Argentina; Argentine-Chilean-American novelist, playwright, essayist, poet, academic, and human rights activist. He became a U.S. citizen in 2004, and has taught literature and Latin American Studies at Duke University since 1985. Dorman’s play Speak to Truth to Power: Voices from Beyond the Dark, based on interviews with human rights activists, premiered at the Kennedy Center in 2000, with a cast that included Alec Baldwin, Kevin Kline, Sigourney Weaver, and John Malkovich.  Dorfman’s poetry collections include Last Waltz in Santiago; Missing: Poems by Ariel Dorfman ; and Voices from the Other Side of Death.

And now she’s losing her first teeth

by Ariel Dorfman

and that one who’s that
next to Uncle Robert
why, little one, that’s your father,
and why doesn’t my daddy come home?
because he can’t,
is daddy dead since he never comes home?
And if I tell her that her daddy
is alive
I am lying
and if I tell her that her daddy
is dead
I am lying.

So I tell her the only thing I can tell her
which is not a lie:
he doesn’t because he can’t.

“And now she’s losing her first teeth” from Missing: Poems by Ariel Dorfman, © 1983 by Ariel Dorfman – An Amnesty International British Sect publication

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May 7

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1861 – Rabindranath Tagore born in Calcutta in British India (now Kolkata) ; Bengali poet, author, essayist, philosopher, playwright, composer, social reformer, and painter who had a major influence on Bengali literature and music.  He wrote Thought Relics in English, but much of his other work has been widely translated.

Bigotry tries to keep truth safe in its hand
with a grip that kills it.
Wishing to hearten a timid lamp
great night lights all her stars.

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1940 – Angela Carter born as Angela Olive Pearce in Eastbourne, on England’s south coast prolific and eclectic English novelist, short story writer, children’s author, poet, journalist, and radio dramatist. Best known for her feminist and magical realist works, including her novels Shadow Dance, The Magic Toyshop, The Passion of New Eve, and Nights at the Circus, which won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize. Her poetry collections are Five Quiet Shouters and Unicorn. She also wrote Memory Chose a Woman’s Body, a memoir in poetry. Carter died of lung cancer at age 51 in 1992.

My Cat in Her First Spring

by Angela Carter

With the spring coming, my cat is beginning to bud,
sprouting nipples all long her long, white breast,
this long-legged, adolescent she.

And in the strange country
fitfully lit by the inward-turning suns of her yellow
eyes, such alien trees shake out moist leaf

and the seed-crusted ferns uncoil with a slow blindness
in the rich fruit-cake of her dark recesses where the wrinkled
intuitions of her summer roses stir and tremble in their sleep

for spring is coming, and the fat bulbs bulge.

“My Cat in Her First Spring” from Unicorn: The Poetry of Angela Carter – Profile Books, 2016 edition

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May 8

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1930 – Gary Snyder born in San Francisco; American poet, essayist, lecturer, and environmental activist. Snyder has been called the “Thoreau of the Beat Generation” and the “Poet Laureate of Deep Ecology.” Among his many published works are Turtle Island; Left Out in the Rain; No Nature: New and Selected Poems; Mountains and Rivers Without End; and Collected Poems.

from Four Poems for Robin:

A spring night in Shokoku-ji

by Gary Snyder

Eight years ago this May
We walked under cherry blossoms
At night in an orchard in Oregon.
All that I wanted then
Is forgotten now, but you.
Here in the night
In a garden of the old capital
I feel the trembling ghost of Yugao
I remember your cool body
Naked under a summer cotton dress.

“Four Poems for Robin” from The Back Country, © 1968 by Gary Snyder – New Directions Publishing

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1957 – Maura Dooley born in Truro, Cornwall, but grew up in Bristol has a degree from the University of York. She teaches creative writing at Goldsmiths, University of London. Dooley has published a number of poetry collections, including Explaining Magnetism (1991), Kissing A Bone (1996) and Life Under Water (2008). In 1997, her poem ‘The Message’ won the Forward Poetry Prize.

 I’m a Stranger Here Myself

by Maura Dooley

We are looking for the station.
Seagulls draw a map above us
in fading light we cannot read by.

You invite three different sets
of directions, four shrugs,
a shaking of the head

then spot a sign
that only leads us back again
to the crowded ring road’s Gordian knot.

I could walk here beside you for ever,
waiting for our destination
to unfold as solid geometry,

signposted, lit from within,
emerging cleanly as we round the corner,
startling in this January twilight.

© 1992 by Maura Dooley

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May 9

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1951 – Joy Harjo born in Tulsa, Oklahoma, a member of the Mvskoke tribe; poet, musician, writer, and highly influential figure in the Native American Renaissance’s second wave. She studied at the Institute of American Indian Arts, earned her undergraduate degree at the University of New Mexico, and an MFA from the University of Iowa’s Creative Writing Program. Harjo has been honored with the 2009 Eagle Spirit Achievement Award, the Wallace Stevens Award in Poetry by the Academy of American Poets, and the Bollingen Prize for American Poetry. In 2019, she became the first Native American to be named as U.S. Poet Laureate, and served three terms (2019-2022). Her books include She Had Some Horses, Crazy Brave, The Woman Who Fell from The Sky, and An American Sunrise.

Once the World Was Perfect

by Joy Harjo

Once the world was perfect, and we were happy in that world.
Then we took it for granted.
Discontent began a small rumble in the earthly mind.
Then Doubt pushed through with its spiked head.
And once Doubt ruptured the web,
All manner of demon thoughts
Jumped through—
We destroyed the world we had been given
For inspiration, for life—
Each stone of jealousy, each stone
Of fear, greed, envy, and hatred, put out the light.
No one was without a stone in his or her hand.
There we were,
Right back where we had started.
We were bumping into each other
In the dark.
And now we had no place to live, since we didn’t know
How to live with each other.
Then one of the stumbling ones took pity on another
And shared a blanket.
A spark of kindness made a light.
The light made an opening in the darkness.
Everyone worked together to make a ladder.
A Wind Clan person climbed out first into the next world,
And then the other clans, the children of those clans, their children,
And their children, all the way through time—
To now, into this morning light to you.

“Once the World Was Perfect” from Conflict Resolution for Holy Beings, © 2015 by Joy Harjo – W. W. Norton & Company

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1936 – Jayne Cortez was in born in Fort Huachuca, Arizona, when her father was stationed there as a soldier, and grew up in Los Angeles, California. She was an African-American jazz poet, activist, spoken-word artist, and founder-publisher of Bola Press. Cortez was honored with the Langston Hughes Medal in 2002.  She died in New York City at age 78 of heart failure in December 2012.

The Oppressionists

by Jayne Cortez

Art
what do the art
suppressors
care about art
they jump on bandwagons
wallow in press clips
& stink up the planet
with their
pornographic oppression
Art
what do they care about art
they go from being
contemporary baby kissers to
old time corrupt politicians
to self-appointed censorship clerks
who won’t support art
but will support war
poverty
lung cancer
racism
colonialism
and toxic sludge
that’s their morality
that’s their religious conviction
that’s their protection of the public
& contribution to family entertainment
what do they care about art

“The Oppressionists” from On the Imperial Highway, © 2009 by Jayne Cortez –
Hanging Loose Press

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May 10

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1918 – Jane Mayhall born in Louisville, Kentucky; American poet, novelist and short story writer. She majored in music at Black Mountain College in North Carolina, where she met and married Leslie George Katz, who would found Eakins Press in 1966, and moved with him to New York City. She taught at the New School for Social Research and the Summer Writers’ Workshop at Hindman Settlement School in Kentucky. Her poems appeared in The New Yorker and The Paris Review. Her poetry collections include Ready for the Ha Ha & Other Satires, a mix of poems and short stories, and Sleeping Late on Judgment Day, published when she was 85 years old. Jane Mayhall died at age 9o in March 2009.

Untitled

by Jane Mayhall

The closest thing I can remember
about your kiss, it was like a breeze.
I blanked out when you got close,
it was sensual, it was not sensual.

no compromise or plan
A whorled, airy unintention, some
nowhere of the softest passing through,
like a window opening.

I can’t remember lips
but felt them
cool and warm, untitled
like a breeze.

“Untitled” from Sleeping Late on Judgment Day, © 2004 by Jane Mayhall – Borzoi/Alfred A. Knopf

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May 11

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1909 – Kim Kirim born as In-son Kim in Haksung, North Hamgyong Province, Korean Empire (now part of North Korea); Korean modernist poet and literary critic. In 1930, he graduated from Nihon University in Tokyo, Japan, with a BA in literary arts, then returned to Korea where he worked as a newspaper reporter for the Chosun Ilbo, in Seoul, now considered Korea’s newspaper of record. In 1933, he was a founding member of the Circle of Nine literary association. He took a leave of absence (1936-1939) from Chosun Ilbo to earn an MA from Japan’s Tohoku University, then resumed his work as a reporter until the forced closure of Chosun Ilbo in 1940 by the Japanese colonial government. In 1942, he worked as an English teacher at Gyeongseong Middle School near his hometown. In January 1946, after the liberation of Korea from Japanese colonial rule, he crossed the 38th parallel, where all his property and books were taken by force. He was living in poverty in South Korea, but managed to get the rest of his family over the border by 1948, then became a teacher at Chung-Ang University, and later a professor at Seoul National University. There, he founded and was director of the New Culture Research Institute until the Korean War broke out, and he was reportedly abducted by North Korea’s state political security department. He is presumed dead, date and location not known. His poetry collections include: The Weather Chart; Wind Speed of the Sun; The Sea and the Butterfly; and The New Song.

Sun’s Custom

by Kim Kirim

Sun,
Just once is enough. I will borrow a red-crowned crane’s throat in order to call you. I will polish the dismantled ruin of my heart and build a small palace for you. You come live there. I will call you my mother my country my love my hope. And I will chase after your wild custom and bite this darkness and kill it.

Sun,
Lick the last night’s unclean frost that formed on the white dam and the green grass and the mountain and the lake of my heart’s small universe. Caress my creek and shake the cradle of my ocean. Come to my sickroom like a delightful guest who brings with her the morning of fishes.

Sun’s beauty my poem cannot surpass. Sun’s being my poem cannot be, so it turns to grief, so I use it to keep the light on inside my gloomy sickroom, and, Sun, I am waiting for you to come, staying up through this night.

“Sun’s Custom” by Kim Kirim, from March First Movement: Korean Translations, translation © 2016 by Jack Saebyok Jung

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Image: Crocus, © just…b photography