Good Morning!

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“What matters most is how well
you walk through the fire.”
– Charles Bukowski
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“You are the lens of the world
through which the world may
become aware of itself. The world,
on the other hand, is the only lens
in which you can see yourself. It
is both together that make vision.”
– R.A. MacAvoy, from her
Lens of the World trilogy
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13 poets born this week:

violence-in-waiting, goodbyes,
lost tribe, dark ever-present,
night walk, a whale in Iowa,
sky thoughts, last thoughts,
driving while black, and
the love dogs gift us. 

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August 14
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1943 – Alfred Corn born as Alfred DeWitt Corn III, in Bainbridge, Georgia: American poet, essayist, academic, and translator. After earning an M.A. in French literature at Columbia University in 1967, he spent two years in Paris on a Fulbright Scholarship. He has taught in Columbia’s Graduate Writing Program, and held visiting posts at several other universities, including UCLA, Ohio State University, and Yale. His poetry collections include All Roads at Once; The Various Light; The West Door; Present; Tables; and Unions. He also published The Metamorphoses of Metaphor, a collection of essays, a translation of Rilke’s The Duino Elegies, and The Bamboo Pavillion, translations of classic Chinese poetry in collaboration with Joanne Wang.

 Having Words

by Alfred Corn

They’d started meeting by night at the only local,
A seething crowd drawn from among the loudest
Words, swearing, conspiring, over tankards of ale.
In sour chiaroscuro their clenched faces by moments
Looked too grievance or was it expressive for comfort.

Rage drowns out background sounds such as summer
Crickets, the result, that one of them, in humid
Darkness, stops rasping his metal comb. It’s clear
That the rally of Words will turn demonic,
That before night ends they’ll be up in arms.

Even the rawest learner can in a clock tick
Become aware of the name it’s called by. Which
He tries on Cricket Cricket till he thinks: Your name
Amounts to a sound, nothing more. Trundling on
Towards the defiant Words, he says, No. No, I Am Deuce.

“Having Words” © 2013 by Alfred Corn, appeared in Poem-A-Day, July 3, 2013

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1947 – Wang Ping born in Shanghai, China; Chinese poet, novelist, short story writer, and multimedia artist. After earning a degree in English literature at Peking University, she left China in 1985 to earn a master’s in English Literature, then a Ph.D. in comparative literature from New York University. She taught at Macaltester College in St. Paul, Minnesota (1999-2020) until her retirement. Her poetry collections include Flames; Of Flesh & Spirit; The Magic Whip; and My Name Is Immigrant.

IV – from The River in Our Blood: A Sonnet Crown

by Wang Ping

Moon on river’s bend, long day of mayfly
No sound or word from Damascus’ desert
Limestone ridge along Silk Route—face of Dubai
Crumbles—wind in hyssop, thyme, wild mustard

This flayed land, so raw, parched, only seeds fly
To take roots in the conquerors’ footprints
Dusk weeps like sand through hands, pulling first cry
From Azan’s throat, a black slave as god’s imprints

Home under the ash cloud, darting swallows
From hospitals, roses on broken walls
Tanks at the border. Shadows at ghettos
Remorse in maze—the last muezzin calls

The Dervish whirls, palm to earth, palm to sky
Who gave us the hand to feel your sublime?

“IV” from The River in Our Blood: A Sonnet Crown, © 2013 by Wang Ping

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August 15

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1954 – Mary Jo Salter was born in Grand Rapids, Michigan; poet, editor, essayist, playwright, and lyricist. She is the co-editor of The Norton Anthology of Poetry, and a professor in the Writing Seminars program at Johns Hopkins University. Her poetry collections include Unfinished Painting, A Kiss in Space, Open Shutters, Nothing by Design, and The Surveyors.

Goodbye Train

by Mary Jo Salter

I’m stepping off the train behind a pair
of thirtysomethings with their baby daughter.

The father will stay fit for years, I think,
Though here and there, his hair’s a little thin;

The mother’s confident in new blue jeans
She knows are sexy—but carefully, tastefully so.

Seeing them floods me at once—I can’t say why—
With solicitude. Delight, and envy. Pain

“Goodbye, train,” the mother says, and then,
“Say ‘goodbye, train.’ ‘bye bye.’” She waves her hand

Theatrically, the way we often will
With children, so that nobody can find us

Guilty, ourselves, of any silliness—
Of joy in the trainman’s cap, his ticket-punch.

The little girl is propped on her father’s hip
And pointing vaguely at a world of things

She’s just come to know, and which now must go away.
How grave she seems!—a toothless oracle.

I see too how I look, if anyone’s looking:
A weathered niceness, a trudging competence.

That’s how I follow, twenty years ahead
Of the parents, as I lug my bags behind them,

Vowing to keep a stranger’s proper distance—
As I did from those two lovesick teenagers

Clinging in tears some stations back, when he
Prepared himself to be left there on the platform

By a girl who swore it wasn’t possible,
And both were stunned to discover that it was.

I think what luck it is, to be one who says
Goodbye to trains instead of other people.

“Goodbye Train” from A Phone Call to the Future: New and Selected Poems, © 2009 by Mary Jo Salter – Knopf

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August 16

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1843 – Mary Lee Hall born in Marlborough, Connecticut; American suffragist, philanthropist, poet, and the first woman lawyer in Connecticut. In 1866, she graduated from Wesleyan Academy in Massachusetts, winning a medal for her commencement poem. She taught mathematics, but in 1877, Hall asked her brother Ezra, an attorney and Connecticut State Senator, to apprentice her as a law student in his office. Ezra died in 1878, and she became John Hooker’s apprentice. In 1880, Hall founded the Good Will Club, a charity for boys, especially newspaper boys, providing education and vocational training. In 1882, at age 38, Mary Hall made her application to the Connecticut Bar, and passed her examination. A brief submitted to the Connecticut Supreme Court of Errors to determine her eligibility was decided in her favor, the first judicial decision in the nation to hold that women were permitted to practice law. But her legal career consisted mostly of clerking, assisting Hooker in preparing wills and property matters. She became increasingly involved in the campaign for woman suffrage and for social reform. She died at age 84 in 1927.

Turn Again to Life

by Mary Lee Hall

If I should die, and leave you here awhile
Be not like others sore undone, who keep
Long vigils by the silent dust and weep.
For my sake, turn again to life, and smile,
Nerving thy heart and trembling hand to do
Something to comfort weaker hearts than thine.
Complete these dear unfinished tasks of mine,
And I, perchance, may therein comfort you!

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Mary Gilmore born August 16, 1865, Australian writer, journalist, poet, labor movement activist, and crusader for the disadvantaged; inaugural editor of the women’s section of The Australian Worker (1908-1931), advocating for women’s suffrage, pensions for the elderly and invalids, and just treatment of the Aboriginal people. She also wrote for The Sydney Morning Herald. She published 20 poetry collections. Her poem “No Foe Shall Gather Our Harvest” was a morale booster during WWII.  Appointed Dame Commander of the British Empire in 1937. She became the doyenne of the Sydney literati, and was a well-known personality on radio and television. At 87, she began writing “Arrows,” a column for The Tribune, the Australian Communist Party’s newspaper (1952-1963), but never joined the party. When Dame Mary died at age 97, she became one of the few writers to be accorded a state funeral. Her likeness is the Australian ten-dollar note.

The Waradgery Tribe

by Mary Gilmore

Harried we were, and spent,
broken and falling,
ere as the cranes we went,
crying and calling.

Summer shall see the bird
backward returning;
never shall there be heard
those, who went yearning.

Emptied of us the land;
ghostly our going;
fallen like spears the hand
dropped in the throwing.

We are the lost who went,
like the cranes, crying;
hunted, lonely and spent
broken and dying.

“The Waradgery Tribe” from The Collected Verse of Mary Gilmore, reprinted by University of Queensland Press, 2006 edition

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1902 – Eli Siegel born in Dvinsk, Russian Empire (now Daugavpils, Latvia); American essayist, lecturer on Aesthetic Realism, literary critic, and poet. His family emigrated to the U.S in 1905, and settled in Baltimore. After graduating from Baltimore City College in 1919, he co-founded The Modern Quarterly. His best-known poem, “Hot Afternoons Have Been in Montana” won The Nation’s poetry prize in 1925. His two poetry collections are Hot Afternoons Have Been in Montana: Poems and Hail, American Development. Siegel died at age 76 in 1978.

The Dark That Was Is Here

by Eli Siegel

A girl, in ancient Greece,
Be sure, had no more peace
Than one in Idaho.
To feel and yet to know
Was hard in Athens, too.
I’m sure confusion grew
In Nika’s mind as she,
While wanting to be free,
Hoped deeply to adore
Someone; and so no more
Be wretched and alone.
— Ah, hear the keen, wise moan
Of wind at twilight, past
Old trees, which darken fast.
That wind was heard, that blur
Of trees was seen by her
Of Attica.— The sound
Of wind on dry, cool ground
Once more is heard by girl,
With heart in autumn whirl.
The trees stand up in grey;
It is their ancient way—
All this in Idaho,
Where grieving girls now go
In mingled love and fear.
The dark that was is here.

“The Dark That Was Is Here” from Hot Afternoons Have Been in Montana: Poems, © 1957 by Eli Siegel – Definition Press

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1920 – Charles Bukowski born as Heinrich Karl Bukowski in the Wiemar Republic, German-American poet, novelist and short story writer whose father was an American serving in Germany after WWI. His family moved to the U.S. in 1923, and settled in Los Angeles, California. He was bullied at school for his heavy German accent, and his father frequently beat him, so he became a heavy drinker while still in his early teens. Bukowski didn’t become a full-time writer until he almost 50, when he accepted an offer from John Martin at Black Sparrow Press. Among his many poetry collections are Love Is a Dog from Hell; War All the Time; You Get So Alone at Times That It Just Makes Sense; and The Roominghouse Madrigals. He died of leukemia at age 73 in 1994.

And The Moon And The Stars And The World

by Charles Bukowski

Long walks at night–
that’s what’s good for the soul:
peeking into windows
watching tired housewives
trying to fight off
their beer-maddened husbands.

“And The Moon And The Stars And The World” from Essential Bukowski: Poetry –edited by Abel Debritto – Ecco, 2016 edition

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1949 – Debora Greger born in Walsenburg, Colorado, American poet and visual artist. Raised in Richland, Washington, she graduated from the University of Washington, attended the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, and taught creative writing and English at the University of Florida in Gainesville until she retired. Greger is now Poet in Residence at the Harn Museum of Art in the university’s campus. Among her poetry collections are Moveable Islands; Cartography; Desert Fathers; Men, Women, and Ghosts; and In Darwin’s Room.

The Right Whale in Iowa

by Debora Greger

The shag rug of a Great Plains buffalo,
a flightless bird
gone to stone: over its fellow keepsakes,

into the archives of air,
the whale hauled a harvest of dust.
In the ripples of glass

sealed over songbird skins, I wavered.
What could be said for love?
From the Full-Serv to the Self-Serv Island

at the Gulf station next door,
landlocked waves shivered in a row of corn.
The great flukes lifted.

A Milky Way scarred the underside more vast
than the Midwestern night.
Dark cargoes would give themselves up

to these shallows
that waited to take home the sailor,
home to the sea

of fossilized coral upon whose shoals
just down the road
the motels of Coralville lay sprawled.

Here would lie a ring
scratched by a scrivener with florid hand,
In thy breast my heart does rest

flung back to shore, here rest two coins
face to face, joined
by the salt that turned them faceless

as they turned to each other.

“The Right Whale in Iowa” from Off-Season at the Edge of the World, © 1994 by Debora Greger – University of Illinois Press

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August 17

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1954 – Ally Acker born in New York City; American filmmaker, author, poet, and film historian. A graduate of Northwestern University, she worked as a video editor in Washington DC, then as a freelance radio producer for the Feminist Radio Network. In 1978, she directed, produced, shot, and edited Silver Apples of the Moon. In 1980, she worked at Valkhan Films in New York, then for The Today Show, where she became a producer/writer. In 1985, she founded The Reel Women Trust Foundation. Her poetry collections are Surviving Desire and Waiting for the Beloved. She is also the author of Reel Women: Pioneers of the Cinema, 1986 to the Present.

The Language Of Sky

by Ally Acker

I’ve moved on. I hope you can too.
And just like that, I am lost.
It is possible we will not meet
again in this life. Only the naked sky connecting
our far away worlds. When I get lonely I look up.
How are you feeling? Are you happy?
Nothing. Blue, blank, benign stare. I plead with the air.
But it’s no use. I am like a leaf floating.
A disciple of wind. Devotee of neither branch nor ground.
Little by little, I learn to take the sky at its word.

“The Language of Sky” © 2013 by Ally Acker

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1960 – Naomi Wallace born in Prospect, Kentucky; American playwright, screenwriter, essayist, poet, and activist. She has two master’s degrees from the University of Iowa, and taught poetry and playwriting at several institutions, including Yale, UCLA, American University of Cairo, and Vrije University of Amsterdam. She is a member of Showing Up for Racial Justice (SURJ), and worked with women in prison. She has written 18 plays, 4 essay collections, and a poetry collection, To Dance A Stony Field.

An Execution in the Country

                ― Nicaragua, 1986

by Naomi Wallace

The sun is above us now, watching.
I scoop the dirt away, handful by handful.
Contras stand over me with guns.
How many times have I done this, prying
open the earth, on a day just like today?
Around this time I might hear the voice of my son
pivoting over the fields, Come home,
or in the distance, the figure of my daughter.
With my thumb I could blot her from view,
then make her reappear — such miracles!
Or my wife, floating across the fields towards me,
swinging like a bell over the furrows.
When was the last time I kissed her?
Yesterday, the day before? I must remember.

They force me to lie down in the hole I’ve dug.
One of the soldiers, the youngest, squats on my stomach.
His chin is like my daughter’s. He holds a knife.
For the first time in my life my thighs are heavy
with those of another man — such miracles!
I want to touch him just because he is there above me,
press my mouth to his chest, suck at the heart.
He raises the knife. He grits his teeth.
I close my eyes and think hard.
Suddenly my thighs swell with a terrible light:
There, by the door! I am sitting there,
yesterday, on the porch. The work is done.
She leans over me and I kiss her open throat.
She tastes like nothing but herself.
She whispers, Come inside and rest.

“An Execution in the Country” © 1991 by Naomi Wallace

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August 18

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1952 – Mwatabu S. Okantah born in New Jersey as Wilbur Thomas Smith. He has a B.A. in English and African Studies from Kent State, where he changed his name (Okantah means “breaker of rock” in the Ga language of Ghana), and an M.A. in creative writing from City College of New York.  He is a professor and poet in residence in the Department of Pan-African Studies and director of a Ghana study abroad program at Kent State. His poetry collections include To Sing a Dark Song; Afreeka Brass; and Guerrilla Dread: Poetry for Hearts and Minds.

driving while black

by Mwatabu S. Okantah

        It is not what you call me,
it is what I answer to…
— African Proverb

driving in my car
black wisdom from the ages is turned on its head:

in my car
what i think of my Self is of no significance
(save in my own mind…)
because i am always black while driving
and i know they are there waiting lurking
looking
out for some one black
like me.

i am a black man driving.
i have my own and countless other blackmenintheircars
stories to tell—
it is the same story; just new chapters from works in progress
out of America’s deep black story well.

i am blessed.
i have driven through my youth
and into my elder years—
i am still driving. they are
still there watching.
sadly,
their fears are always near…

“driving while black” © 2013 by Mwatabu S. Okantah – from  Muntu Kuntu Energy: New and Selected Poetry – Chatter House Press

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August 19

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1902 – Ogden Nash born in Rye, New York, American humorous light verse poet who wrote well over 500 poems, one of the best- known and liked U.S. poets. His family moved frequently because of his father’s import-export business. He spent a year at Harvard University in 1920, but dropped out, then taught briefly, tried to sell bonds in New York City, and then became a writer of streetcar card ads. He then worked as an editor at Doubleday Publishing. Nash submitted some of his short rhymes to The New Yorker, and editor Harold Ross asked him for more, “They are about the most original stuff we have had lately.” Nash spent three months in 1931 in working on the editorial staff for The New Yorker, and married Frances Leonard. They moved to Baltimore in 1934, where Nash died from complications of Crohn’s disease at age 68 in 1971.

The Dog

by Ogden Nash

The truth I do not stretch or shove
When I state that the dog is full of love.
I’ve also found, by actual test,
A wet dog is the lovingest.

“The Dog” from I Wouldn’t Have Missed It, © 1975 by the Estate of Ogden Nash – Little Brown & Co

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1908 – Josephine Jacobsen, American poet, short story writer, and nonfiction author, born prematurely to her vacationing American parents in Cobourg, Ontario, Canada. At 2 ½ pounds, she was not expected to live, but was brought home to New York at three months. After her father died when she was five, she and her mother traveled constantly. Taught intermittently by private tutors, she became a voracious reader. Her first poem was published in St. Nicholas Magazine when she was 11. She was 14 when her mother settled them in New Jersey. Instead of going to college, she traveled, wrote, and acted with the Vagabond Players until her marriage in 1932 (which lasted until her husband’s death in 1995). Jacobsen’s first poetry collection, Let Each Man Remember, was published in 1940. She was Consultant in Poetry (1971-1973) to the Library of Congress (changed to U.S. Poet Laureate in 1985). In 1993, Jacobsen received the Shelley Memorial Award from the Poetry Society of America.  In 1996, she won the Poet’s Prize for In the Crevice of Time. In 1997, Jacobsen was awarded the Robert Frost Medal for Lifetime Achievement in Poetry. Her 12 poetry collections include Sisters; Contents of a Minute; and The Chinese Insomniacs. She died at age 94 in 2003.

With the Ancient Dog, He Stepped Outside at Midnight

by Josephine Jacobsen

With him went the black small beast.
A dark wind shook the tamerisks
But could not blow the stars and moon about.

The dog had always vanished;
Never, once, come back unasked
Till now, tonight, quick as though menaced

By something in the humor
Of signals: the wind’s tentative sound,
That watch-and-wait of eyes, stellar and lunar.

For close to the dog was a shape.
By the lit door love stood its ground.
The dog looked up in fear, in habit and hope.

At just this balance, beast and human,
The windy midnight spoke two words
Old and new for them to hear in common

Distinctly: love and death.
Then they moved, separate, and the door
Shut them inside together, for tonight at least.

And through the smallest hours
The still house like a brittle spar
Rode out the night among the jagged stars.

“With the Ancient Dog, He Stepped Outside at Midnight” from In the Crevice of Time: New and Collected Poems, © 1995 by Josephine Jacobsen – John Hopkins University Press

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