Good Morning!

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“If news is not really news unless it is bad news, it may
be difficult to claim we are an informed nation.”
— Norman Cousins

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“We are not afraid to entrust the American
people with unpleasant facts, foreign ideas,
alien philosophies, and competitive values.
For a nation that is afraid to let its people judge
the truth and falsehood in an open market
is a nation that is afraid of its people.”
— President John F. Kennedy

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13 poets born this week,
from eight countries,
with birthdates from
772 to 1961

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February 25

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1961 – Jeanetta Calhoun Mish was born in Hobart, Oklahoma; American poet, essayist, and faculty member of Oklahoma City University’s Red Earth MFA in creative writing program. She was the state of Oklahoma’s Poet Laureate (2017-2021). Her poetry collections include: Tongue-Tied Woman; Work Is Love Made Visible, which won the 2010 Oklahoma Book Award; and What I Learned at the War. She has also published Oklahomeland: Essays.

Near Spring Equinox

by Jeanetta Calhoun Mish

A ruby crocus near the porch sends up
hope—winter of sorrow is waning
the dire moon of almost-spring rises
full with promise of renewal,
shaming twinkling city lights in its splendor.

I search for my faith, wonder where
I lost it, find it in deep cinnamon
mud smushing up between my toes.
Across a spent field, a lake in shadow
serenades curvature of earth.
As if on cue, a comet streaks
across somber roiling river of sky.

“Near Spring Equinox” © 2017 by Jeanetta Calhoun Mish originally appeared in Oklahoma Humanities Magazine

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February 26

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1802 – Victor Hugo born in Besançon, France, near the Swiss border; French Romantic novelist, poet, playwright, and liberal politician. He was better known as a poet in France, but outside his homeland his fame rests on the novels Les Misérables and The Hunchback of Notre-Dame (French: Notre-Dame de Paris). He died from pneumonia at age 83 in May 1885.

 On a Barricade

by Victor Hugo

On a barricade, amidst the cobbles
Dirtied with guilty blood and cleaned with pure blood,
A boy of twelve was taken alongside the men,
“Do you belong to them?” The child said, “I do.”
“That’s good”, said the officer, “we are going to shoot you.
Wait your turn.” The child saw bright flashes,
And all his partners die against the wall.
He said to the officer, “May I go
Return this watch to my mother at home?”
“You want to escape.” “I am going to return.” “These ruffians
Are afraid! Where do you live?” “There, by the fountain
And I am going to come back, Mr Captain.”
“Beat it, scoundrel!” The child leaves. Clumsy trick!
And the soldiers laugh with their officer,
And to this laughter the dying add their moans;
But the laughter stops, because suddenly the pale child,
Without warning reappeared, proud like Viala,
Came to stand against the wall and said to them: here I am.

Stupid death was ashamed, and the officer pardoned the boy.

 – translation by Michael Partridge

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1915 – Elisabeth Eybers born in Klerksdorg, in the Transvaal at the time; South African journalist, author, and poet, the first woman to publish a volume of poetry in Afrikaans in 1936. Die Ander Dors (The other thirst), Balans (Balance), and Kruis of Munt (Head or Tail) are among her poetry collections. Eybers won the Hertzog Prize, given for poetry in Afrikaans, twice: in 1943 for two collections – Die Stil Avontuur (The Silent Adventure) and Belydenis in die skemering (Confession in the Twilight) and in 1971 for Onderdak (Shelter). She was married twice, and bore four children. After her divorce from her first husband, Eybers moved to Amsterdam in the 196os, where she met and married a Dutch economist. She lived there until her death at age 92 in December 2007.

 At Night 

by Elisabeth Eybers

 Yes I’m still here and maybe I won’t ever have to go
you think when you startle awake deep in the night.
What you have to leave behind won’t vanish once you’re no longer
keeping watch,
you keep what you can and the rest has a life of its own,
sometimes within reach, untouched by decay,
captured in amber, immune to the most recent day:
you cast an astonished glance through the bars of time
where all that has vanished not wanting to vanish waits for you
and you’re drawn further toward the infinite
time after time when you startle awake deep in the night.

“At Night” – translated by Jacquelyn Pope – appeared in the January 25, 2017 online edition of World Literature Today

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1935 – E. D. Blodgett born in Philadelphia, PA; prolific American-Canadian poet, literary critic, and translator. He was educated at Rutgers University before emigrating to Canada in 1966 to teach literature at the University of Alberta. Blodgett was honored with the Governor General’s Award for poetry in 1996 for his collection Apostrophes: Woman at a Piano. He published over 25 collections of poetry, including Take Away the Names; Sounding; Musical Offering; Elegy; A Pirouette and Gone; Praha; and Songs for Dead Children. In 2007, E.D. Blodgett was appointed as Poet Laureate for the City of Edmonton, Alberta. In 2011, he moved to South Surrey, British Columbia. In 2015 Blodgett published translations of the Persian poet Rumi, Speak Only of the Moon: A New Translation of Rumi, edited with Manijeh Mannani. He died at age 83 in November 2018.

Herons step with care

by E. D. Blodgett

Herons step with care
across the shore: they weave
into the sand their bare
calligraphy and leave.

“Herons step with care” from An Ark of Koans, © 2003 by E.D. Blodgett – University of Alberta Press

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February 27

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1880 – Angelina Weld Grimké born in Boston, MA; African-American journalist, teacher, playwright, short story writer, poet, and esssayist. By ancestry, Grimké was three-quarters white — the child of Sarah Stanley Grimké, a white woman, and Archibald Grimké, one of three sons of a plantation owner and an enslaved woman. Abolitionists Sarah and Angelina Grimké were his father’s sisters. When they discovered that he and his two brothers were their nephews, they helped pay for their college educations. Archibald was the second Black man to graduate from Harvard Law School. Angelina taught English at segregated schools in the Washington DC area. In 1911, her back was injured in a train wreck and never fully healed. She was a regular contributor to The Crisis, the NAACP’s newspaper, edited by W. E. B. Du Bois, and in the literary magazines of the Harlem Renaissance. Her play Rachel was one of the first to protest lynchings and other violence against Black Americans. It was first performed by an all-black cast in New York City the year after D.W. Griffith’s The Birth of a Nation premiered.  She died at age 78 in New York City in June 1958.

 The Eyes of My Regret

by Angelina Weld Grimké

Always at dusk, the same tearless experience,
The same dragging of feet up the same well-worn path
To the same well-worn rock;
The same crimson or gold dropping away of the sun
The same tints, – rose, saffron, violet, lavender, grey
Meeting, mingling, mixing mistily;
Before me the same blue black cedar rising jaggedly to
a point;
Over it, the same slow unlidding of twin stars,
Two eyes, unfathomable, soul-searing,
Watching, watching, watching me;
The same two eyes that draw me forth, against my will
dusk after dusk;
The same two eyes that keep me sitting late into the
night, chin on knees
Keep me there lonely, rigid, tearless, numbly
miserable –
The eyes of my Regret.

“The Eyes of my Regret” from Selected Works of Angelina Weld Grimké, © 1991 by Oxford University Press

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1931 – Kazuko Shiraishi born in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, but taken to Japan by her parents in 1937; Japanese poet and translator. Her first poetry, written at age seventeen, was published in 1951 when she was twenty, and reflected the violence and ugliness of postwar Tokyo. She was influenced by jazz and by Beat poetry, especially Allen Ginsberg, and has often given readings at literary festivals. Several of her poetry collections have been translated into English, including Let Those Who Appear; My Floating Mother, City; and Sea, Land, Shadow.

Street

by Kazuko Shiraishi

It was when we walked on wet to our skins
On a dark street in a miserable town.
Rain. Chilly Weather.
We had raincoats and a black umbrella.
No matter how hard we waved to catch a cab,
They never stopped.
Finally we started to walk,
Wetly, tightly together,
And we wondered what future lay ahead of us.

Although I’ve never remembered anything
Of a warm hotel, of our bodies sharing their warmness,
Of our many words and acts of love.

“Street” from Seasons of Sacred Lust, © 1975 by Kazuko Shiraishi, © 1978 by New Directions, edited by Kenneth Rexroth, and translated by Rexroth, Ikuko Atsumi, John Solt, Carol Tinker, and Yasuyo Morita – New Directions Books

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February 28

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772 – Bai Juyi born in Taiyuan, at that time the capital of the state of Jin, now Shanxi province, China, but spent most of his childhood in Zhengyang, Henan, where his father was an Assistant Department Magistrate of the second class; renowned and prolific Chinese poet, musician, and Tang Dynasty official. He passed the jinshi (civil service) examinations in 800. He first got into trouble for writing against a long war fought with a minor group of Tatars, satirizing greedy officials, highlighting the suffering of the common folk, and for overstepping his minor position by memorializing the emperor before his superiors did, a breach of protocol. He was called back to the capital after five years, and given the position of second-class Assistant Secretary, but his writings about the corruption of the new administration got him sent away again, but this time as a provincial governor. During his tenure, he ordered the restoration of a dike and a dam to control the flow of water from a lake that was the main source of irrigation water for local farmers. Two of his most famous poems are long narratives, “The Song of Everlasting Sorrow” and “The Song of the Pipa Player,” but he was also known for poems which showed his strong sense of social responsibility, like “The Elderly Charcoal Seller.” In 839, he suffered a paralytic attack, losing the use of his left leg, but partially recovered, and spent his remaining time arranging his collected works. He died seven years later, at age 74.

Grass

by Bai Juyi

The grass is spreading out across the plain,
Each year, it dies, then flourishes again.
It’s burnt but not destroyed by prairie fires,
When spring winds blow they bring it back to life.
Afar, its scent invades the ancient road,
Its emerald green overruns the ruined town.
Again I see my noble friend depart,
I find I’m crowded full of parting’s feelings.

– translator not credited

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1936 – Mbella Sonne Dipoko born in Douala, Cameroon; Cameroonian novelist, poet and painter – considered one of the foremost Central African writers in English. He worked as a news reporter in Paris for the Nigerian Broadcasting Corporation while studying Law and Economics at Université de Paris, but left school to write novels. In 1968, he went to the U.S. where he earned a degree in Anglo-American studies. His best-known poetry collection, Black and White in Love, was published in 1972. His novels, A Few Days and Nights and Because of Women, were considered scandalous at the time of their publication because of their frank sexuality. After returning home, he took up politics, but became disillusioned, and concentrated on writing again. He died at age 73 in December 2009.

Exile

by Mbella Sonne Dipoko

In silence
The overloaded canoe leaves our shores

But who are these soldiers in camouflage,
These clouds going to rain in foreign lands?

The night is losing its treasures
The future seems a myth
Warped on a loom worked by lazy hands.

But perhaps all is not without some good for us
As from the door of a shack a thousand miles away

The scaly hand of a child takes in greeting
The long and skinny fingers of the rain.

“Exile” © 1968 by Mbella Sonne Dipoko, originally published in Modern Poetry from Africa, edited by Ronald Segal – Penguin Books

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February 29

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1940 – Paul Mariani born in Queens, New York; American poet, essayist, biographer, and academic. He has taught at several colleges and universities, including the University of Massachusetts (1968-2000) and Boston College (2000-2016), as well as workshops at the Broad Loaf Writers’ Conference and the Image Conference. He was poetry editor of America Magazine (2000-2006).  In 2009, he was honored with the John Ciardi Award for Lifetime Achievement in Poetry, and in 2022, he received the Flannery O’Connor Lifetime Achievement Award. He has written several biographies and commentaries on poets, including Wallace Stevens, Gerald Manley Hopkins, Hart Crane, Robert Lowell, and John Berryman. Mariani is the author of nine poetry collections, including: Timing Devices; Prime Mover; The Great Wheel; Ordinary Time; and All That Will Be New.

 In Old Age the Poet Seeks the Ancient Wisdom of Lear

by Paul Mariani

And where, pray tell, will you go to from here?
You with those maps that “make it all clear”?
Where in God’s name are you heading from here?
Wipe those fogged glasses, old man, as you stare
into the void and say what you see over there.

What staticky words are you thinking you hear?
And what’s spinning about in that brain, you old seer?
What thoughts, if any, are drooling in there?
And what’s that you’re feeling? Something called fear?
Pray, tell us your plans to get there from here?

Is that you trying to claw your way over to there?
Now, peer into this cracked crystal ball and stare.
Stare just a bitter longer, into that blank glaze and share
with us all how the shards you’re seeing could ever cohere,
when you don’t have a clue how you even got here.

“In Old Age the Poet Seeks the Ancient Wisdom of Lear,” © 2023 by Paul Mariani, originally appeared in Image, No. 116 (Spring 2023)

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March 1

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1920 – Howard Nemerov born in New York Cty, American poet. In 1978, he won the National Book Award for Poetry, the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry, and the Bollingen Prize for his collection, The Collected Poems of Howard Nemerov. Nemerov was a poetry consultant to the Library of Congress, aka U.S. Poet Laureate (1963-1964). He was a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets beginning in 1976, then served a second time as U.S. Poet Laureate (1988-1990). There seemed to be no subject too large or too small, too extraordinary or too everyday, for him to tackle with his pen. He died of cancer at age 71 in July 1991.

Item

by Howard Nemerov

I heard this morning on the news
They plan to colonize the moon
With senior citizens (or olds)

The less the pull of gravity
(the scientific theory goes)
The less the strain upon the heart

One adds: the less the atmosphere
(We know the moon has none at all)
The less the strain upon the nose

“Item,” © 1970 by Howard Nemerov, appeared in Poetry magazine’s December 1970 issue

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March 2

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1889 – Kanoko Okamoto born as Kano Ōnuki in Aoyama, now Minato, a ward of Tokyo, Japan; Japanese tanka poet, author, and Buddhist scholar. When her father became gravely ill, she was sent to a nearby section of the city, where she was raised and educated by a governess, who introduced her to classical Japanese literature, and encouraged her love of music, calligraphy, and traditional dance. While she was attending a girls high school, she called on Yosano Akiko, the pioneering Japanese feminist poet, who inspired her to write tankas. Okamoto became a contributor to the influential women’s literary journal Seitō (Bluestocking), and later was a key contributor to Subaru (Pleiades). In 1908, she met and fell in love with cartoonist Okamoto Ippei, but her family was very opposed to the match. She created a scandal when she moved in with in 1910, without marrying. The relationship was not successful – he opposed her independence, was jealous of her success, and was unfaithful. Both of her children died in infancy. Okamoto joined the Jodo Shinsu sect of Buddhism, and became an authority on Buddhism. She wrote four books of tankas, and in the early 1930s, she started writing fiction. Kanoko Okamoto died at age 49 of a brain hemorrhage in February 1949.

A Flower Blooms

by Okamoto Kanoko

 A flower blooms
Showing the natural color
it was born with
while I have never known
in what color I am to bloom.

– translator not credited

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1917 – Fadwa Tuqan born in Nablus, in what was then Mandatory Palestine and is now the West Bank; Palestinian poet known for her poems about the struggles of her  people. At age 13, she became too ill to attend school, and her brother Ibrahim Tuqan, also a poet, taught her English and gave her books to read. She later studied English literature at Oxford University. She published eight poetry collections, including: Alone With the Days, about the hardships faced by women in the Arab world; In Front of a Closed Door; The Night and the Horsemen; and Longing Inspired by the Law of Gravity, completed shortly before her death at age 86 while she was bedridden after a stroke, in December 2003.  

 Enough for Me

by Fadwa Tuqan

 Enough for me to die on her earth
be buried in her
to melt and vanish into her soil
then sprout forth as a flower
played with by a child from my country.
Enough for me to remain
in my country’s embrace
to be in her close as a handful of dust
a sprig of grass
a flower.

“Enough for Me” © 1985 by Fadwa Tuqan, translated in 2006 by Naomi Shihab Nye and Salma Khadra Jayyusi, appeared in From Troubles of The World  poetry collection, December 2023

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1961 – Sheila Black born in Minneapolis, Minnesota; American poet and author of over 40 books for children and young adults and four poetry collections. She was diagnosed as a child with XLH (X-linked hypophosphatemia), a form of rickets not related to a vitamin D deficiency. Black is also co-editor of Beauty Is A Verb: The New Poetry of Disability with Jennifer Bartlett and Mike Northen, and a cofounder of Zoeglossia, a nonprofit organization that strives to build community for poets with disabilities. In 2012, U.S. Poet Laureate Philip Levine chose poets L.S. Asekoff and Sheila Black as recipients of Witter Bynner Fellowships. He said of Black: “She is a consummate poet of memory …”

What You Mourn

by Sheila Black

The year they straightened my legs,
the young doctor said, meaning to be kind,
Now you will walk straight
on your wedding day, but what he could not
imagine is how even on my wedding day
I would arch my back and wonder
about the body I had before I was changed,
how I would have nested in it.
made it my home, how I repeated his words
when I wished to stir up my native anger,
feel like the exile I believed
I was, imprisoned in a foreign body
like a person imprisoned in a foreign land,
forced to speak a strange tongue,
heavy in the mouth, a mouth full of stones.

Crippled they called us when I was young,
later the word was disabled and then differently abled,
but those were all names given by outsiders,
none of whom could imagine
that the crooked body they spoke of,
the body, which made walking difficult
and running impossible,
except as a kind of dance, a sideways looping
like someone about to fall
headlong down and hug the earth, that body
they tried so hard to fix, straighten was simply mine,
and I loved it as you love your own country,
the familiar lay of the land, the unkempt trees,
the smell of mowed grass, down to the nameless
flowers at your feet—clover, asphodel,
and the blue flies that buzz over them.

“What You Mourn” from House of Bone, © 2007 by Sheila Black – CW Books

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