Good Morning

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“… non-interference in the name of marital harmony
quickly became an accepted feature of the criminal
justice system. Instead of punishing domestic abusers,
family courts encourage reconciliation. They also insisted
family conflict, including violence, should remain private.”
       ― Marcia A. Zug, Family Law professor

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Leaving is so hard because your
confidence is destroyed, you feel trapped.
Nothing will ever feel as bad as this …
You are worth so much more than this.
― Valerie, Domestic Abuse Survivor

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No man can live happily who regards himself alone,
who turns everything to his own advantage.
― Seneca, Ancient Roman philosopher

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13 Poets born this week,
whose poems can inspire
and enlighten us, express
true love, deepest loss, or
shine the brightest light
into the darkest corners.

Trigger Warning: Poet Bronwen Wallace worked as a counselor at
a shelter for women and children. There is a description in Wallace’s
biography, and in her poem, of injuries suffered by a domestic violence
victim she interviewed. Years later, Wallace’s poem was used by the
prosecution during the trial of the victim’s abuser.

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May 26

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1799 – Alexander Pushkin born in Moscow; Russian poet, playwright, novelist, short story writer, and critic; widely regarded as Russia’s greatest poet, and the founder of modern Russian literature. Though born into Russian nobility, Pushkin’s maternal great-grandfather Abram was the son of a minor African chief in what is now Cameroon. Kidnapped and enslaved by Ottoman Turks, then bought by the Russian Ambassador, he became a favorite of Peter the Great, and was later ennobled by Empress Elizabeth. Pushkin is known for his verse novel Eugene Onegin and his play Boris Godunov. He thinking was greatly influenced by Voltaire, and became a spokesman for the literary radicals. Pushkin died at age 37, almost 48 hours after being shot in a duel he demanded after receiving a message hinting that his wife had been unfaithful to him. His best-known poetic works are narrative poems, including Rusian and Ludmila; The Prisoner of the Caucasus; and The Bronze Horseman. He also wrote versions of folk and fairy tales in verse.

Night

by Alexander Pushkin

My voice, to which love lends a tenderness and yearning,
Disturbs night’s dreamy calm… Pale at my bedside burning,
A taper wastes away… From out my heart there surge
Swift verses, streams of love, that hum and sing and merge
And, full of you, rush on, with passion overflowing.
I seem to see your eyes that, in the darkness glowing,
Meet mine… I see your smile… You speak to me alone:
​​My friend, my dearest friend… I love… I’m yours. ..your own.

“Night” translated by Irina Zheleznova, editor of Russian 19^th Century Verse: Selected Poems by Pushkin et al – published in 1983 by Raduga Publishers

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1893 – Maxwell Bodenheim born in Hermanville, Mississippi; Modernist poet; lived for a time in Chicago, then moved to New York, where increasing alcoholism reduced him to peddling his poems in bars. He and his third wife were murdered in their lodgings February 1954 by a former mental patient.

The Miner

by Maxwell Bodenheim

Those on the top say they know you, Earth they are liars.
You are my father, and the silence I work in is my mother.
Only the son knows his father.
We are alike sweaty, inarticulate of soul, bending under thick
knowledge.
I drink and shout with my brothers when above you
Like most children we soon forget the parents of our souls.
But you avidly grip us again we pay for the little noise of life
we steal.

“The Miner” from Advice: A Book of Poems © 1920 by Maxwell Bodenheim – Leopold Classics Library 2016 Reissue

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1945 – Bronwen Wallace born in Kingston, Ontario, Canada; Canadian poet, short story writer, newspaper columnist, feminist, and social activist.  Her poetry collections include: Marrying Into the Family; Signs of a Former Tenant; Common Magic; and Keep That Candle Burning Bright. She died of cancer in 1989. Beginning in 1977, Wallace had worked for several years as a counselor at Interval House, a shelter for women and children. She interviewed women who were victims of domestic violence, which inspired her group of poems collectively called Intervals. Twenty-seven years after Bronwen Wallace’s death, in January 2017, Crown attorney Jennifer Ferguson used the words of the poem below, inspired by Wallace’s intake interview decades earlier, during the sentencing hearing of Robert Francis. He was found guilty of horrific abuse of his common-law wife Ruth during the 45 years of their cohabitation. In all, Ruth suffered “multiple skull and rib fractures, at least one broken arm that hadn’t been set, cauliflower ears worthy of an old-time boxer, and scars on her arms and feet from what appeared to be cigarette burns.” The violence probably contributed to brain damage so profound that Ruth could no longer speak.

from Intervals

by Bronwen Wallace

 This is for Ruth,
brought in by the police
from Hotel Dieu emergency
eyes swollen shut, broken jaw wired
and eighteen stitches closing one ear. This
is what a man might do
if his wife talked during the 6 o’clock news.
“And I knew better,” she tells us softly,
“I guess I just forgot myself.”
Tomorrow she may go back to him
(“He didn’t mean it, he’s a good man
really”), but tonight she sits up with me
drinking coffee through a straw.

“Intervals” from The Stubborn Particulars of Grace, © 1987 by Bronwen Wallace – McClelland & Stewart

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May 27

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1928 – Kwesi Brew born to a Fante family in Cape Coast, Ghana; Ghanaian poet and diplomat. After his parents died, he was raised as Osborne Henry Kwesi Brew by a British guardian, and has also published under the name Osborne Henry. He was one of the first graduates from the University of the Gold Coast in 1951, where he wrote prose, poetry, and drama. After graduation he won a British Council poetry competition in Accra, and his poems appeared in the Ghanaian literary journal Okyeame. His poetry collection, The Shadows of Laughter, was published in 1968. He was recruited by Ghana’s administrative service, and rose to be a district commissioner before becoming a member of the diplomatic service. He served as Ghana’s ambassador to Mexico, Lebanon, and Senegal. Brew died at age 69 in July 2007. His other poetry collections are: African Panorama and Other Poems; Return of No Return; and The Clan of the Leopard. His poems also appeared in several anthologies, including Voices of Ghana.

 The Mesh

by Kwesi Brew

We have come to a cross-road
And I must either leave or come with you.
I lingered over the choice
But in the darkness of my doubts
You lifted the lamp of love
And I saw in your face
The road that I should take.

“The Mesh” © by Kwesi Brew, appeared in the anthology Messages: Poems from Ghana, edited by Kofi Awoonor and Adali Adali-Mortly – Heinemann Publishing, 1971 edition

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1932 – Linda Pastan born in New York City, but lived most of her life in Potomac, Maryland; American poet who was Poet Laureate of Maryland (1991-1995). In her senior year at Radcliffe, she won the Mademoiselle poetry prize (Sylvia Plath was runner-up), but devoted the next ten years to raising her family. In the early 1970s, she began writing poetry again, and went on to win the Dylan Thomas Award, Poetry’s Bess Hokin Prize, and the Ruth Lilly Prize. Pastan died at age 90 in January 2023. Among her many poetry collections are: Carnival Evening: New and Selected Poems 1968-1998;The Last Uncle; Traveling Light; Insomnia; and A Dog Runs Through It.

I Married You

by Linda Pastan

I married you for all the wrong reasons,
charmed by your dangerous family history,
by the innocent muscles, bulging like hidden
weapons under your shirt, by your naive ties,
the colors of painted scraps of sunset.
I was charmed too by your assumptions
about me: my serenity— that mirror waiting to be
cracked, my flashy acrobatics with knives in the kitchen.
How wrong we both were about each other,
and how happy we have been.

“I Married You” from Queen of a Rainy Country, © 2008 by Linda Pastan – W.W. Norton & Company

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1951 – Marianne Larsen born in Kalundborg, Denmark, and grew up on a small farm near the village of Røsnæs; Danish poet, novelist, short story writer, children’s book author, translator, and feminist. She studied Danish, literature, and Chinese at the University of Copenhagen, and published her first poetry collection, Koncentrationer (Concentrations), in 1971 while still a student. In 1976, she translated poetry by Lu Xun into Danish. The many collections of her poetry include Overstregslyd (Strikethrough Sound); Fællessprog (Common Language) and Handlinger (Actions).

Little Teacher

―dedicated to Lenore Whitaker Wood

by Marianne Larsen

Your voice has gone the way
Of the whistle-stop and the mountain lion’s cry
Of the dark shadows hanging over well-hidden hollars
Of the rattle-trap stills and the mule-drawn plow
Of the tobacco stake and the fattened sow.
Of the mandolin’s trill and the fiddle’s squeal
Of tobacco spit and the Blue Tick Heel.

That brave young girl travelling so far
From her feather-down bed and city church spire,
To teach those biscuit-faced babes in the woods,
All that she could; All that she could…..

“Little Teacher” from Selected Poems, © 1995 by Marianne Larsen –  Curbstone Press, bilingual edition

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May 28

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1919 – May Swenson born as Anna Thilda May Swenson in Logan Utah; American poet, translator, and playwright. She was the daughter of Swedish immigrants, and English was her second language. She was a poet-in-residence at several universities, and also a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets. Swenson published over a dozen books of poetry, including some for young readers, and translated poems by Nobel Laureate Tomas Tranströmer. She won the 1981 Bollingen Prize for lifetime achievement. She died in December 1989 at age 76 from a heart attack after years of chronic asthma and high blood pressure.

Question

by May Swenson

Body my house
my horse my hound
what will I do when you are fallen

Where will I sleep
How will I ride
What will I hunt

Where can I go
without my mount all eager and quick
How will I know
in thicket ahead
is danger or treasure
when Body my good
bright dog is dead

How will it be
to lie in the sky
without roof or door
and wind for an eye

With cloud for shift
how will I hide?

“Question” from May Swenson: Collected Poems, © 2003 by The Literary Estate of May Swenson, edited by Langdon Hammer – Literary Classics of the United States, Inc.

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1935 – Antigone Kefala born in Brăila, Romania of Greek-Romanian heritage, but her family moved to New Zealand after WWII, where she studied French literature at Victoria University at Wellington and earned an MA. In 1960, Kefala relocated to Sydney, Australia, and later became an Australian citizen. She wrote free verse poetry and fiction in both English and Greek, and is regarded as an important voice expressing the immigrant experience in contemporary Australia. She taught English as a second language and worked as a university and arts administrator. Kefala was awarded the State Library of Queensland’s Judith Wright Calanthe Poetry Award for her poetry collection Fragments. In November 2022, Kefala won the Patrick White Award for her body of work. She died of a virus a week later at age 91, in December, 2022. Among her poetry collections are: The Alien; Thirsty Weather; and European Notebook.

Song Poem

by Antigone Kefala

I long to find you
in the uncertain silence
of my evenings
when darkness comes
and when the streets
are desolately empty
when nothing speaks
only my need of you.

“Song Poem” from Absence: New and Selected Poems, © 1998 by Antigone Kefala – Hale & Iremonger

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May 29

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1918 – Iris Birtwistle born in Blackburn, Lancashire, UK; English lyric poet and owner of a series of art galleries. She nurtured the careers of promising young artists, including David Hockney. During WWII, she was an officer in the Women’s Royal Naval Service (‘Wrens’). Her poetry appeared frequently in many major British literary journals, including Poetry Review, The Spectator, and The Times Literary Supplement. Though blind for the last several years of her life, she was preparing her first poetry collection for publication when she died at age 86 in June 2006. The collection, edited by her sister, poet Angela Kirby, was published posthumously in 2008.

When Leaf and Note Are Gone

by Iris Birtwistle

Should a ragged dream child
Steal out across the page

And should you hear her wild song
Echo mysterious words

That raise a tree of memory
In your hand – then let it be

For retrospective flowers
To hang their blooms upon –

And hang each branch with stars
When leaf and note are gone.

“When Leaf and Note Are Gone” from A Moment Ago: A Selection of Poems by I M Birtwistle, © 2008 by Angela Birtwistle Kirby, editor – Buff Press

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1950 – Melvin Dixon born in Stamford, Connecticut; American novelist, poet, essayist, textbook author, and professor of literature (1980-1992) at Queens College, NYC. His first novel, Trouble the Waters, won the 1989 Charles H. and N. Mildred Nilon Excellence in Minority Fiction Award, and Vanishing Rooms won 1992 Ferro-Grumley Award for LGBTQ Fiction. Dixon had been battling AIDS since 1989. He died at age 42 in October 1992, one year after his partner Richard Horovitz. His first poetry collection was Change of Territory, published in 1983.

Place, Places

by Melvin Dixon

The first night you were gone
I heard fingers clawing from the closet
walls. Some mouse maybe, some
thing was caught between stud beams
and plaster. All next day
it tried to dig through, to nest
in your sheets and blankets
tiny paws, teeth, and nose
in a desperate bid for air.

Then all was quiet.
I looked for the gnawed exit,
the footprints, any other signs
of  quick release, but nothing found.
Slowly filling from room to room
was the smell of dead flesh and fur.
I opened every window against
the silence and the odorous fusion
of  bones into the architecture.

I cleaned the closet anyway,
emptied trash, washed dishes
I had dirtied all alone, remade
the bed with each corner in tight.
Here in full view is a place for me
again. You come home hungry, tired.

And I return from a different journey,
my hands stirring the air, air.

“Place, Places” from Love’s Instruments, by Melvin Dixon, published posthumously in 1995 – Tia Chucha Press

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May 30

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1903 – Countee Cullen born in New York City, African American poet of the Harlem Renaissance, novelist and playwright; noted as a leading figure of the Harlem Renaissance. He had a column, “The Dark Tower,” in the magazine Opportunity: Journal of Negro Life. Noted for his poetry collections: Color; The Ballad of the Brown Girl; Copper Sun; and The Black Christ.  He died at age 42 from high blood pressure and uremic poisoning in 1946.

Incident

by Countee Cullen

Once riding in old Baltimore,
Heart-filled, head-filled with glee;
I saw a Baltimorean
Keep looking straight at me.

Now I was eight and very small,
And he was no whit bigger,
And so I smiled, but he poked out
His tongue, and called me, “Nigger.”

I saw the whole of Baltimore
From May until December;
Of all the things that happened there
That’s all that I remember.

“Incident” from Countee Cullen: Collected Poems – The Library of America, 2013 edition

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May 31

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1986 – Eve L. Ewing born in Chicago, Illinois; American sociologist, author, poet, visual artist, podcaster, children’s book writer, playwright, and a co-author of the Ironheart comic book series. Ewing grew up in Chicago’s Logan Square neighborhood, earned a BA in literature from the University of Chicago, a Master of Arts in Teaching in Elementary Education from Dominican University, then taught middle school in Chicago public schools before earning a PhD from Harvard University’s Graduate School of Education. In 2023, she became Associate Professor Department of Race, Diaspora, and Indigeneity in the University of Chicago’s Division of the Social Sciences. Her podcast, Bughouse Square, began airing in 2018. Her first book, Electric Arches, a collection of poetry, prose, and visual art, won the 2018 Norma Farber First Book Award. She is also the author of the non-fiction Ghosts in the Schoolyard: Racism and School Closings on Chicago’s South Side (2018).  Her book 1919, published in 2019, is a collection of poems about the Chicago Race Riot of 1919, and was an NPR
Best Book.

testify

by Eve L. Ewing

i stand before you to say
that today i walked home
& caught the light through
the fence & it was so golden
i wanted to cry & i lifted
my right hand to say thank
you god for the sun thank
you god for a chain link fence
& all the shoes that fit into
the chain link fence so that
we might get lifted god thank
you & i just wanted to dance
& it feels good to have food
in your belly & it feels good
to be home even when home
is the space between metal
shapes & still we are golden
& a man who wore the walk
of hard grounds & lost days
came toward me in the street
& said ‘girl what a beautiful
day’ & i said yes, testify
& i walked on & from some
place a horn rose, an organ,
a voice, a chorus, here to tell
you that we are not dead
we are not dead we are not
dead we are not dead we are
not dead we are not dead
we are not dead we are not
dead
yet

“testify” © 2022 by  Eve L. Ewing – published in Poem-a-Day on January 28, 2022, by the Academy of American Poets

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June 1

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1878 – John Masefield born in Ledbury, Herefordshire, England; English author and poet; UK Poet Laureate (1930-1967). Though now remembered mostly for his poem “Sea Fever,” Masefield wrote many other poems, not only about the sea, but about Lollingham Downs in Berkshire, where his family lived during WWI, a dozen novels, and several dramatic pieces. As part of his duties as Poet Laureate, he wrote a memorial ode on King Edward VII’s wife, Queen Alexandria, “So many true Princesses who have gone” which was set to music by Sir Edward Elgar. In 1967, he died at age 88 when gangrene developed in his ankle and spread.

An Epilogue

by John Masefield

I have seen flowers come in stony places
And kind things done by men with ugly faces,
And the gold cup won by the worst horse at the races,
So I trust, too.

“An Epilogue” from Collected Poems, © 1929 by John Masefield – MacMillan

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