Good Morning!

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“The fact that a great many people believe
something is no guarantee of its truth.”
― W. Somerset Maugham

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“Ships at a distance have every man’s wish on board.”
― Zora Neale Hurston, opening line
of Their Eyes Were Watching God

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The truth is incontrovertible. Panic
may resent it; ignorance may deride
it; malice may distort it, but there it is.
― Winston Churchill, from
Memoirs of the Second World War
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Thirteen poets born this week,
lovers of country, exiles and
immigrants, speakers of
loud truths, deep losses,
and believers in animals

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August 11

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1892 – Hugh MacDiarmid, the pen name of Christopher Murray Grieve, who was born in Langholm, just north of Scotland’s border with England; Scottish poet, major figure of the Scottish literary renaissance, journalist, short story writer, essayist, anthologist, socialist, a founding member of the National Party of Scotland, and Justice of the Peace. He wrote in English and Scots, and often combined them in the same poem. MacDiarmid died at age 86 in September 1978.

Scotland

by Hugh MacDiarmid

It requires great love of it deeply to read
The configuration of a land,
Gradually grow conscious of fine shadings,
Of great meanings in slight symbols,
Hear at last the great voice that speaks softly,
See the swell and fall upon the flank
Of a statue carved out in a whole country’s marble,
Be like Spring, like a hand in a window
Moving New and Old things carefully to and fro,
Moving a fraction of flower here,
Placing an inch of air there,
And without breaking anything.
So I have gathered unto myself
All the loose ends of Scotland,
And by naming them and accepting them,
Loving them and identifying myself with them,
Attempt to express the whole.

“Scotland” from The Complete Poems of Hugh MacDiarmid – Penguin Books, 1985 two- volume edition)

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1897 – Louise Bogan born in Livermore Falls, Maine, into a millworker’s family; American poet and critic. She escaped from her parents’ frequent fighting into books, becoming a passionate reader. A woman benefactor helped her to attend the Girls’ Latin School in Boston, and she spent one year at Boston University. Bogan and her husband lived in the Panama Canal Zone for a time, but separated in 1919. She lived in Vienna (1920-1923), before moving to New York, where she had jobs in a bookstore, and worked for anthropologist Margaret Mead. She published her first volume of poetry, Body of This Death, in 1923. Bogan was the poetry reviewer for The New Yorker magazine (1931-1970).  Her other collections include Dark Summer; Sleeping Fury; Poems and New Poems. Her last collection was The Blue Estuaries: Poems, 1923-1968. She died of a coronary occlusion at age 72 in February 1970.   

The Alchemist

by Louise Bogan

I burned my life, that I might find
A passion wholly of the mind,
Thought divorced from eye and bone,
Ecstasy come to breath alone.
I broke my life, to seek relief
From the flawed light of love and grief. 

With mounting beat the utter fire
Charred existence and desire.
It died low, ceased its sudden thresh.
I had found unmysterious flesh —
Not the mind’s avid substance — still
Passionate beyond the will. 

“The Alchemist” from Collected Poems: 1923-1953, © 1954 by Louise Bogan – Noonday Press

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1962 – Laura Ann Hershey born in Colorado, American disability rights activist, feminist, poet, essayist, and journalist. Spinal muscular atrophy confined her to a wheelchair, but she never let that slow her down. She earned a BA in history at Colorado College, where the school had to move some of her classes from non-accessible buildings to accommodate her. She served on Denver’s Commission for People with Disabilities, wrote a column for the Denver Post, led workshops, and campaigned for social justice as well as disability rights. She attended international UN conferences on women’s rights, and wrote the book Survival Strategies for Going Abroad: A Guide for People with Disabilities. She died in November 2010 at age 48. The Laura Hershey Memorial Disability Benefits Support Program was created in 2011 by the Colorado State Legislature to “provide education, direct assistance and advocacy for people with disabilities eligible for Social Security Disability Insurance, Supplemental Security Income and Long-Term Medicaid.”

The Gamble

by Laura Hershey

We are taught not
to gamble.
Perhaps it is thought we have lost
enough already—legs, vision, speech,
the typical use
of our bodies.
Others’ fears would teach us
to cringe at any thought
of any risk.
Disability and risk
don’t mix.
Risk is something
we are supposed to be protected from—
by agencies, by professionals—
by parents, by doctors—
by invisibility,
by shame—
by confinement if necessary.
We must be kept safe: This is one of the lies
which fills the beds
of the so-called “homes.”

So we embrace the risks
to fight the lies.

This is our gamble:

Minute by minute, city after city—
from the tense beginning to the jubilant or
scattered end
of every protest—
with every rhythmic word of every chant—
at each blocked entrance, each barricade—

with every defiant inch forward—
every move toward
freedom for our people—
any time we raise a fist
or a song
to mean
We’re never going away—
in every confrontation, up and down the length
of the stand-off—
each and every time, we are
testing the humanity
of people who wear a badge,
carry a gun—
and fear our incomprehensible strength.

We know this is
a dangerous test—for some fail as extraordinarily
as others pass.
It is a gamble, risky and promising.
It may pay off
in unmet eyes or a curious stare,
surly dismissals or a question,
dialogue
or bruises.

“The Gamble” from Laura Hershey: On the Life & Work of an American Master, © 2019 by Laura Hershey – Unsung Masters Series, 2019

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August 12

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1925 – Donald Justice born in Miami, Florida; American poet, essayist, and critic who taught creative writing for many years at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. He won the 1980 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for his Selected Poems. His thirteen volumes of poetry include The Summer Anniversaries, Night Light, Departures, and The Sunset Maker. He died at age 78 of pneumonia in August 2004, but had been suffering from Parkinson’s disease.

Memory of a Porch

       Miami, 1942

by Donald Justice

What I remember
Is how the wind chime
Commenced to stir
As she spoke of her childhood,

As though the simple
Death of a pet cat,
Buried with flowers,

Had brought to the porch
A rumor of storms
Dying out over
Some dark Atlantic. 

At least I heard
The thing begin–
A thin, skeletal music–

And in the deep silence
Below all memory
The sighing of ferns
Half asleep in their boxes.

“Memory of a Porch” from Collected Poems: Donald Justice, © 2004 by Donald Justice – Borzoi Books

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1970 – Susan Atefat Peckham born in New York City to Iranian parents and lived in France, Switzerland, and Iran, as well as the U.S.; Iranian-American poet. She earned a BA from Baylor University and a PhD from the University of Nebraska in 1999. Her poetry manuscript That Kind of Sleep was a winner of the 2000 National Poetry Series. Her work was also selected for the anthology In the Fields of Words.  In February 2004, at age 33, she and her son Cyrus were killed in an auto accident in Jordan, but her husband Joel Peckham and their younger son survived. Her second collection, Deep Are These Distances Between Us, was published posthumously in 2023.

Marvari: the pearl tree

                – for Joel

by Susan Atefat Peckham

He asks if I remember them — I remember
few, I say. Leaning deep into leaves,
my uncle pinched and turned white berries
from the pearl tree in hands as old and twisted
as the branches. He rushed to where I waited,
uncurled his palm and tossed them, rolling
into linens spread on my lap. He squeezed
my fingers into his and pushed the silver point
through each fruit, tugging on the thread
until my palms were wet with juice.

I feel the grip and weight of a white necklace
soft and warm in the curve of my neck. I return
to the garden, alive again with yellow flowers
and the fresh scent of cucumbers. I am tall
enough now, but he holds my fingers back
and thrusts his own arthritic hand in leaves,
his mind fixed on a memory. One wet finger
unfolds and reveals a palmful of pearls.
He asks if I remember him.

“Marvari: the pearl tree” from That Kind of Sleep, © 2001 by Susan Atefat Peckham – Coffee House Press

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August 13

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1802 – Nikolaus Lenau, pen name of Nikolaus Franz Niembsch Edler von Strehlenau, a German-language Austrian poet, who was born at Csatád, Kingdom of Hungary, then part of the Habsburg monarchy, but now in Romania. His father was a Habsburg government official, but he died in 1807, and the mother remarried in 1811. Nikolaus went to the University of Vienna in 1819, then began studying law, but switched to medicine, who he studied for 4 years before dropping out. He began writing verse, but descended into gloom after his mother’s death in 1829. A legacy from his grandmother enabled him to devote himself to poetry. His poems started appearing in literary periodicals, his first poetry collection, Gedicte (Poems) was published in 1832, just before he left Europe for America, but after attempting to live in rural areas of Ohio and Indiana, he fled to Germany. From then on, he divided his time between Stuttgart and Vienna. By 1844, the restlessness and depression to which he had been subject became much worse, and he was placed under restraint in an asylum, where he died at age 48 in August 1850.  Several of his poems have been set to music by composers like Robert Schumann, Pauline Volkstein, and Heinz Holliger.

To the wind

by Nikolaus Lenau

I wander away to the far country;
I looked around once more, moved,
And saw how her mouth moved
And how her hand waves.
She called out another friendly word
followed me on my gloomy walk,
But I don’t hear the favorite sound
Because the wind carried it away.
That I have to leave my luck
You rough cold breeze,
Isn’t it enough that you’re mine too
Who snatched her last greeting?

– translator not credited

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August 14

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1947 – Wang Ping born in Shanghai, China but grew up on an island in the East China Sea; Chinese poet, novelist, short story writer, and multimedia artist. She spent three years farming in a mountain village during the Cultural Revolution, and taught herself enough to be accepted at Peking (now Beijing) University, where she earned a degree in English literature. 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 Macalester 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.

Things We Carry on the Sea

by Wang Ping

We carry tears in our eyes: good-bye father, good-bye mother

We carry soil in small bags: may home never fade in our hearts

We carry names, stories, memories of our villages, fields, boats

We carry scars from proxy wars of greed

We carry carnage of mining, droughts, floods, genocides

We carry dust of our families and neighbors incinerated in mushroom clouds

We carry our islands sinking under the sea

We carry our hands, feet, bones, hearts and best minds for a new life

We carry diplomas: medicine, engineer, nurse, education, math, poetry, even if they mean nothing to the other shore

We carry railroads, plantations, laundromats, bodegas, taco trucks, farms, factories, nursing homes, hospitals, schools, temples…built on our ancestors’ backs

We carry old homes along the spine, new dreams in our chests

We carry yesterday, today and tomorrow

We’re orphans of the wars forced upon us

We’re refugees of the sea rising from industrial wastes

And we carry our mother tongues
爱(ai)，حب  (hubb), ליבע (libe), amor, love
平安 (ping’an), سلام ( salaam), shalom, paz, peace
希望 (xi’wang), أمل (’amal), hofenung, esperanza, hope, hope, hope

As we drift…in our rubber boats…from shore…to shore…to shore…

Originally published in New American Poetry, © 2018 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, children’s author, playwright, and lyricist. A former editor at the Atlantic Monthly, she has been a co-editor of The Norton Anthology of Poetry, and a professor in the Writing Seminars program at Johns Hopkins University. She wrote the lyrics for Fred Hersch’s song cycle Rooms of Light, which debuted at the Lincoln Center in 2007. Her poetry collections include Unfinished Painting, A Kiss in Space, Open Shutters, Nothing by Design, and The Surveyors.

Somebody Else’s Baby

by Mary Jo Salter

From now on they always are, for years now
they always have been, but from now on you know
they are, they always will be,

from now on when they cry and you say
wryly to their mother, better you than me,
you’d better mean it, you’d better

hand over what you can’t have, and gracefully.

“Somebody Else’s Baby” from A Phone Call to the Future: New and Selected Poems, © 2008 by Mary Jo Salter – Borzoi Book/Alfred A. 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 a while,
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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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 was 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. Bukowski died of leukemia at age 73 in 1994.

My Cats

by Charles Bukowski

I know. I know.
they are limited, have different
needs and
concerns.

but I watch and learn from them.
I like the little they know,
which is so
much.

they complain but never
worry,
they walk with a surprising dignity.
they sleep with a direct simplicity that
humans just can’t
understand.

their eyes are more
beautiful than our eyes.
and they can sleep 20 hours
a day
without
hesitation or
remorse.

when I am feeling
low
all I have to do is
watch my cats
and my
courage
returns.

I study these
creatures.

they are my
teachers.

“My Cats” from Bukowski On Cats, © 2015 by Linda Lee Bukowski – Harper Collins

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August 17

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1837 – Charlotte L. Forten Grimke born into a prominent African American abolitionist family in Philadelphia; American essayist, diarist, teacher and poet. She was educated at the Higginson Grammar School, a private academy for young women, the only non-white student in a class of 200. Known for its emphasis on critical thinking, the school had classes in history, geography, drawing and cartography. After Higginson, Forten studied literature and teaching at the Salem Normal School, which trained teachers. Like most of the rest of her family, she was active in the anti-slavery movement, helping to build coalitions and raise funds. She arranged for lectures by well-known writers and speakers, and sometimes spoke herself. She kept journals from an early age, and began writing poetry during her recovery from tuberculosis in 1858. During the American Civil War, Forten was the first black teacher to join the mission to the South Carolina Sea Islands known as the Port Royal Experiment. The Union allowed Northerners to set up schools to begin teaching freedmen who remained on the islands, which had been devoted to large plantations for cotton and rice. She became friends with Robert Gould Shaw, commander of the all-black 54th Massachusetts Regiment, and after Shaw and many of the men were killed storming Fort Wagner in 1863, she volunteered to nurse the wounded survivors. After the war, she worked in Washington DC, recruiting teachers, and then as a clerk in the Treasury Department. At age 41, she married Presbyterian minister Francis Grimké, a mixed-race nephew of Southern abolitionists Sarah and Angelina Grimké. She was an organizer of many of the congregation’s charitable and educational efforts. Her diaries were published as The Journal of Charlotte Forten.

From The Journal of Charlotte Forten, 1853

May those whose holy task it is,
To guide impulsive youth,
Fail not to cherish in their souls
A reverence for truth;
For teachings which the lips impart
Must have their source within the heart.

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1887 – Marcus Garvey Jr was born in St. Ann’s Bay, Jamaica into an Afro-Jamaican family. His father was a stonemason. He was apprenticed in the printing trade, and became involved in trade unionism. In 1914, he founded and was first president-general of  the  Universal Negro Improvement Association and African Communities League (UNIA), through which he declared himself Provisional President of Africa. Ideologically a black nationalist and  Pan-Africanist, his ideas came to be known as Garveyism. Although he never visited the continent, he was committed to the Back-to-Africa movement, arguing that many  black Americans should migrate there. He was an avowed racial separatist, which put him at odds with W.E.B. Du Bois, who favored racial integration, especially since he sometimes collaborated with white racists, including the Ku Klux Klan. His antipathy toward Jews and people of mixed race, and against socialism, caused rifts between him and other black activists. But his encouragement of pride, self-worth, and business enterprise among the Africa diaspora won him followers.  He was seen as a national hero in Jamaica, and his ideas influenced the Rastafari, Nation of Islam and Black Power movements. He died from complications of Alzheimer’s in London at age 52 in June 1940.

Get Up and Go!

by Marcus Garvey Jr

Please clear the way and let me pass,
If you intend to give up here:
It seems a shame that you should yield
Your life without its fullest share.

You are a coward for your pains,
To come this way, and then blow out:
Real men are made of stuff to last,
Which they, themselves, would never doubt.

Get up! You broken bits of flesh!
Take courage and go fighting on;
For every black man there’s a day,
Which pride in race has well begun.

“Get Up and Go!” from Marcus Garvey: Ultimate Collection of Speeches and Poems – 2020 Kindle Edition

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1954 – Ally Acker born in New York City; American filmmaker, author, poet, film historian, and film herstory lecturer. 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, and did a series of on-camera interviews with pioneering women in film. 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.

Faith & Fire

by Ally Acker

I believe in the animals.
All of them.
The soft ones. The frightened ones.
I believed in them even as you were leaving me
for someone less beautiful
than those two white horses
grazing in the green meadow
in New Mexico
who so loved one another.
Strolling at leisure, apart,
together.

So nonchalant.

As though the space between their bodies
hardly mattered.
Two pieces of the same field.
Two names for the same
ineffable meaning
of fire.

“Faith & Fire” from Waiting for the Beloved, © 1999 by Ally Acker – Red Hen Press

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