Good Morning!

_______________________________

“There is only one kind of shock worse than
the totally unexpected: the expected for
which one has refused to prepare.”
– Mary Renault,
author of Fire From Heaven

________________

“Here we are, the most clever species ever
to have lived. So how is it we can destroy
the only planet we have? The least I can
do is speak out for those who
cannot speak for themselves.”
― Jane Goodall

________________

“The planet does not need more successful
people. The planet desperately needs
more peacemakers, healers, restorers,
storytellers and lovers of all kinds.”
― Dalai Lama

________________

____________________________

November 3

____________________________

 1920 – Oodgeroo Noonuccal born in Minjerribah (aka North Stradbroke Island), Queensland, Australia, and given the name Kathleen Ruska. Aboriginal Australian poet, political activist, artist, children’s author, and nonfiction writer. She later used her married name Kath Walker, and was the first Aboriginal Australian to publish a poetry collection, We Are Going, which sold out several editions. Yet some critics questioned whether an Aboriginal person could really have written the poems, while others dismissed them as propaganda instead of poetry. In the 1960s, Walker was Queensland state secretary of the Federal Council for the Advancement of Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders (FCAATSI), and a key figure in the campaign to win full citizenship for Aboriginal people. In December 1987, she announced she would return her Member of the British Empire (MBE) award in protest over the Australian Government’s plans for the Australian Bicentenary which she described as “200 years of sheer unadulterated humiliation” of Aboriginal people. She also announced changing her first name to Oodgeroo, meaning “paperbark tree” and her last name to Noonuccal, her people’s name. Oodgeroo Noonuccal died from cancer at age 72 in September 1993. Among her many books of poetry are The Dawn is at Hand; My People; The Colour Bar; and Let Us Not Be Bitter.

Municipal Gum

by Oodgeroo Noonucca

Gumtree in the city street,
Hard bitumen around your feet,
Rather you should be
In the cool world of leafy forest halls
And wild bird calls
Here you seem to me
Like that poor cart-horse
Castrated, broken, a thing wronged,
Strapped and buckled, its hell prolonged,
Whose hung head and listless mien express
Its hopelessness.
Municipal gum, it is dolorous
To see you thus
Set in your black grass of bitumen–
O fellow citizen,
What have they done to us?

“Municipal Gum” from My People, © 2021 by the Estate of Oodgeroo – John Wiley & Sons Australia, Ltd

______________________________

1969 – Charles Martin born in New York and grew up in the Bronx; American poet, academic, and translator. He graduated from Fordham University, then earned a Doctorate from SUNY at Buffalo. Martin has won awards for his translations of poems from Latin written by the Roman poets Catullus and Ovid. Three of his poetry collections, Steal the Bacon; What the Darkness Proposes; and Starting From Sleep: New and Selected Poems, were nominated for the Pulitzer Prize, and Starting From Sleep was also a finalist for the Academy of American Poets Lenore Marshall Award. Martin was honored in 1970 with the Bess Hokin Award from Poetry magazine. He teaches poetry at Queensborough Community College, Syracuse University, and has led workshops at the Sewanee Writers Conference.

Easter Sunday, 1985

by Charles Martin

   To take steps toward the reappearance alive of the disappeared
is a subversive act, and measures will be adopted to deal with it.
— General Oscar Mejia Victores, President of Guatemala (1983-1986)

In the Palace of the President this morning,
The General is gripped by the suspicion
That those who were disappeared will be returning
In a subversive act of resurrection.

Why do you worry? The disappeared can never
Be brought back from wherever they were taken;
The age of miracles is gone forever;
These are not sleeping, nor will they awaken.

And if some tell you Christ once reappeared
Alive, one Easter morning, that he was seen—
Give them the lie, for who today can find him?

He is perhaps with those who were disappeared,
Broken and killed, flung into some ravine
With his arms safely wired up behind him.

“Easter Sunday, 1985” from Starting from Sleep: New and Selected Poems, © 2002 by Charles Martin – The Overlook Press

____________________________

November 4

____________________________

1932 – Tommy Makem born in Keady, Northern Ireland, into a family of musicians; Irish folk musician, prolific songwriter, poet, and storyteller; member of the Clancy Brothers and Tommy Maken, he played banjo, tin whistle, guitar, bodhrán, and bagpipes, and sang baritone. He emigrated to America in 1955, and found work in Dover, New Hampshire, at Kidder Press. In 1956 one of his hands was crushed in an accident, and he went to New York, hoping to pursue acting. Instead, he met up with the Clancy Brothers, and they were signed up as a group by Columbia Records in 1961, then appeared at the Newport Folk Festival. During the 60s, they were very successful, but Makem left the group to go solo in 1969. He still joined up with the Clancys from time to time, including a 1984 reunion performance at Lincoln Center, and became a U.S. citizen in 1986. Makem published Tommy Makem’s Secret Ireland in 1997, premiered his one-man theatrical show Invasions and Legacies in 1999, and founded the Tommy Makem International Festival of Song in Northern Ireland in 2000. He died of lung cancer at age 74 in August 2007.

White Swans and Black

by Tommy Makem

With winter at the mouth, white swans have gone
And the black, proceeding south down the grey dawn
Cry after them, cry out over the town
Ensnare them with a shout, “Bring the swans down.”

The summer flies away where the swans crossed
And streaks across the grey, south golden lost
No man may call them back, once the swans fly
The white swans and the black, down the grey sky

“White Swans and Black” © 1978 by Tommy Maken – spoken poem on the album Two for the Early Dew – Shanachie Records

____________________________

November 5

____________________________

1850 – Ella Wheeler Wilcox born on a farm in Johnstown, Wisconsin; prolific American poet and author. She began writing poetry at age 8, and her poetry began being published when she was 13. “Solitude” is probably her best-remembered poem, for its opening lines, “Laugh, and the world laughs with you;/ Weep, and you weep alone./ For the sad old earth must borrow its mirth / But has trouble enough of its own.” She was influenced by the movements of her time: New Thought, Theosophy, and Spiritualism. After her husband’s death in 1916, she attempted to communicate with him, but never received an answer from “the other side.” She was an animal rights advocate and a vegetarian. Ella Wheeler Wilcox died of cancer at age 69 on October 30, 1919. Her poetry collections include Poems of Passion, Poems of Reflection, and Poems of Peace.

The Beggar Cat

by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Poor little beggar cat, hollow-eyed and gaunt,
Creeping down the alley way like a ghost of want,
Kicked and beat by thoughtless boys, bent on cruel play,
What a sorry life you lead, whether night or day!

Hunting after crusts and crumbs, gnawing meatless bones,
Trembling at a human step, fearing bricks and stones,
Shrinking at an outstretched hand, knowing only blows,
Wretched little beggar cat, born to suffer woes.

Stealing to an open door, craving food and meat,
Frightened off with angry cries and broomed into the street.
Tortured, teased and chased by dog through the lonely night,
Homeless little beggar cat, sorry is your plight.

Sleeping anywhere you can, in the rain or snow,
Waking in the cold, gray dawn, wondering where to go,
Dying in the street at last, starved to death at that,
Picked up by the scavenger – poor tramp cat!

____________________________

November 6

____________________________

1929 – Jack Micheline born in the Bronx NY as Harold Martin Silver; American poet, short story writer, and painter. He took his pen name from Jack London and his mother’s maiden name. Micheline lived in Greenwich Village in the 1950s. Troubadour Press published his first book, River of Red Wine, with an introduction by Jack Kerouac. Dorothy Park reviewed it in Esquire. In the early 1960s, Micheline moved to San Francisco. He published over twenty books, some of them mimeographs and chapbooks. Though regarded as a Beat poet, he thought the Beat movement was a media hustle, and hated being categorized with the Beats.  He was arrested in 1968 for obscenity, though not convicted, for using the word “fuck” in his short story “Skinny Dynamite” published in the Los Angeles alternate newspaper Open City. Jack Micheline died of a heart attack at age 68 while riding a BART subway train from San Francisco to Orinda in February 1998. His published work includes Last House in America; North of Manhattan; Ragged Lion; and One of a Kind.

god bless the unknown

by Jack Micheline

Born in a daze
I wandered across the cities
Ablaze with lights
Hospital, tower, prisons and all hells habitation
Tap in cry and die and keep going
What did I know or anyone know
We knew nothing
Not a god dam thing
A blind man searching in the night
A child poet
Bug eyed from the real racing
The need for what others seem to have
Appearance certainly a sham
This worlds a sham
So what has it been any different
The devil turns the wheels of the world
The devil with his fucking big hat
His ritual of deceit and murder
Slave, politician, banker, stockbroker, pimp entrepreneur
The need for money
Learn to make honey baby
That is the switcheroo
The birds are singing in the trees
The flowers are blooming
I got my eyes
We are all the light

“god bless the unknown” from outlaw of the lowest planet, © 1993 by Jack Micheline – Zeitgeist Press

____________________________

November 7

____________________________

1872 – Leonora Speyer born as Leonora von Stosch in Washington DC; American poet, violinist, and translator. She played violin professionally before her first marriage, which ended in divorce, then became Lady Speyer when she married her second husband, Sir Edgar Speyer, a British banker.  In 1915, they moved to the U.S. She won the 1927 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for her book Fiddler’s Farewell. Her other poetry collections include A Canopic Jar; Naked Heel; and Slow Wall. Leonora Speyer died in February 1956 at age 83.

Sekhmet the Lion-Hearted

by Leonora von Stosch Speyer

In the dark night I heard a stirring,
Near me something was purring.
A voice, deep-throated, spoke:

I litter armies for all easts and wests
And norths-and souths:
They suckle my girl-goddess breasts,
And my fierce milk drips from their mouths.
The voice sang:

I do not kill! I, Sekhmet the Lion-headed, I!
But between my soft hands they die.
I asked:

O Sekhmet, Lion-headed one,
How long shall warring be?
And Sekhmet deigned to make reply:
Eternally!
Bold in my faith I grew:

Dread goddess-cat, you lie!
Warring shall cease!
My God of love is greater far
Than you!

How gentle was the voice of Sekhmet then:
He of the Star?
He Whom they called the Prince of Peace —
And slew? —
And slew again — and yet again? —
Ah, yes! —she said.
And all about my bed
The night grew laughing-red:
Sekhmet I did not see
But in that bleeding dusk I heard
That Sekhmet purred.

“Sekhmet the Lion-Hearted” from A Canopic Jar, by Leonora von Stosch Speyer, originally published in 1921 – Franklin Classic 2018 scholar select edition

______________________________

1934 – Beverley Dahlen born in Portland, Oregon, but her family moved to Eugene after WWII; American poet, writer, and co-founder/editor of the feminist poetics newsletter (HOW)ever, now online as HOW2. She earned a BA at Humboldt State University, then moved permanently to San Francisco in 1956. Her first book of poems, Out of the Third, was published in 1974, and she has since published a dozen more books, including A letter at Easter; The Egyptian Poems; and A reading: birds. In 2008, she was honored by Small Press Traffic with Lifetime Achievement Award.

A Note From My Tree

by Beverley Dahlen

Beginning at the skin
I work my way inward along the branches
looking for the one that leads to the ground.
I have been out here a long time now.
Many nights.
They are not sending the rescue teams.
There are too many people lost
in the mountains. The helicopters beat
back and forth looking for bodies.
My brother is stationed
somewhere in the jungle. Here is his picture
with field glasses. He has lost a lot of weight
and can’t ever come home.
My father is out in his rowboat alone at night
trying to save people from drowning.
My mother won’t come out of the bathroom.
If I am quiet she won’t see me.

“A Note From My Tree” from The First Three Books, © 2012 by Beverley Dahlen – LRL e-editions

______________________________

1944 – Hannah Szenes born, Hungarian Jewish poet; at age 23, she was one of 37 Mandate Palestine paratroopers dropped into Hungary by the British Army during WWII to rescue Hungarian Jews about to be deported to Auschwitz; she was arrested near the Hungarian border, imprisoned and tortured, but refused to reveal any details of her mission. Even when she was brought face-to-face with her mother, whom she had not seen in five years, both women refused to give any information to their captors.  After a pro forma trial, she was executed by firing squad on this day. A national heroine of Israel, where her poetry is widely known. The Israel Hatzeira (Zionist youth movement) headquarters and several streets are named for her.

Blessed Is the Match

by Hannah Szenes

Blessed is the match consumed in kindling flame

Blessed is the flame that burns in the secret fastness of the heart

Blessed is the heart with strength to stop its beating for honor’s sake

Blessed is the match consumed in kindling flame

“Blessed is the Match” from Hannah Senesh, Her Life and Her Diary, translation © 1973 by Marta Cohn – Sphere Books

______________________________

1961 – Kim Roberts born in Charlotte, North Carolina; American poet, editor, anthologist, and literary historian. She has published five books of poetry, including The Wishbone Galaxy; Kimnana; Animal Magnetism, which won the 2009 Pearl Poetry Prize; and The Scientific Method. She also published By Broad Potomac’s Shore; Great Poems from the Early Days of Our Nation’s Capital, and A Literary Guide to Washington, DC: Walking in the Footsteps of American Writers from Francis Scott Key to Zora Neale Hurston. In 2000, Roberts founded the literary journal Beltway Poetry Quarterly, and was its editor until 2020.

Two Hands

by Kim Roberts

   Red Onion State Prison, Virginia Department of Corrections, Pound, VA

When he raised both hands
to scratch his scalp, it looked

at first like prayer—not shackles,
not that easy way he had

of someone inured to his shackles.
The doubling of his hands

was like a double consciousness,
our visit an escape from his prison-self.

I got advance permission
for a longer visit, four hours,

since the drive took me two days
but still it was four hours

through glass, his hands
shackled for four hours. Yet still

they were graceful, still
so much his hands,

even constrained. The four hours
went more quickly than I expected,

so hungry was he for talk.
I almost forgot the glass, the guards

passing at regular intervals,
the high walls that blocked

all natural light, until he raised
both hands to scratch his head,

a simple gesture—as if
in silent, heavenly appeal.

“Two Hands” © 2021 by Kim Roberts appeared in the February 2021 edition of Poetry magazine

____________________________

November 8

____________________________

1867 – Sadakichi Hartmann born on Dejima island off Nagasaki, Japan, to a Japanese mother and a German father; American poet, art critic and scholar, playwright, and anarchist. He grew up in Germany, then moved to Philadelphia in 1882, and became an American citizen in 1894. He wrote some of the earliest English language haiku and tanka. He was also a pioneer in writing about photography as an art form.  In his later years, he moved to California. In 1942, because of his age and poor health, he was one of the very few Japanese Americans who was not interned, although he was under frequent investigation by the FBI and local officials. He died in November 1944 at age 77. His poetry collections include Drifting Flowers of the Sea; My Rubaiyat; and Tanka and Haikai: Japanese Rhythms.

Tanka IX

by Sadakichi Hartmann

Were we able to tell
When old age would come our way,
We would muffle the bell,
Lock the door and go away—
Let him call some other day.

“Tanka IX” from Collected Poems 1886-1944, by Sadakichi Hartmann – Little Island Press, 2017 edition

____________________________

November 9

____________________________

1818 – Ivan Turgenev born in Oryol (modern-day Oryol Oblast in western Russia, to an aristocratic family; Russian novelist, short story writer, poet, playwright, and translator. After the standard schooling for a son of a gentleman, Turgenev spent one year at the University of Moscow and then moved to the University of Saint Petersburg (1834-1837), to study Classics, Russian literature, and philology. He is best known for his novel Fathers and Sons and his play A Month in the Country. Turgenev underwent cancer surgery in January 1883, but the cancer spread to his spine, and he died at age 64 in September 1883.

The Beggar

by Ivan Turgenev

I was walking along the street… I was stopped by a decrepit old beggar.

Bloodshot, tearful eyes, blue lips, coarse rags, festering wounds…. Oh,
how hideously poverty had eaten into this miserable creature!

He held out to me a red, swollen, filthy hand.

He groaned, he mumbled of help.

I began feeling in all my pockets…. No purse, no watch, not even a
handkerchief…. I had taken nothing with me. And the beggar was still
waiting… and his outstretched hand feebly shook and trembled.

Confused, abashed, I warmly clasped the filthy, shaking hand…

‘Don’t be angry, brother; I have nothing, brother.’

The beggar stared at me with his bloodshot eyes; his blue lips smiled;

And he in his turn gripped my chilly fingers.

‘What of it, brother?’ he mumbled; ‘thanks for this, too. That is a gift
too, brother.’

I knew that I too had received a gift from my brother.

– translator not credited

______________________________

1928 – Anne Sexton born in Newton, Massachusetts; American poet; 1967 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for her book Live or Die; co-authored four children’s books with poet Maxine Kumin. Sexton struggled with severe bipolar disorder. Her poetry collections include: All My Pretty Ones; Transformations; and The Book of Folly. Her last poetry collection, The Awful Rowing Toward God, was published after her 1974 suicide.

The Starry Night

by Anne Sexton

   That does not keep me from having a terrible need of—
shall I say the word—religion. Then I go out at night to
paint the stars. — Vincent Van Gogh in a letter to his brother

The town does not exist
except where one black-haired tree slips
up like a drowned woman into the hot sky.
The town is silent. The night boils with eleven stars.
Oh starry starry night! This is how
I want to die.

It moves. They are all alive.
Even the moon bulges in its orange irons
to push children, like a god, from its eye.
The old unseen serpent swallows up the stars.
Oh starry starry night! This is how
I want to die:

into that rushing beast of the night,
sucked up by that great dragon, to split
from my life with no flag,
no belly,
no cry.

“The Starry Night” from The Complete Poems of Anne Sexton, © 1981 by Linda Gray Sexton and Loring Conant, Jr.  – Houghton Mifflin

______________________________

1937 – Roger McGough born, one of England’s best-loved poets for both adults and children, also an author and playwright. He began his career as one of the leading Liverpool poets in the 1960s, known collectively for ‘The Mersey Sound.’  They were influenced by Beat poetry and Liverpool’s 1960s culture. His work was featured in The Mersey Sound, a 1967 anthology of poetry by McGough, Brian Patten, and Adrian Henri, which became one of the bestselling poetry anthologies of all time, selling over 500,000 copies. McGough was responsible for much of the humorous dialogue in the Beatles’ animated film Yellow Submarine, although he did not receive an on-screen credit. He has also been a presenter on the BBC Radio4 programme Poetry Please.

Mrs Moon 

by Roger McGough

Mrs Moon
sitting up in the sky
little old lady
rock-a-bye
with a ball of fading light
and silvery needles
knitting the night

“Mrs. Moon” from Roger McGough: Collected Poems, © by Roger McGough – Penguin UK

____________________________