Category Archives: poetry

Emily Dickinson, “As Frost is best conceived” (951)

“As Frost is best con­ceived” (951) Emily Dick­in­son As Frost is best con­ceived By force of its Result — Afflic­tion is inferred By sub­se­quent effect — If when the sun reveal, The Gar­den keep the Gash — If as the Days resume The wilted coun­te­nance Can­not cor­rect the crease Or coun­ter­act the stain — Pre­sump­tion …

August 23, 2010 – 10:33 am | By ashok | Posted in dickinson, poetry | Comments (1)

Anna Akhmatova, “Reading Hamlet”

Read­ing Ham­let (trans. Kunitz/Hayward, from Poems of Akhma­tova) Anna Akhma­tova A bar­ren patch to the right of the ceme­tery, behind it a river flash­ing blue. You said: “All right then, get thee to a nun­nery, or go get mar­ried to a fool…” It was the sort of thing that princes always say, but these are the …

August 2, 2010 – 9:32 pm | By ashok | Posted in poetry | Comments (8)

Margaret Levine, “A Man I Knew”

“…in many lib­eral arts fields, the only pos­si­ble con­sumer of the research in ques­tion is a hand­ful of schol­ars in the same field.  That sort of research is valu­able in the same way that children’s craft projects are priceless–to their moth­ers.  Basi­cally, these peo­ple are sup­port­ing an expen­sive hobby with a side­line busi­ness cer­ti­fy­ing the …

July 21, 2010 – 7:32 pm | By ashok | Posted in poetry | Comments (4)

Emily Dickinson, “It is an honorable Thought” (946)

“It is an hon­or­able Thought…” (946) Emily Dick­in­son It is an hon­or­able Thought And makes One lift One’s Hat As One met sud­den Gen­tle­folk Upon a daily Street That We’ve immor­tal Place Though Pyra­mids decay And King­doms, like the Orchard Flit Rus­setly away Com­ment: “It is an hon­or­able Thought.… [t]hat We’ve immor­tal Place.” Not a rea­son­able …

July 7, 2010 – 11:32 am | By ashok | Posted in dickinson, poetry | Comments (2)

Jane Kenyon, “The Blue Bowl”

The Blue Bowl (from poetry 180) Jane Kenyon Like prim­i­tives we buried the cat with his bowl. Bare-handed we scraped sand and gravel back into the hole. They fell with a hiss and thud on his side, on his long red fur, the white feath­ers between his toes, and his long, not to say aquiline, …

July 3, 2010 – 8:10 am | By ashok | Posted in poetry | Tagged | Comments (0)