Spring & Fall

a poem by Gerard Manley Hopkins

-- to a young child --

Margaret, are you grieving
Over Goldengrove unleaving?
Leaves, like the things of man, you
With your fresh thoughts care for, can you?
Ah! as the heart grows older
It will come to such sights colder
By and by, nor spare a sigh
Though worlds of wanwood leafmeal lie;
And yet you wíll weep and know why.
Now no matter, child, the name:
Sorrow's springs are the same.
Nor mouth had, no nor mind, expressed
What héart héard of, ghóst guéssed:
It is the blight man was born for,
It is Margaret you mourn for.

... for jw and pc

 

Lemon Anderson at TEDTalks

Lemon Anderson's started his presentation with the Reg E. Gains' poem, "Please Don't Take My Air Jordans"

Check out the documentary Lemon as well. (Trailer)

Hermann Hesse

Born July 2, 1877 the German writer was probably best known for his novels, Steppenwolf, The Glass Bead Game, and Siddhartha.

He was also a poet, and his poetry often reflected his lifelong struggle with depression.




Hermann Hesse's desk in Germany



How Heavy The Days

How heavy the days are.
There's not a fire that can warm me,
Not a sun to laugh with me,
Everything bare,
Everything cold and merciless,
And even the beloved, clear
Stars look desolately down,
Since I learned in my heart that
Love can die.

Lying In Grass

Is this everything now, the quick delusions of flowers,
And the down colors of the bright summer meadow,
The soft blue spread of heaven, the bees' song,
Is this everything only a god's
Groaning dream,
The cry of unconscious powers for deliverance?
The distant line of the mountain,
That beautifully and courageously rests in the blue,
Is this too only a convulsion,
Only the wild strain of fermenting nature,
Only grief, only agony, only meaningless fumbling,
Never resting, never a blessed movement?
No! Leave me alone, you impure dream
Of the world in suffering!
The dance of tiny insects cradles you in an evening radiance,
The bird's cry cradles you,
A breath of wind cools my forehead
With consolation.
Leave me alone, you unendurably old human grief!
Let it all be pain.
Let it all be suffering, let it be wretched-
But not this one sweet hour in the summer,
And not the fragrance of the red clover,
And not the deep tender pleasure
In my soul.

Without You

My Pillow gazes upon me at night
Empty as a gravestone;
I never thought it would be so bitter
To be alone,
Not to lie down asleep in your hair.

I lie alone in a silent house,
The hanging lamp darkened,
And gently stretch out my hands
To gather in yours,
And softly press my warm mouth
Toward you, and kiss myself, exhausted and weak-
Then suddenly I'm awake
And all around me the cold night grows still.
The star in the window shines clearly-
Where is your blond hair,
Where your sweet mouth?

Now I drink pain in every delight
And poison in every wine;
I never knew it would be so bitter
To be alone,
Alone, without you.

 

Inauguration Poetry

Richard Blanco's reading of his original poem, One Today, makes him only the fifth poet to ever read at a U.S. Presidential inauguration.

The first reading was in 1961 by Robert Frost for President John F. Kennedy. He recited his poem, the Gift Outright from memory after his attempt to read a new original poem, Dedication, was complicated by the poor weather and other circumstances.

It would be nearly 30 years before Maya Angelou would read On the Pulse of Morning (full text) for the first inauguration of President Bill Clinton on January.

At Clinton's second inauguration in 1997, Miller Williams gave us Of History and Hope.

President Barack Obama's first inauguration presented us with poem #4, Praise Song for the Day  written and delivered by Elizabeth Miller.

And now, Richard Blanco, the youngest of the bunch, the first Latino, and first openly gay poet shares One Today.

"One Today"

One sun rose on us today, kindled over our shores,
peeking over the Smokies, greeting the faces
of the Great Lakes, spreading a simple truth
across the Great Plains, then charging across the Rockies.
One light, waking up rooftops, under each one, a story
told by our silent gestures moving behind windows.

My face, your face, millions of faces in morning's mirrors,
each one yawning to life, crescendoing into our day:
pencil-yellow school buses, the rhythm of traffic lights,
fruit stands: apples, limes, and oranges arrayed like rainbows
begging our praise. Silver trucks heavy with oil or paper—
bricks or milk, teeming over highways alongside us,
on our way to clean tables, read ledgers, or save lives—
to teach geometry, or ring-up groceries as my mother did
for twenty years, so I could write this poem.

All of us as vital as the one light we move through,
the same light on blackboards with lessons for the day:
equations to solve, history to question, or atoms imagined,
the "I have a dream" we keep dreaming,
or the impossible vocabulary of sorrow that won't explain
the empty desks of twenty children marked absent
today, and forever. Many prayers, but one light
breathing color into stained glass windows,
life into the faces of bronze statues, warmth
onto the steps of our museums and park benches
as mothers watch children slide into the day.

One ground. Our ground, rooting us to every stalk
of corn, every head of wheat sown by sweat
and hands, hands gleaning coal or planting windmills
in deserts and hilltops that keep us warm, hands
digging trenches, routing pipes and cables, hands
as worn as my father's cutting sugarcane
so my brother and I could have books and shoes.

The dust of farms and deserts, cities and plains
mingled by one wind—our breath. Breathe. Hear it
through the day's gorgeous din of honking cabs,
buses launching down avenues, the symphony
of footsteps, guitars, and screeching subways,
the unexpected song bird on your clothes line.

Hear: squeaky playground swings, trains whistling,
or whispers across café tables, Hear: the doors we open
for each other all day, saying: hello, shalom,
buon giorno, howdy, namaste, or buenos días
in the language my mother taught me—in every language
spoken into one wind carrying our lives
without prejudice, as these words break from my lips.

One sky: since the Appalachians and Sierras claimed
their majesty, and the Mississippi and Colorado worked
their way to the sea. Thank the work of our hands:
weaving steel into bridges, finishing one more report
for the boss on time, stitching another wound
or uniform, the first brush stroke on a portrait,
or the last floor on the Freedom Tower
jutting into a sky that yields to our resilience.

One sky, toward which we sometimes lift our eyes
tired from work: some days guessing at the weather
of our lives, some days giving thanks for a love
that loves you back, sometimes praising a mother
who knew how to give, or forgiving a father
who couldn't give what you wanted.

We head home: through the gloss of rain or weight
of snow, or the plum blush of dusk, but always—home,
always under one sky, our sky. And always one moon
like a silent drum tapping on every rooftop
and every window, of one country—all of us—
facing the stars
hope—a new constellation
waiting for us to map it,
waiting for us to name it—together.

A Carol for Children by Ogden Nash

 

God rest you merry, Innocents,
Let nothing you dismay,
Let nothing wound an eager heart
Upon this Christmas day.
Yours be the genial holly wreaths,
The stockings and the tree;
An aged world to you bequeaths
Its own forgotten glee.

Soon, soon enough come crueler gifts,
The anger and the tears;
Between you now there sparsely drifts
A handful yet of years.

Oh, dimly, dimly glows the star
Through the electric throng;
The bidding in temple and bazaar
Drowns out the silver song.

The ancient altars smoke afresh,
The ancient idols stir;
Faint in the reek of burning flesh
Sink frankincense and myrrh.

Gaspar, Balthazar, Melchior!
Where are your offerings now?
What greetings to the Prince of War,
His darkly branded brow?

Two ultimate laws alone we know,
The ledger and the sword --
So far away, so long ago,
We lost the infant Lord.

Only the children clasp His hand;
His voice speaks low to them,
And still for them the shining band
Wings over Bethlehem.

God rest you merry, Innocents,
While innocence endures,
A sweeter Christmas than we to ours
May you bequeath to yours.

Ogden Nash

Marvin Gaye - What's Going On?

Either Marvin Gaye was ahead of his time, or nothing much has changed in 40+ years.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Yuna

Yuna's American debut was filled with soothing melodies, beautiful vocals, and endearing lyrics. Get your hands on a copy as soon as you are able.

Decorate

 

...I speak louder when I am silent...Planes

 

 

Deeper Conversation

 

Someone Out of Town

 

 

Fading Flower

 

Life Your Life

Shihan

Best of the Def Poetry Jam performances...

This Type Love

Say What? (Flashy Words)

Sick and Tired

In Response

Father's Day

The Auction Network

Shihan's Twitter

Kenyon Cox (1856-1919)

Kenyon Cox was an artist, writer and educator from the Art Students League of New York. He developed the school’s motto Nulla Dies Sine Linea (No Day Without a Line).

He is as known for his artwork as he is for his poetry, including the 1904 book Mixed Beasts, a collection about imaginary beasts created by combining the names of different animals. (Rhinocerostrich, Camelelephant, Bumblebeaver)

 

Work thou for pleasure; paint or sing or carve

The thing thou lovest, though the body starve.

Who works for glory misses oft the goal;

Who works for money coins his very soul;

Work for the work's sake, then, and it may be

That these things shall be added unto thee

 

 

 

She lived in Florence centuries ago,

That lady smiling there.

What her name or rank I do not know—

I know that she was fair.

For some great man — his name, like hers, forgot

And faded from Men's sight—

Loved her — he must have loved her — and has wrought

This bust for our delight.

Whether he gained her love or had her scorn

Full happy was his fate.

He saw her, heard her speak; he was not born

Four hundred years too late.

The palace throngs in every room but this —

Here I am left alone.

Love, there is none to see — I press a kiss

Upon thy lips of stone.

 

Saul Williams - Niggy Tardust

Produced by Trent Reznor
Video created by Slapped + Together Films

Sarah Kay ~ How Many Lives Can You Live?

Spoken word artist Sarah Kay delivers two poems and some thoughts on the possibility of living all of your dreams

More Sarah here and here

Taylor Mali in Typography

I found a trend of typography vids for Taylor Mali poems, and Def Poetry Jam fans and the like should not be surprised.

His poetry is engaging, enlightening, thought provoking and reminds us of the beauty, importance and strength of words. Some students were very lucky to have had him as a teacher.

One of my favorite poems anywhere... Totally like whatever, you know?
Produced by Ronnie Bruce

Typography from Ronnie Bruce on Vimeo.

What Teachers Make


An Apple a Day is Not Enough
Created by Ethos3 for the Health Teacher

Kenna ~ Make Sure They See My Face performances

As if anything could be more awesome than the originals, these unplugged performances might bring you to tears.

Baptized in Black Light

Static

Better Wise Up

And his sources of inspiration

I Would Enfold Your Death and Mine

I would enfold your death and mine, as close

As our two lives have been together bound;

To your dire scar I would conjoin my wound,

And bind with yours my fate of joys and woes.

I would entwine our wills, until yours chose

To be my partisan forever found;

For I have gained your love, and sorrow-crowned,

You have shown courage to a world of foes.

Like the simoon I gather up your dust

And heap on high a little pile of trust

And hope and pain on pain, to call it ours;

Here at the gates of an eternal rest,

As all our dreams have known the self-same bowers,

So shall my soul and yours have but one breast.

                                     --Pedro Requena Legarreta (1893-1918)

The Hangman by Maurice Ogden

As interpreted in 1964 with this short animated film by Les Goldman and Paul Julian. Herschel Bernardi narrates.



Hangman
by Maurice Ogden
1.
Into our town the Hangman came,
Smelling of gold and blood and flame.
And he paced our bricks with a diffident air,
And built his frame in the courthouse square.

The scaffold stood by the courthouse side,
Only as wide as the door was wide;
A frame as tall, or little more,
Than the capping sill of the courthouse door.

And we wondered, whenever we had the time,
Who the criminal, what the crime
That the Hangman judged with the yellow twist
of knotted hemp in his busy fist.

And innocent though we were, with dread,
We passed those eyes of buckshot lead --
Till one cried: "Hangman, who is he
For whom you raised the gallows-tree?"

Then a twinkle grew in the buckshot eye,
And he gave us a riddle instead of reply:
"He who serves me best," said he,
"Shall earn the rope of the gallows-tree."

And he stepped down, and laid his hand
On a man who came from another land.
And we breathed again, for another's grief
At the Hangman's hand was our relief

And the gallows-frame on the courthouse lawn
By tomorrow's sun would be struck and gone.
So we gave him way, and no one spoke,
Out of respect for his Hangman's cloak.

2.
The next day's sun looked mildly down
On roof and street in our quiet town,
And stark and black in the morning air
Was the gallows-tree in the courthouse square.

And the Hangman stood at his usual stand
With the yellow hemp in his busy hand;
With his buckshot eye and his jaw like a pike
And his air so knowing and business-like.

And we cried, "Hangman, have you not done
Yesterday, with the foreign one?"
Then we fell silent, and stood amazed,
"Oh, not for him was the gallows raised."

He laughed a laugh as he looked at us:
"Did you think I'd gone to all this fuss
To hang one man? That's a thing I do
To stretch a rope when the rope is new."

Then one cried "Murder!" and one cried "Shame!"
And into our midst the Hangman came
To that man's place. "Do you hold," said he,
"with him that was meant for the gallows-tree?"

And he laid his hand on that one's arm.
And we shrank back in quick alarm!
And we gave him way, and no one spoke
Out of fear of his Hangman's cloak.

That night we saw with dread surprise
The Hangman's scaffold had grown in size.
Fed by the blood beneath the chute,
The gallows-tree had taken root;

Now as wide, or a little more,
Than the steps that led to the courthouse door,
As tall as the writing, or nearly as tall,
Halfway up on the courthouse wall.

3.
The third he took -- we had all heard tell --
Was a usurer, and an infidel.
"What," said the Hangman "have you to do
With the gallows-bound, and he a Jew?"

And we cried out, "Is this one he
Who has served you well and faithfully?"
The Hangman smiled: "It's a clever scheme
to try the strength of the gallows-beam."

The fourth man's dark, accusing song
Had scratched our comfort hard and long;
"And what concern," he gave us back.
"Have you for the doomed -- the doomed and Black?"

The fifth. The sixth. And we cried again,
"Hangman, Hangman, is this the man?"
"It's a trick," he said. "that we hangmen know
For easing the trap when the trap springs slow."

And so we ceased, and asked no more,
As the Hangman tallied his bloody score.
And sun by sun, and night by night,
The gallows grew to monstrous height.

The wings of the scaffold opened wide
Till they covered the square from side to side;
And the monster cross-beam, looking down,
Cast its shadow across the town.

4.
Then through the town the Hangman came,
Through the empty streets, and called my name --
And I looked at the gallows soaring tall,
And thought, "There is no one left at all

For hanging, and so he calls to me
To help pull down the gallows-tree."
So I went out with right good hope
To the Hangman's tree and the Hangman's rope.

He smiled at me as I came down
To the courthouse square through the silent town.
And supple and stretched in his busy hand
Was the yellow twist of the hempen strand.

And he whistled his tune as he tried the trap,
And it sprang down with a ready snap --
And then with a smile of awful command
He laid his hand upon my hand.

"You tricked me. Hangman!," I shouted then,
"That your scaffold was built for other men...
And I no henchman of yours," I cried,
"You lied to me, Hangman. Foully lied!"

Then a twinkle grew in the buckshot eye,
"Lied to you? Tricked you?" he said. "Not I.
For I answered straight and I told you true --
The scaffold was raised for none but you.

For who has served me more faithfully
Then you with your coward's hope?" said he,
"And where are the others who might have stood
Side by your side in the common good?"

"Dead," I whispered. And amiably
"Murdered," the Hangman corrected me:
"First the foreigner, then the Jew...
I did no more than you let me do."

Beneath the beam that blocked the sky
None had stood so alone as I.
The Hangman noosed me, and no voice there
Cried "Stop!" for me in the empty square.

Gil Scott Heron ~ Washington D.C.

"Unravel" and "Innocence"

I separated these two Bjork songs from the other post for a reason...



While you are away
My heart comes undone
Slowly unravels
In a ball of yarn
The devil collects it
With a grin
Our love
In a ball of yarn

He'll never return it

So when you come back
We'll have to make new love

He'll never return it
When you come back
We'll have to make new love

While you are away
My heart comes undone
Slowly unravels
In a ball of yarn
The devil collects it
With a grin
Our love, our love,
In a ball of yarn

He'll never return it

When you come back
We'll have to make new love

He'll never return it

When you come back
We'll have to make new love

He'll never return it

When you come back
We'll have to make new love

Innocence

I once had no fears
none at all
and then when
I had some

to my surprise
I grew to like both
scared or brave
without them

the thrill of fear
thought I'd never admit it
the thrill of fear
now greatly enjoyed with courage

when I once was
untouchable
innocence roared
still amazes

when I once was
innocent
it's still here
but in different places

neurosis
only
attaches
itself to
fertile
ground
where it can flourish

the thrill of fear
thought I'd never admit it
the thrill of fear
now greatly enjoyed with courage

when I once was
fearless
innocence roared
still amazes

untouchable
innocence
it's still here
but in different places

fear is a powerful drug
overcome it and
you think that you can do
anything!

should I
save myself
for later
or generously give?

fear of
losing
energy
is draining

it locks up your chest
shuts down the heart
miserly
and stingy
let's open up : share!

when I once was
fearless
innocence roared
still amazes

untouchable
innocence
it's still here
but in different places

Sixx: A.M. ~ Lies of the Beautiful People

This ain’t no side show
This is the great unknown
This is the poison we take

Outside the velvet rope
Standing there all alone
Are the grotesque and ashamed

If you think real beauty’s on the outside
Well that’s a far cry from the truth
Maybe all the information you receive
You should not believe…there’s no proof

Save yourself from all the lies of the beautiful people
Save yourself from all the lies of the beautiful people

Life looks so traumatized
Doped up and televised
It can be cruel and insane

We’ve got these ugly scars
On our infected hearts
Maybe it’s time for a change

If you think real beauty’s on the outside
Well that’s a far cry from the truth
Maybe all the information you receive
You should not believe…there’s no proof

Save yourself from all the lies of the beautiful people
Just run and hide from the lies of the beautiful people

Jimi Hendrix ~ Star Spangled Banner at Woodstock

Along with Purple Haze.
Because today is another day.

Gene Kelly and Cyd Charisse in "Singing in the Rain"

Probably one of the most beautiful scenes in any movie anywhere.