The Poetry Book

"Let yourself become living poetry."

Mon, 20 May 2013 00:37:38 -0400

“Let yourself become living poetry.”

- Rumi (via risikabel)

Photo

Sun, 19 May 2013 21:23:24 -0400

thegraveyardpoets: e.e. cummings

Wed, 15 May 2013 22:17:35 -0400

thegraveyardpoets:

e.e. cummings

"I. When I was trying to quit smoking and we drank white wine from Mason jars, you called my..."

Wed, 15 May 2013 17:16:52 -0400

“

I.
When I was trying to quit smoking
and we drank white wine from Mason jars,
you called my freckles cocoa powder
and I called your green eyes
celery.

II.
I am learning how to be a grown-up
who pays bills, cooks her own meals,
and doesn’t cry at words like
I think I just want to be friends.

III.
The truth is this:
Love is an organic thing.
It rots and softens.

”

- All That’s Left To Tell, Clementine von Radics (via clementinevonradics)

"I can write the saddest poem of all tonight. I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too."

Wed, 15 May 2013 16:06:05 -0400

“I can write the saddest poem of all tonight. I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too.”

- Pablo Neruda (via travelingnymph)

sorryhouse: from i will never be beautiful enough to make us...

Wed, 15 May 2013 14:55:14 -0400

sorryhouse:

from i will never be beautiful enough to make us beautiful together by mira gonzalez

theparisreview: The sun is a drum ...

Wed, 15 May 2013 13:44:26 -0400

theparisreview:

The sun is a drum
the moon is a cymbal
The flow of time is caught in a cup.

Cupful by
cupful by
cupful time
is cut; if not,
we should choke.

By night in the northern quarter the Dipper
or Northern Ladle or Bushel Measure
turns like the hand of a clock measuring time
although no punctuating tick or tock
notches its arc, sunset to sunrise.

Its handle divides the year into seasons,
pointing towards earth at dusk in autumn,
upward at dusk in spring, in winter
twilight west, in summer east.

And so it is and was and shall be
but not world without end (and neither
was it so from the world’s beginning).

—Mary Barnard, from “Song for the Northern Quarter”
Art Credit Christopher Pratt

"Woke up today a woman my lengthy curls fell in clumps around my neck which, I have always felt, was..."

Wed, 15 May 2013 13:15:34 -0400

“

Woke up today a woman
my lengthy curls fell in clumps
around my neck which,
I have always felt,
was too big to be a woman’s neck.

I never understood
the difference between the unripe
bulb of my throat and the apple of
my counterpart’s,
still I woke a woman.

In romance with myself,
I wrap soft thighs around pillows
and tangle
in dreams of sex with broad shouldered men
and traveling the world alone.

Woke up this morning a woman,
terrified I might be pregnant but
knowing damn well I am not.
Broad shouldered men
won’t love me forever.

Traveling alone, they say
is dangerous for women like me.
If I cannot do by myself
and he cannot do by me,
what is left to do?

I watch too much television
so I know the realities of abduction
and the risk of independence.
The difficulty of being
woman
is not weighing my different fates.

The difficulty of being
woman
is thinking I have to choose.

”

- Woman by B. Mirante (via prettierthoughts)

theparisreview: Before he died our father asked to be lefton...

Wed, 15 May 2013 12:33:16 -0400

theparisreview:

Before he died our father asked to be left
on the dining room table. It was difficult,
but we’ve learned to eat our meals around him,
though at times someone
still puts a fork into his leg.

Our guests become uncomfortable
when they see him on the table.
They ask if he’s asleep.
I always say yes, and that’s why they talk
in a whisper for the rest of the night.

Although he no longer brings a paycheck home
he provides for us in small ways.
We dust him daily; change his clothes weekly.
He no longer shouts, stalks the house in
longjohns, or comes home drunk Friday night.

We put a flower in his lapel every Sunday.
In the spring we take him outside
and air him out.
Then we buy him a new suit and put
a clove of garlic in his pocket for luck.

At Christmas our lives revolve around our father.
We wire him with colored lights,
sprinkle angel’s dust in his hair,
hang glass bulbs from his fingers and toes,
lay presents at his feet.

—John Pijewski, “Our Father”
Photography Credit Larry Sultan

"We delight in the beauty of the butterfly, but rarely admit the changes it has gone through to..."

Wed, 15 May 2013 11:52:02 -0400

“We delight in the beauty of the butterfly, but rarely admit the changes it has gone through to achieve that beauty.”

- Maya Angelou (via circumstanceanddisposition)

uutpoetry: head in my head the wise hen required for me to...

Wed, 15 May 2013 11:48:01 -0400

uutpoetry:

head

in my head
the wise hen

required
for me to peck
the earth

as if I
only recently was
where I shouldn’t be

screeching…
with searchlights,
wiping the grime
instead of daisies—

this late
low observance
that cuts a dream in half

unraveling
in the night-school textbook

seed text: Early Selected Poems, by Charles Simic
art by Tony Hammond

african-american ii

Wed, 15 May 2013 11:47:22 -0400

miguu:

i lost a whole continent.
a whole continent from my memory.
unlike all other hyphenated americans
my hyphen is made of blood.
when africa says hello
my mouth is a heartbreak
because i have nothing in my tongue
to answer her.
i don’t know how to say hello to my mother.

"But I have seen the best of you and the worst of you, and I choose both."

Wed, 15 May 2013 11:31:14 -0400

“But I have seen the best of you and the worst of you, and I choose both.”

- Sarah Kay and Phil Kaye, “An Origin Story” (via larmoyante)

"Next I dream that love is swallowing itself. Next I dream that love is made of glass, glass coming..."

Wed, 15 May 2013 11:25:35 -0400

“Next I dream that love is swallowing itself.
Next I dream that love is made of glass,
glass coming through the telephone
that is breaking slowly,
day by day, into my ear.
Next I dream that I put on the love
like a life-jacket and we float,
jacket and I
we bounce on that priest-blue.
We are as light as a cat’s ear
and it is safe,
safe far too long.
And I awaken quickly and go to the opposite window
and peer down at the moon in the pond
and know that beauty has walked over my head,
into this bed room and out,
flowing out through the window screen,
dropping deep into the water
to hide.”

- Anne Sexton, The Break Away (via womens-lit)

Photo

Tue, 14 May 2013 00:12:17 -0400

"I met a genius on the train today about 6 years old, he sat beside me and as the train ran down..."

Fri, 10 May 2013 13:50:07 -0400

“

I met a genius on the train
today
about 6 years old,
he sat beside me
and as the train
ran down along the coast
we came to the ocean
and then he looked at me
and said,
it’s not pretty.

it was the first time I’d
realized
that.

”

- Charles Bukowski, “i met a genius” (via semioticsofsloth)

"A poem begins with a lump in the throat."

Fri, 10 May 2013 13:49:42 -0400

“A poem begins with a lump in the throat.”

- Robert Frost (via byzantine-gold)

Photo

Fri, 10 May 2013 12:24:17 -0400

deannatroi: let’s just drive arounddirectionless through the fog take photos of schools, closed for...

Thu, 09 May 2013 18:09:29 -0400

deannatroi:

let’s just drive around
directionless through the fog

take photos of schools, closed for the weekend
lose ourselves on back country roads
park by a ditch
lean against a signpost
flush out anxiety by breathing in damp air

find the middle of a field and just stand there
the mist makes everything disappear
just the two of us
and limited visibility

your photos show me
in muted colors
alone and clear
amongst the overwhelming haze

"I bet if we dusted her heart for fingerprints, we’d only find yours."

Thu, 09 May 2013 01:36:11 -0400

“I bet if we dusted her heart for fingerprints, we’d only find yours.”

- Rudy Francisco (via tangerinedreaam)