He dwelt among “apartments let,”
About five stories high;
A man I thought that none would get,
And very few would try.
A boulder, by a larger stone
Half hidden in the mud,
Fair as a man when only one
Is in the neighborhood.
He lived unknown, and few could tell
When Jacob was not free;
But he has got a wife,—and O!
The difference to me!
Phoebe Cary was born in 1824 and grew up on a farm near Cincinnati, Ohio, in an area later immortalized by her sister Alice’s Clovernook stories. Both sisters immersed themselves in the classics of literature under the tutelage of an older sister whose death in 1833 affected them deeply. Although Phoebe and Alice published poems while still teenagers, it wasn’t until 1850, after their work had been noticed by such luminaries as Edgar Allan Poe and John Greenleaf Whittier, that they published their book, Poems of Alice and Phoebe Cary. After this literary debut, the sisters moved to New York City, where they became central figures in the East Coast literary milieu, contributed regularly to national periodicals, and hosted a famous salon on Sunday evenings. They were also active in the early days of the women’s rights movement, with Phoebe Cary serving as an assistant editor for Susan B. Anthony’s newspaper The Revolution.
By Joyce Kilmer
Now by what whim of wanton chance
Do radiant eyes know sombre days?
And feet that shod in light should dance
Walk weary and laborious ways?
But rays from Heaven, white and whole,
May penetrate the gloom of earth;
And tears but nourish, in your soul,
The glory of celestial mirth.
The darts of toil and sorrow, sent
Against your peaceful beauty, are
As foolish and as impotent
As winds that blow against a star.
By Ahn Joo Cheol
Faintly remains.
Scarcely remains.
Drops of water form inside my life
as if I cherish a drop of light
just as love is formed inside the word love
just as the word goodbye doesn’t permeate it
it faintly lingers.
A thin part of me remains.
Sometimes inside me...
By Richard Siken
Driving, dogs barking, how you get used to it, how you make
the new streets yours.
Trees outside the window and a big band sound that makes you feel like
everything's okay,
a feeling that lasts for one song maybe,
the parentheses all clicking shut behind you.
The way we move through time and space, or only time.
The way it's night for many miles, and then suddenly
it's not, it's breakfast
and you're standing in the shower for over an hour,
holding the bar of soap up to the light.
I will keep watch. I will water the yard.
Knot the tie and go to work. Unknot the tie and go to sleep.
I sleep. I dream. I make up things
that I would never say. I say them very quietly.
The trees in wind, the streetlights on,
the click and flash of cigarettes
being smoked on the lawn, and just a little kiss before we say goodnight.
It spins like a wheel inside you: green yellow, green blue,
green beautiful green.
It's simple: it isn't over, it's just begun. It's green. It's still green.
By Ahn Joo Cheol
Faintly remains.
Scarcely remains.
Drops of water form inside my life
as if I cherish a drop of light
just as love is formed inside the word love
just as the word goodbye doesn’t permeate it
it faintly lingers.
A thin part of me remains.
Sometimes inside me...
By CooXooEii Black
Home is a sound.
I can hear it
in the western meadowlark, the inlaid rocks in my driveway,
in the accent and slang
of my mom’s voice.
It’s engrained
in her stretched vowels,
in her smashed-together words, in her
hard Rs,
and in the word rez.
I grew up hearing...
By Jennifer Prado
Her skin never wrinkled
And I used to wonder why
Her skin never wrinkled
As every year passed by
Look at Grandma's hands my mom would say
I bet you'd never think of how they stay that way
As she grew older
Her skin remained smooth and...
By Elizabeth Meade
Sometimes, m’s elongate,
grow long tongues to taste the last bit
of breath my body has to offer.
Sometimes, i’s echo
like the harsh cries of a seagull,
try to fly far away from the nest of my mouth
only to circle the ocean of my...
By Uma Menon
My first instinct is to translate
the word. Make it easier to understand
without saying the word itself.
I feel guilt for this mistake—
for changing languages instead
of describing. Isn’t this an easy way out?
My mother and I are playing charades
alone. We make this...
