For the academy in all its versions, from No More Masks: An Anthology of Twentieth-Century American Women Poets, edited by Florence Howe.
from A Poem for my Most Intelligent 10:30 AM Class / Fall 1985 / by Sonia Sanchez
i had come to this room from other
rooms. footsteps walking from
under my feet. and i saw
your faces eavesdropping on shadows
For charts and small seas, from No More Masks: An Anthology of Twentieth-Century American Women Poets, edited by Florence Howe.
from I Might Have Sung of the World / by Sara Teasdale
I might have sung of the world
And said what I heard them say
Of the vast and passing dream
Of today and yesterday.
For watching oneself barrel through life and wanting to choose to be the self who goes back for the book, from Picnic, Lightning.
from I Go Back to the House for a Book / by Billy Collins
another me that did not bother
to go back to the house for a book
heads out on his own,
rolls down the driveway,
and swings left toward town
For rising to the occasion, which is hopefully what will happen on this day, from Picnic, Lightning.
from What I Learned Today / by Billy Collins
I had never heard of John Bernard Flannagan,
American sculptor,
until I found him on page 961
of the single-volume encyclopedia I am reading
at the rate of one page each day.
For finally finishing the amazing play, A Raisin in the Sun, from one of my favorite poems, the epigraph.
from What happens to a dream deferred / by Langston Hughes
What happens to a dream deferred?
Does it dry up
Like a raisin in the sun?
For bookstores, from Memoir of the Hawk. When I was younger, I traveled the United States in search of great, used bookstores. I found so many! In related news, I miss you so much, Mr. Tate.
from Memory / by James Tate
Bookstore with a donkey in its heart,
bookstore full of clouds and
sometimes lighting, showers.
Books just in from Australia,
books by madmen and giants.
For some rainy days like today are made for fairy tales, even these, from Transformations.
from Cinderella / by Anne Sexton
Once
the wife of a rich man was on her deathbed
and she said to her daughter Cinderella:
Be devout. Be good. Then I will smile
down from heaven in the seam of a cloud.
For fathers and sons and sharing time with our parents, from Opening the Hand.
from Yesterday / by W.S. Merwin
he says my father
said maybe
you have important work you are doing
or maybe you should be seeing
somebody I don’t want to keep you
I look out the window
my friend is older than I am
he says and I told my father it was so
and I got up and left him then
you know
For lost dads, from Selected Poems.
from The Lost Pilot / by James Tate
and you, passing over again,
fast, perfect, and unwilling
to tell me that you are doing
well
For, when life gives you lemons, don’t make lemonade. Take the time to experience the difficulty, to fully embrace it long enough to see its meaning for your world, from one of my poets to whom I always turn in times of confusion or sadness, from Ariel.
from Wintering / by Sylvia Plath
Will the hive survive, will the gladiolas
Succeed in banking their fires
To enter another year?
What will they taste of, the Christmas roses?
The bees are flying. They taste the spring.
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