For travel days, from the pedestrians.
from the other city / by Rachel Zucker
‘Yes,’ she thought, through a haze of jet lag, ‘there should be no limits placed on the value of a very fine cheese.’
21st-Century Poetry
DPF / Collins
For a favorite poem from poets.org.
from To My Favorite 17-Year-Old-High-School Girl / by Billy Collins
A few centuries later, when he was your age,
Franz Schubert was doing the dishes for his family,
but that did not keep him from composing two symphonies, four operas and two complete masses as a youngster.
But of course, that was in Austria at the height of Romantic lyricism
DPF / Collins
For memory, which sometimes deepens and sometimes disappears along the way, and for wishing the best parts would always stay, from poets.org. This poem is for the missing memories of the everyone-and-everyday kind.
from Forgetfulness / by Billy Collins
The name of the author is the first to go
followed obediently by the title, the plot,
the heartbreaking conclusion, the entire novel
which suddenly becomes one you have never read, never even heard of
DPF / Zucker
For August and the last few summertime days, from the pedestrians. Also, if you like podcasts, please try Rachel Zucker’s podcast, https://www.commonpodcast.com/, “Commonplace: Conversations with Poets (and Other People)”. The episodes are sometimes more than 90 minutes, and always more than you’d ever expect in the best ways.
from ocean / by Rachel Zucker
She sat on the deck, face in the shade, legs in the sun, reading books by people in the faraway city.
DPF / Vuong
For poetry, from Poetry, July/August 2017.
from Essay on Craft / by Ocean Vuong
Because the butterfly’s yellow wing
flickering in black mud
was a word
stranded by its language.
DPF / Tunstall
For English poetry, from Poetry, May 2017.
from Kaftan / by Lucy Tunstall
My mother has taken me to Paddington station.
We are inside a whale.
DPF / Read
For fairy tales, from this Spring’s themed anthology, Lilac City Fairy Tales, Volume 3: Weird Sisters. Honored to share this issue with other fairy-tale-inspired writers: http://spark-central.org/store/weird-sisters-lilac-city-fairy-tales-vol-3-2017.
from Tisiphone, Avenger of Ghosts / by Laura Read
Without my barrette, I had to wear my hair
down and wild. I have always been like this.
DPF / Greger
For one of my teacher-mentors from the state with the most beautiful name and from her new book, published today, In Darwin’s Room. A moment of parental carelessness to which some, or many, may relate.
from In Darwin’s Room / by Debora Greger
he wrote out his father’s objections
to a son taking voyage on a ship named for a dog:
Disreputable to my character as a Clergyman hereafter.
A wild scheme.
That they must have offered to many others before me
the place of Naturalist.
DPF / Cole
For elegant birds who may love summer as much as I do, from Middle Earth.
from Swans / by Henri Cole
For above we must have looked like ordinary
tourists feeding winter swans
DPF / Zucker
For dreams, from the pedestrians.
from baby hospital dream / by Rachel Zucker
Women are milling about outside a hospital, waiting for their babies to be passed back to them through metal chutes in the brick wall.
Daily Poetry Fragments {Semi-Daily} 