For fathers and daughters, from Poetry 180, edited by Billy Collins.
from Not Bad, Dad, Not Bad / by Jan Heller Levi
I think how different everything might have been
had I judged your loving
like I judge your sidestroke, your butterfly
20th-Century Poetry
DPF / Williams
For the ephemeral, from Poetry 180, edited by Billy Collins.
from Listen / by Miller Williams
I threw a snowball across the backyard.
My dog ran after it to bring it back.
It broke as it fell, scattering snow over snow.
DPF / Quintana
For salt and wedding anniversaries, from Poetry 180, edited by Billy Collins.
from Poem for Salt / by Leroy V. Quintana
Only on a day such as this does salt overshadow gold.
DPF / Phillips
For a moment’s peace, from Poetry 180, edited by Billy Collins.
from The Panic Bird / by Robert Phillips
just flew inside my chest. Some
days it lights inside my brain,
but today it’s in my bonehouse,
rattling ribs like a birdcage.
DPF / Carver
For great storytellers, from The Book of Luminous Things, edited by Czeslaw Milosz.
from Wine / by Raymond Carver (1938-1988)
Alexander, who later
on the campaign trail into Persia, carried a copy of
The Iliad in a velvet-lined box, he loved that book so
much.
DPF / Ponge
For elegance, from A Book of Luminous Things, edited by Czeslaw Milosz.
from The Frog / by Francis Ponge (1899-1988)
When little matchsticks of rain bounce off drenched fields, an amphibian dwarf, a maimed Ophelia, barely the size of a fist, sometimes hops under the poet’s feet and flings herself into the next pond.
DPF / Gallup
For sci-fi poetry, from The Best American Poetry 1997, guest editor James Tate, series editor David Lehman.
from Backing into the Future / by Dick Gallup
It’s like the doors
Suddenly fret open & I am deep underground
With Ted Berrigan and we both have an intense
Distrust of the future we are looking forward to
DPF / Ai
For men and women, from The Best American Poetry 1997, guest editor James Tate, series editor David Lehman.
from Back in the World / by Ai
I begin to paint, first a black background,
then starting from the left side,
a white line, beside a red line
beside a white, beside a red,
each one getting smaller and smaller,
until they disappear off the edge of the canvas.
DPF / Alexie
For the eagles and ravens, from The Best American Poetry 1997, guest editor James Tate, series editor David Lehman.
from The Exaggeration of Despair / by Sherman Alexie
and this is my father, whose mother died of tuberculosis
not long after he was born, and so my father must hear coughing ghosts
DPF / Ammons
For the galaxies, from The Best America Poetry 1997, guest editor James Tate, series editor David Lehman.
from Strip / by A.R. Ammons
how am I sagely to depart from
all being (universe and all — by
that I mean material and immaterial
stuff) without calling out
Daily Poetry Fragments {Semi-Daily} 