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Happy Poetry Month!
Apr. 1st, 2023 09:03 amI have been reading various poetry collections to pick poems for this month. The first one of note is A Poem of Her Own: Voices of American Women Yesterday and Today edited by Catherine Clinton. It's not a large book, and it has illustrations, and I have found quite a few selections I want to share. By chance, most of the poets this year are American.
Helpful to know Anne is talking about a book of hers published in 1650! I was inspired to write my own version about the poems I'll never write. I'll use cuts going forward but for Day 1, I am going to let it run.
The Author to Her Book by Anne Bradstreet
Thou ill-form’d offspring of my feeble brain,
Who after birth didst by my side remain,
Till snatched from thence by friends, less wise than true,
Who thee abroad, expos’d to publick view,
Made thee in raggs, halting to th’ press to trudge,
Where errors were not lessened (all may judg).
At thy return my blushing was not small,
My rambling brat (in print) should mother call,
I cast thee by as one unfit for light,
Thy Visage was so irksome in my sight;
Yet being mine own, at length affection would
Thy blemishes amend, if so I could:
I wash’d thy face, but more defects I saw,
And rubbing off a spot, still made a flaw.
I stretched thy joynts to make thee even feet,
Yet still thou run’st more hobling then is meet;
In better dress to trim thee was my mind,
But nought save home-spun Cloth, i’ th’ house I find.
In this array ’mongst Vulgars mayst thou roam.
In Criticks hands, beware thou dost not come;
And take thy way where yet thou art not known,
If for thy Father askt, say, thou hadst none:
And for thy Mother, she alas is poor,
Which caus’d her thus to send thee out of door.
The poet to the verse she'll never write by okapi
thou un-formed children of ill-constant muse
who never spoke, nor will, can thou excuse
aborted opportunities at life
though possibilities abounded rife?
can thee forgive the one who would not give
the scratch, the stroke, the tap to let thee live?
conception comes so easily, so swift,
so often, mother only has to lift
her eyes to lines intriguingly arranged
or shadows falling strange, or art deranged
in gilded frames, or rain, or pain, it all
lights fires, inspires, suggests a beck and call.
but laundry intervenes and so does sleep
and so many other things which will not keep
‘til labor can produce thy feet and cry.
a butcher’s knife, this life, it will deny
existence to thee, juxtaposed or apt
or cleverly transposed to hold enrapt.
mass graves of verse un-birthed, unborn
grow fat abandoned, shall no one mourn?
alas, shall these, these sickly phrases, be
for thee, my dears, thy only elegy?
o graveyard words, would naught but thee to cease,
arise to full height, mine, don’t rest in peace
Helpful to know Anne is talking about a book of hers published in 1650! I was inspired to write my own version about the poems I'll never write. I'll use cuts going forward but for Day 1, I am going to let it run.
The Author to Her Book by Anne Bradstreet
Thou ill-form’d offspring of my feeble brain,
Who after birth didst by my side remain,
Till snatched from thence by friends, less wise than true,
Who thee abroad, expos’d to publick view,
Made thee in raggs, halting to th’ press to trudge,
Where errors were not lessened (all may judg).
At thy return my blushing was not small,
My rambling brat (in print) should mother call,
I cast thee by as one unfit for light,
Thy Visage was so irksome in my sight;
Yet being mine own, at length affection would
Thy blemishes amend, if so I could:
I wash’d thy face, but more defects I saw,
And rubbing off a spot, still made a flaw.
I stretched thy joynts to make thee even feet,
Yet still thou run’st more hobling then is meet;
In better dress to trim thee was my mind,
But nought save home-spun Cloth, i’ th’ house I find.
In this array ’mongst Vulgars mayst thou roam.
In Criticks hands, beware thou dost not come;
And take thy way where yet thou art not known,
If for thy Father askt, say, thou hadst none:
And for thy Mother, she alas is poor,
Which caus’d her thus to send thee out of door.
The poet to the verse she'll never write by okapi
thou un-formed children of ill-constant muse
who never spoke, nor will, can thou excuse
aborted opportunities at life
though possibilities abounded rife?
can thee forgive the one who would not give
the scratch, the stroke, the tap to let thee live?
conception comes so easily, so swift,
so often, mother only has to lift
her eyes to lines intriguingly arranged
or shadows falling strange, or art deranged
in gilded frames, or rain, or pain, it all
lights fires, inspires, suggests a beck and call.
but laundry intervenes and so does sleep
and so many other things which will not keep
‘til labor can produce thy feet and cry.
a butcher’s knife, this life, it will deny
existence to thee, juxtaposed or apt
or cleverly transposed to hold enrapt.
mass graves of verse un-birthed, unborn
grow fat abandoned, shall no one mourn?
alas, shall these, these sickly phrases, be
for thee, my dears, thy only elegy?
o graveyard words, would naught but thee to cease,
arise to full height, mine, don’t rest in peace
