English Verse Quotes

“We stayed mute and disloyal
because we were afraid

I would have touched my fingers
to where your breasts had been
but we never did such things”
― Adrienne Rich, The Dream of a Common Language

“Nighthawks

I wanted to run away with you tonight
but you are a difficult woman
the rules of you -

Past and future circle round us
now we know more now less
in the institute of shadows.

On a street black as widows
with nothing to confess
our distances found us

the rules of you -
so difficult a woman
I wanted to run away with you tonight.”
― Anne Carson, Men in the Off Hours

“and they still control the world, and you are not in my arms.”
― Adrienne Rich, The Dream of a Common Language

“how can I reconcile this passion
with our modesty

your calvinist heritage
my girlhood frozen into forms

how can I go on this mission
without you

you, who might have told me
everything you feel is true?”
― Adrienne Rich, The Dream of a Common Language

“If I could let you know -
two women together is a work
nothing in civilization ha made simple,
two people together is a work
heroic in its ordinariness,
the slow-picked, halting traverse of a pitch
where the fiercest attention becomes routine
- look at the faces of those who have chosen it.”
― Adrienne Rich, The Dream of a Common Language

“Ray please I never lied to her. When need arose I may have used words that lied.”
― Anne Carson, The Beauty of the Husband: A Fictional Essay in 29 Tangos

“What is a Lamb of God? People use this phrase.
I don't know.
I watch my sister, fingers straying absently about her mustache,
no help there.”
― Anne Carson, Men in the Off Hours

“Campaign Against Akhmatova Begins (1922)

She ran from lamppost to lamppost, the wind slammed.
Trotsky reviewed her in Pravda: One reads with dismay...
and an unofficial Communist Party resolution banned her poetry (1925).
She didn't notice, didn't know what a Communist Party was in those days.
Fog choked the city.
Russia's great poets were all about 35 years ol
Scraggly trees wandered by the canal in dim sun.”
― Anne Carson, Men in the Off Hours

“détails

All the same there are some small questions one would like to put to Sokrates. Or better still Sappho. Avec tes mains brûlées.”
― Anne Carson, Men in the Off Hours