Status Updates From Poem For the Day Two

Tlhis is what I want most of all

Osip Mandelstam
(January 15th 1891 — December 27th 1938)

translated by James Greene

...Mandelstam had been back in Moscow for just a year when he was arrested again in May 1938 for 'counter-revolutionary' activities, ostensibly poems criticizing Stalin, and sentenced to five years in a labour camp.

In Paris in a Loud Dark Winter

Lawrence Ferlinghetti
(March 24th 1919 — )

Ferlinghetti studied poetry at the Sorbonne in Paris before joining the Beats in San Francisco. He established the now famous City Lights bookshop, which published the landmark Pocket Poets series, including Allen Ginsberg's Howl, for which Ferlinghetti was tried on obscenity charges.

The Gods Do Not Consent

Fernando Pessoa
(June 13th 1888 — November 30th 1935)

In a postscript to a letter of January 13th 1935, Pessoa wrote of his belief in "the experience of various degrees of spirituality, becoming more rarified until we arrive at a Supreme Being ... I do not believe in a direct communication with God".

On January 12th 1795, Burns scandalised Mrs Dunlop by writing of the execution of King Louis and Queen Marie-Antonette of France: "What is there in the delivering over a perjured Blockhead & an unprincipled Prostitute into the hands of the hangman..."

The Self-Unseeing

On January 11th, 1804, the Sussex Examiner reported that William Blake was acquitted of sedition and assault, having said 'Damn the king and damn his soldiers:

Thomas Hardy
(June 2nd 1840 — January 11th 1928)

From Sonnets from the Portuguese
VII

Elizabeth Barrett Browning
(March 6th 18067 — June 29th 1861)

...But Browning was undeterred: his visit was the fulfillment of many months of waiting and longing. He meticulously logged the date and duration of this and every subsequent visit and was delighted to discover that his weekly visits were having a restorative effect on Barrett's health.

I Leave This at Your Ear

W. S. Graham
(November 19th 1918 — January 9th 1986)

The title of Graham's third collection, 2ND Poems (1945) , was a coded dedication "To Nessie Dunsmuir'.

Against Extremity

Charles Tomlinson
(January 8th; 1927 —)

."What I was advocating when this form of excess was at its height, was the need for a human balance and a suspicion of the ego which had played such a self-regarding role in the drama. ..

The Ball Poem

John Berryman
(October 25th 1914 — January 7th 1972)

John Berryman was born John Alleyn Smith Jr. His father shot himself when John was 12, and his mother hastily remarried Mr Berryman just two months later. From his early life it would seem, Berryman wa 'afflicted by a sense of L O S S' as his alter ego Henry would later claim in The Dream Songs.

His Pilgrimage

Sir Walter Raleigh
(c. 1552 — October er 29th 1618)

... He remained there for 12 years, during which time he wrote prodigiously and produced, amongst other works, The History of the World. The first volume reaching only as far as 130 BC, In the preface he thanked his enemy for incarcerating him: "For had it been otherwise, I should hardly have had the leisure, to have made myself a fool in print."

Requiem: The Soldier

Humbert Wolfe
(January 5th 1885 — January 5th 1940)

Humbert Wolfe was born Umberto Wolff in Italy to a German Jewish father and an Italian Jewish mother but the family moved to Bradford, England, shortly afterward. He spent the war years working in the Ministry of Munitions and the Ministry of Labour, and was respected as a courageous mediator.

La Figlia che Piange
O quad te memorem virgo ...

...
Compelled my imagination many days,
Many days and many hours:
Her hair over her arms and her arms full of flowers,
And I wonder how they should have been together!
I should have lost a gesture and a pose.
Sometimes this cogitations still amaze
The troubled midnight and the noon's repose.

T. S. Eliot
(September 26th 1888 — January 4th 1965)

The Confirmation

Edwin Muir
(May 15th 1887 — January 3rd 1959)

... In her memoir Belonging, Willa wrote that the poem "sent me into a passion of tears, because I knew too well that I was only a botched version of what I was meant to be." Edwin commented however, that, "My marriage was the most fortunate event in my life:".

Roman poet Ovid died in exile January 2nd 17 AD

Poet Arthur Hugh Clough born in Liverpool January 1st 1819

I Stood on a Tower

... That same day, Tennyson wrote to his lifelong friend Francis Turner Palgrave, editor of the famous Victorian poetry anthology The Golden Treasury: "What a season! The wind is roaring here like thunder, and all my ilexes; rolling and whitening. Indeed, we have had whole weeks of wind."

Alfred Lord Tennyson
(August 6th 1809 — October 6th 1892)

Burning Roses

Patti Smith
(December 30th 1946 — )

She emerged in New York In the early 1970's as a feminist punk poet of huge presence and talent. She followed this with the seminal album, Horses, in 1975, which many people consider a key precursor to the punk records of a few years later.

Garden tenderly, darkened, almost

Rainer Maria Rilke
(December 4th 1875 —‚ December 29thh 1926)

translated by Michael Hamburger

...He was sent to military academy and business school against his will but nonetheless found his poetic voice early, publishing his first collection at the age of 19. He became one of the most influential poets of the 20th century and an important mentor to many younger poets.

The Pebble Who Has No Toes

...

But before he touched the shore
The shore of the Bristol Channel,
A sea-green Porpoise carried away
His wrapper of scarlet flannel.
And when he came to observe his feet
Formerly garnished with toes so neat
His face at once became forlorn
On perceiving that all his toes were gone!

...

Edward Lear
May 12th 1812 — January 29th 1888)

Advice to the Old (Including Myself)

Kay Boyle
February 19th 1902 — December 27th 1992)

...She was a committed social activist as much as a writer, and believed above all that "the writer must recognize and must accept his commitment to his times." Her poetry and short stories bear witness to the injustices she observed.

Announcement

Rod Riesco
(December 26th 1949 — )

...
Rod Riesco works as a freelance translator, and became interested in poetry after attending a local creative writing class. He has been published in various collections and magazines and is Secretary of Bank Street Writers.

The Ballad of Bouillabaisse

...

I wonder if the house still there is?
Yes, here the lamp is, as before;
The smiling red-cheeked écaillére is
Still opening oysters at the door.
Is Terré still alive and able?
I recollect his droll grimace;
He'd come and smile before your table,
And hope you liked your Bouillabaisse?"

William Makepeace Thackeray
(July 18th 1811 — December 24th 1863)

From A Christmas. Carol

...

What. can I give Him,
Poor as I am?
if I were a shepherd
I would bring a lamb,
If I were a Wise Man
I would do my part, —
But what I can I give Him,
Give my heart,

Christina rossetti
(December 5th 1830 — December 29th 1894)

Out in the Dark

Edward Thomas
(March 3rd 1878 — April 9th 1917)

...
After his death, Edward Thomas' wife Helen wrote in a farewell to him:"Beloved, there have been many weeks and now I have come to today. The way has been very difficult for me, but even through darkness and despair and just nothingness and fear, just as ever when these things came before, all has been well at last because of our love."

'Idea" poet Michael Drayton died De ember 23rd 1631

Remembrance

Sweet Love of youth, forgive, if I forget thee,
While the world's tide is bearing me along;
Other desires and other hopes beset me,
Hopes which obscure, but cannot do thee wrong!

Emily Brontë
(July 30th 1818 — December 19th 1848)

Italian poet and novelist Giovanni Boccaccio whose work was influential to Chaucer, died December 21st 1375.

Sometimes

Sheenagh Pugh
(December 20th 1950 — )

...but it isn't anywhere near skilful or subtle enough and I would cheerfully disown it, if people didn't now and then write to me saying it had helped them. I originally wrote "the sun will sometimes melt a field of snow" (the sportsman's drug of choice was cocaine), but I mistyped "sorrow" for "snow" and then decided I like that better.