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  • American poetry
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American poetry

I Hear America Singing - by Walt Whitman

{ Poem }

I hear America singing, the varied carols I hear,
/ Those of mechanics, each one singing his as it should be blithe…

To Judgement: An Assay - by Jane Hirshfield

{ Poem }

You change a life
/ as eating an artichoke changes the taste
/ of whatever is eaten after.
/ Yet you are not an artichoke, not…

It Was Like This: You Were Happy - by Jane Hirshfield

{ Poem }

It was like this:
/ you were happy, then you were sad,
/ then happy again, then not.
/
/ It went on.
/ You were innocent or you…

Three Foxes by the Edge of the Field at Twilight - by Jane Hirshfield

{ Poem }

One ran,
/ her nose to the ground,
/ a rusty shadow
/ neither hunting nor playing.
/
/ One stood; sat; lay down; stood again.
/
/ One never moved,
/ except to…

Optimism - by Jane Hirshfield

{ Poem }

More and more I have come to admire resilience.
/ Not the simple resistance of a pillow, whose foam
/ returns over and over…

Tree - by Jane Hirshfield

{ Poem }

It is foolish
/ to let a young redwood
/ grow next to a house.
/
/ Even in this
/ one lifetime,
/ you will have to choose.
/
/ That great calm…

French Horn - by Jane Hirshfield

{ Poem }

For a few days only,
/ the plum tree outside the window
/ shoulders perfection.
/ No matter the plums will be small,
/ eaten only by squirrels…

The Supple Deer - by Jane Hirshfield

{ Poem }

The quiet opening
/ between fence strands
/ perhaps eighteen inches.
/
/ Antlers to hind hooves,
/ four feet off the ground,
/ the deer poured through.
/
/ No tuft of the…

Opening the Hands between Here and Here - by Jane Hirshfield

{ Poem }

On the dark road, only the weight of the rope.
/ Yet the horse is there.

Paragraphs from a Daybook - by Marilyn Hacker

{ Poem }

for Claire Malroux
/
/ On a beechwood sideboard, there sat in state
/ an object whose functional equivalent
/ would be, in American, a trivet,
/ but “trivet”…

My Grandmother’s Love Letters - by Hart Crane

{ Poem }

There are no stars tonight
/ But those of memory.
/ Yet how much room for memory there is
/ In the loose…

Poets to Come - by Walt Whitman

{ Poem }

I myself but write one or two indicative words for the future,
I but advance a moment only to wheel and hurry back in the darkness.

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