Poetry Composition Through Instruction
by Jimmy Santiago Baca It was a time when they were afraid of him.My father, a bare man, a gypsy, a horsewith broken knees no one would shoot.Then again, he was like the orange tree,and young women plucked from him sweet fruit.To meet him, you must be in the right place,even his sons and daughter,…
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by Chief Dan George The beauty of the trees, the softness of the air the fragrance of the grass speaks to me.The summit of the mountainthe thunder of the sky,the rhythm of the sea, speaks to me.The faintness of the stars, the freshness of the morning, the dewdrop on the flower, speaks to me.The strength…
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By William Stafford Some time when the river is ice ask me mistakes I have made. Ask me whether what I have done is my life. Others have come in their slow way into my thought, and some have tried to help or to hurt: ask me what difference their strongest love or hate has made. I will listen to what…
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by Li Young Lee Your attention please.Train number 9, the Northern Zephyr,destined for River’s End, is now boarding.All ticketed passengersplease proceed to the gate marked Evening. Your attention please. Train number 7,Leaves Blown By, bound for the Color of Thinkingand Renovated Time, is now departing.All ticketed passengers may boardbehind my eyes. Your attention please, Train…
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by Sherman Alexie After driving all night, trying to reachArlee in time for the fancydancefinals, a case of emptybeer bottles shaking our foundations, westop at a liquor store, count out money,and would believe in the promise of any man with a twenty, a promisethin and wrinkled in his hand, reach-ing into the window of our…
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By Sherman Alexie I am told by many of you that I must forgive and so I shallafter an Indian woman puts her shoulder to the Grand Coulee Damand topples it. I am told by many of you that I must forgiveand so I shall after the floodwaters burst each successive damdownriver from the Grand…
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By Theodore Roethke I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.I feel my fate in what I cannot fear.I learn by going where I have to go. We think by feeling. What is there to know?I hear my being dance from ear to ear.I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow. Of those…
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By Theodore Roethke In a dark time, the eye begins to see,I meet my shadow in the deepening shade;I hear my echo in the echoing woodA lord of nature weeping to a tree.I live between the heron and the wren,Beasts of the hill and serpents of the den. What’s madness but nobility of soulAt odds…
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By Duane Niatum aven steals your name for an autumn joke:buries you along with it underthe thickest hemlock known to chipmunks.Too bad you were awake for the event.He accuses you of asking allthe wrong questions over and over.You attempt revolt to prove his medicinewheel is cracked and filling up its own pit. He hollers your…
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by Duane Niatum You said to me that day,“There’s nothing you can do,”and spoke of Auden’s line:“Poetry makes nothing happen.”And though I honor you,especially your poems,the objects you dipped in light,then, left in the rainbow,let slip from our sight,I admitted, diving out of self,a sweet woman’s white caress,the hundreds of lives and placesin books, failed…
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