Samurai Song- Poets.org - Poetry, Poems, Bios & More

View Cart \| Log In
Subscribe \| More Info

Advanced Search >

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Robert Pinsky

The author of several collections of poetry, Robert Pinsky won the 1997 Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize for his book The Figured Wheel: New and Collected Poems 1966-1996...
More >

Want more poems?
Subscribe to our
Poem-A-Day emails.


	FURTHER READING


		Poems about Living
		"I'm afraid of death" by Kathleen Ossip

		Another Elegy by Jericho Brown

		Ashes of Life by Edna St. Vincent Millay

		August, 1953 by David Wojahn

		Characteristics of Life by Camille T. Dungy

		Coda by Marilyn Hacker

		Daily Life by Susan Wood

		Difficult Body by Mark Wunderlich

		Elegy in Joy [excerpt] by Muriel Rukeyser

		far memory by Lucille Clifton

		First Things to Hand by Robert Pinsky

		Frozen by Natasha Head

		How to Uproot a Tree by Jennifer K. Sweeney

		I could suffice for Him, I knew (643) by Emily Dickinson

		Insomnia by Alicia Suskin Ostriker

		Life by Joe Brainard

		Life is Fine by Langston Hughes

		Little Night Prayer by Péter Kántor

		Living in Numbers by Claire Lee

		Lost and Found by Ron Padgett

		Mass for the Day of St. Thomas Didymus [excerpt] by Denise Levertov

		Meditation 29 by Philip Pain

		On Living by Nazim Hikmet

		One Train May Hide Another by Kenneth Koch

		Primitive State [excerpt] by Anselm Berrigan

		Spent by Mark Doty

		sugar is smoking by Jason Schneiderman

		Summer in Winter in Summer by Noah Eli Gordon

		Tear It Down by Jack Gilbert

		The Layers by Stanley Kunitz

		The Old Stoic by Emily Brontë

		The Pain by Laura Kasischke

		The Secret by Denise Levertov

		Thrown as if Fierce & Wild by Dean Young

		Variation on a Theme by W. S. Merwin

		Virgil's Hand by Francesc Parcerisas

		What the Living Do by Marie Howe

		What Wild-Eyed Murderer by Peter Meinke

		Where I Live by Maxine Kumin

		won't you celebrate with me by Lucille Clifton

		Yellow Beak by Stephen Dobyns


		Related Prose
		Poems about Living and Human Experience

Sponsor a Poet Page | Add to Notebook | Email to Friend | Print

Samurai Song
by Robert Pinsky

When I had no roof I made Audacity my roof. When I had No supper my eyes dined. When I had no eyes I listened. When I had no ears I thought. When I had no thought I waited. When I had no father I made Care my father. When I had No mother I embraced order. When I had no friend I made Quiet my friend. When I had no Enemy I opposed my body. When I had no temple I made My voice my temple. I have No priest, my tongue is my choir. When I have no means fortune Is my means. When I have Nothing, death will be my fortune. Need is my tactic, detachment Is my strategy. When I had No lover I courted my sleep.


Copyright © 2011 by Robert Pinsky. Reprinted from Selected Poems with the permission of Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

Larger Type | Home | Help | Contact Us | Privacy Policy