poem-a-day
If All My Relationships Fail and I Have No Children Do I Even Know What Love Is
If All My Relationships Fail and I Have No Children Do I Even Know What Love Is
This fireman comes every afternoon to the café on the corner dressed for his shift in clean dark blues This time it’s the second Wednesday of January and he’s meeting his daughter again who must be five or six and who is always waiting for her father like this in her charcoal gray plaid skirt with green and red stripes She probably comes here straight from school her glasses a couple nickels thick By now I know that she can sit (except for her one leg swinging from the chair) absolutely still while her father pulls fighters’ wraps from his work bag and begins half way down the girl’s forearm winding the fabric in overlapping spirals slowly toward her fist then he props her wrist like a pro on his own hand unraveling the black cloth weaving it between her thumb and forefinger around the palm taut but not so much that it cuts off the blood then up the hand and between the other fingers to protect the knuckles the tough humpback guppies just under the skin He does this once with her left then again to her right To be sure her pops knows he has done a good job she nods Good job Good Maybe you’re right I don’t know what love is A father kisses the top of his daughter’s head and knocks her glasses cockeyed He sits back and downs the last of the backwash in his coffee cup They got 10 minutes to kill before they walk across the street down the block and out of sight She wants to test her dad’s handiwork by throwing a couple jab-cross combos from her seat There is nothing in the daughter’s face that says she is afraid There is nothing in the father’s face to say he is not He checks his watch then holds up his palms as if to show his daughter that nothing is burning In Philadelphia there are fires I’ve seen those in my lifetime too
Copyright © 2018 by Patrick Rosal. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on April 23, 2018, by the Academy of American Poets.
Copyright © 2018 by Patrick Rosal. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on April 23, 2018, by the Academy of American Poets.
Tracy K. Smith
Classic Books of American Poetry
This collection of books showcases the masterpieces of American poetry that have influenced—or promise to influence—generations of poets. Take a look.
These Poems
These poems
they are things that I do
in the dark
reaching for you
whoever you are
and
are you ready?
These words
they are stones in the water
running away
These skeletal lines
they are desperate arms for my longing and love.
I am a stranger
learning to worship the strangers
around me
whoever you are
whoever I may become.
Maya Angelou
Always on the Train
Writing poems about writing poems is like rolling bales of hay in Texas. Nothing but the horizon to stop you. But consider the railroad's edge of metal trash; bird perches, miles of telephone wires. What is so innocent as grazing cattle? If you think about it, it turns into words. Trash is so cheerful; flying up like grasshoppers in front of the reaper. The dust devil whirls it aloft; bronze candy wrappers, squares of clear plastic—windows on a house of air. Below the weedy edge in last year's mat, red and silver beer cans. In bits blown equally everywhere, the gaiety of flying paper and the black high flung patterns of flocking birds.
Like You
translated by Jack Hirschman
Like you I
love love, life, the sweet smell
of things, the sky-blue
landscape of January days.
And my blood boils up
and I laugh through eyes
that have known the buds of tears.
I believe the world is beautiful
and that poetry, like bread, is for everyone.
And that my veins don’t end in me
but in the unanimous blood
of those who struggle for life,
love,
little things,
landscape and bread,
the poetry of everyone.
Como Tú
Yo, como tu,
amo el amor, la vida, el dulce encanto
de las cosas, el paisaje
celeste de los días de enero.
También mi sangre bulle
y río por los ojos
que han conocido el brote de las lágrimas.
Creo que el mundo es bello,
que la poesía es como el pan, de todos.
Y que mis venas no terminan en mí
sino en la sange unánime
de los que luchan por la vida,
el amor,
las cosas,
el paisaje y el pan,
la poesía de todos.
Poetic Forms
Refresh and expand your poetic vocabulary with this collection of poetic forms, complete with historical contexts, examples, and more. For more on poetic forms, browse our selection of terms from Edward Hirsch’s A Poet’s Glossary or check out our quick teaching guide on essential poetic terms.
Jenny Xie
A Poet's Glossary
Read about poetic terms and forms from Edward Hirsch's A Poet's Glossary (Harcourt, 2014), a book ten years in the making that defines the art form of poetry.
Emily Dickinson
Walt Whitman
Shane McCrae
Poetry Is a Destructive Force
That's what misery is, Nothing to have at heart. It is to have or nothing. It is a thing to have, A lion, an ox in his breast, To feel it breathing there. Corazon, stout dog, Young ox, bow-legged bear, He tastes its blood, not spit. He is like a man In the body of a violent beast. Its muscles are his own . . . The lion sleeps in the sun. Its nose is on its paws. It can kill a man.
submit: american poets prizes
T. S. Eliot
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Lesson Plans for Introducing Poetry
Bring poems into the classroom with these lesson plans, which are especially suited to introducing students to poetry and helping them become engaged and thoughtful readers.
Hieu Minh Nguyen
