poem-a-day
Common Things
Common Things
The most common thing in the world is a statue with its arms broken off. The brokenness a flatness exposing the texture of the marble or clay. The second most common thing are the arms. The right to bear them. Which is something even those who do not want the right have. Having something or someone to pray for doesn’t mean you have to pray. Who gave you something or someone to pray for, think of that. In the third most common thing, grass still wet from rain overnight, which you did not participate in by watching. You were asleep in the fourth most common thing. You wake now and walk on the fifth most common thing. The smooth surface of it. Without meaning to be reductive. You say the name of a country to refer to its ongoing conflict. The word conflict a rag that wipes the blade clean. A clean blade above a fireplace is the sixth most common thing. Which means you have a neighbor, either to the east or west, who is currently displaying a weapon. Even if you do not own a weapon, you could. And because of this you are complicit. But you cannot do anything about most things. You cannot put the arms back onto a statue is another way of saying you can’t put a bullet back into a gun. The body subsumes bullets as though it is in love. It inculcates bullets in the ways of the flesh. Which is torn by the time the bullet is convinced. You aren’t convinced of anything you don’t already believe in. In this way you are always standing your ground. The ground under someone standing it is the seventh most common thing. The eighth is the air in which you openly carry. You like the feel, the weight, the heft of it in your hand. But mostly you like the ability to take another’s life should you need to. It was your grandfather’s ability, your father’s. Before you know it, it will be your child’s. Whose body in the fetal position resembles a finger curling over a trigger. Whose whole life is still in the magazine. Until it isn’t and the sound is like that of a sternal saw cutting through the breastbone of the world. Finally buckling under the tink, tink, tink of the hammer against the saw. And you thought you had hid the key to the drawer where you keep the gun. But a key whose location is known is the ninth most common thing. The tenth most common thing is a thoracic cavity opened with a few cranks of the rib-spreader. And the esophagus and lungs are fished around by the hands of a surgeon who begins to massage the heart. To clamp the aorta. So that more blood is directed into the brain. Instead of into the bowels, which have emptied by now. While what is being filled are the gun racks of those. Whose child is not on the table. Is not statuesque in the beauty sense of the word. But in the way rigor mortis sets in.
Copyright © 2019 by Christopher Kondrich. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on April 19, 2019, by the Academy of American Poets.
Copyright © 2019 by Christopher Kondrich. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on April 19, 2019, 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.
Wanda Coleman
Poetry as Insurgent Art [I am signaling you through the flames]
I am signaling you through the flames.
The North Pole is not where it used to be.
Manifest Destiny is no longer manifest.
Civilization self-destructs.
Nemesis is knocking at the door.
What are poets for, in such an age?
What is the use of poetry?
The state of the world calls out for poetry to save it.
If you would be a poet, create works capable of answering the challenge of apocalyptic times, even if this meaning sounds apocalyptic.
You are Whitman, you are Poe, you are Mark Twain, you are Emily Dickinson and Edna St. Vincent Millay, you are Neruda and Mayakovsky and Pasolini, you are an American or a non-American, you can conquer the conquerors with words....
The Republic of Poetry
For Chile
In the republic of poetry,
a train full of poets
rolls south in the rain
as plum trees rock
and horses kick the air,
and village bands
parade down the aisle
with trumpets, with bowler hats,
followed by the president
of the republic,
shaking every hand.
In the republic of poetry,
monks print verses about the night
on boxes of monastery chocolate,
kitchens in restaurants
use odes for recipes
from eel to artichoke,
and poets eat for free.
In the republic of poetry,
poets read to the baboons
at the zoo, and all the primates,
poets and baboons alike, scream for joy.
In the republic of poetry,
poets rent a helicopter
to bombard the national palace
with poems on bookmarks,
and everyone in the courtyard
rushes to grab a poem
fluttering from the sky,
blinded by weeping.
In the republic of poetry,
the guard at the airport
will not allow you to leave the country
until you declaim a poem for her
and she says Ah! Beautiful.
Emily Dickinson
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.
Maya Angelou
Robert Frost
won't you celebrate with me
won't you celebrate with me what i have shaped into a kind of life? i had no model. born in babylon both nonwhite and woman what did i see to be except myself? i made it up here on this bridge between starshine and clay, my one hand holding tight my other hand; come celebrate with me that everyday something has tried to kill me and has failed.
Mother Country
To love a country as if you’ve lost one: 1968, my mother leaves Cuba for America, a scene I imagine as if standing in her place—one foot inside a plane destined for a country she knew only as a name, a color on a map, or glossy photos from drugstore magazines, her other foot anchored to the platform of her patria, her hand clutched around one suitcase, taking only what she needs most: hand-colored photographs of her family, her wedding veil, the doorknob of her house, a jar of dirt from her backyard, goodbye letters she won’t open for years. The sorrowful drone of engines, one last, deep breath of familiar air she’ll take with her, one last glimpse at all she’d ever known: the palm trees wave goodbye as she steps onto the plane, the mountains shrink from her eyes as she lifts off into another life. To love a country as if you’ve lost one: I hear her —once upon a time—reading picture books over my shoulder at bedtime, both of us learning English, sounding out words as strange as the talking animals and fair-haired princesses in their pages. I taste her first attempts at macaroni-n-cheese (but with chorizo and peppers), and her shame over Thanksgiving turkeys always dry, but countered by her perfect pork pernil and garlic yuca. I smell the rain of those mornings huddled as one under one umbrella waiting for the bus to her ten-hour days at the cash register. At night, the zzz-zzz of her sewing her own blouses, quinceañera dresses for her nieces still in Cuba, guessing at their sizes, and the gowns she’d sell to neighbors to save for a rusty white sedan— no hubcaps, no air-conditioning, sweating all the way through our first vacation to Florida theme parks. To love a country as if you’ve lost one: as if it were you on a plane departing from America forever, clouds closing like curtains on your country, the last scene in which you’re a madman scribbling the names of your favorite flowers, trees, and birds you’d never see again, your address and phone number you’d never use again, the color of your father’s eyes, your mother’s hair, terrified you could forget these. To love a country as if I was my mother last spring hobbling, insisting I help her climb all the way up to the U.S. Capitol, as if she were here before you today instead of me, explaining her tears, cheeks pink as the cherry blossoms coloring the air that day when she stopped, turned to me, and said: You know, mijo, it isn’t where you’re born that matters, it’s where you choose to die—that’s your country.
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.
Langston Hughes
