In recent years the orthodoxy that Shakespeare can only be truly appreciated on stage has become widespread. But, as with many of our habits and assumptions, lockdown gives us a chance to think differently. Now could be the time to dust off the old collected works, and read some Shakespeare, just as people have been doing for more than 400 years. Many people have said they find reading Shakespeare a bit daunting, so here are five tips for how to make it simpler and more pleasurable. 1. Ignore the footnotes…
Read MoreTag: English Poetry
Tha Grand Conversation by Paul Muldoon
She. My people came from Korelitz where they grew yellow cucumbers and studied the Talmud He. Mine pored over the mud of mangold- and potato-pits or flicked through kale plants from Comber as bibliomancers of old went a-flicking through deckle-mold She. Mine would lie low in the shtetl when they heard the distant thunder stolen by the Cossacks He. It was potato sacks lumped together on a settle mine found themselves lying under the Peep O’Day Boys from Loughgall making Defenders of us all She. Mine once controlled the sugar trade from the islets…
Read MoreDandelions by Frances Ellen Watkins Harper
Dandelions Welcome children of the Spring In your garbs of green and gold Lifting up your sun-crowned heads On the verdant plain and world As a bright and joyous troop From the breast of earth ye came Fair and lovely are your cheeks With sun-kisses all aflame In the dusty streets and lanes Where the lowly children play There as gentle friends ye smile Making brighter life’s highway Dewdrops and the morning sun Weave your garments fair and bright And…
Read MoreSpring Cleaning by Melvin Dixon
Spring Cleaning First goes floor dust, then newspapers stacked near the bed. Peanut shells swept out of hiding between mattress and rug. Toenails clipped. Sprouts of a beard shaved off. With hourly glasses of Deer Park Water and the barest of food, the body sheds winter fat and filler The hair goes next, close to the gleaming, gleaming skull You are ready for the sun and the salt-tongued air You are someone new. I will be someone new, like you, and promise not to hear the rattle our bones make…
Read MoreConfession by Countee Cullen
Confession …………………. If for a day joy masters me Think not my wounds are healed Far deeper than the scars you see I keep the roots concealed They shall bear blossoms with the fall I have their word for this Who tend my roots with rains of gall And suns of prejudice
Read MoreSHO by DOUGLAS KEARNEY
A torchon after Indigo Weller Some need some Body or more to ape sweat on some site. Bloody purl or dirty spit hocked up for to show who gets eaten. Rig Body up. Bough bow to breeze a lazed jig and sway to grig’s good fiddling. Pine-deep dusk, a spot where stood Body. Thus they clap — when I mount banc’, jig up the lectern. Bow to say, “it’s all good,” we, gathered, withstood the bends of dives deep er, darker. They clap as I get down. Sweat highlights my body,…
Read MoreI pray for your missing body by Sara Uribe
"I pray for your missing body” I pray for your missing body to be granted justice. For it to be granted a name. I pray I’ll have a place to go to cry. I pray for those who are good and for the others, because even if they have no heart, I do.
Read MoreThe Visit of the Professor of Aesthetics by Margaret Danner
To see you standing in the sagging bookstore door So filled me with chagrin that suddenly you seemed as Pink and white to me as newborn, hairless mouse. For I had hoped to delight you at home. Be a furl Of faint perfume and Vienna’s cord like lace, To shine my piano till a shimmer of mother-of-pearl Embraced it. To pleasantly surprise you with the grace That transcends my imitation and much worn “Louis XV” couch. To display my cathedrals and ballets. To plunge you into Africa through my nude…
Read MoreSci-Fi by Tracy K. Smith
There will be no edges, but curves. Clean lines pointing only forward. History, with its hard spine & dog-eared Corners, will be replaced with nuance, Just like the dinosaurs gave way To mounds and mounds of ice. Women will still be women, but The distinction will be empty. Sex, Having outlived every threat, will gratify Only the mind, which is where it will exist. For kicks, we’ll dance for ourselves Before mirrors studded with golden bulbs. The oldest among us will recognize that glow—…
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