The Poetry Curator

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[thepoetrycurator]

“The girls in Nicaragua wore rosaries with gold crosses hanging from them and strings of pearls around their heads and black tresses. And we fell in love with the women of that land.”

-Ernesto Cardenal, "With Walk in Nicaragua"

[thepoetrycurator]

"She says she'll leave him if he screws around;

why not attempt it, if that's all it takes?"

-"Two Husbands" by Henry Taylor, as published in The Flying Change.

[thepoetrycurator]

Sonia Sanchez, "After the fifth day"

with you i pressed the rose you brought me into one of fanon's books. it has no odor now.

but

i see you. handing me a red rose and i remember my birth.

[thepoetrycurator]

Poem No. 1 by Sonia Sanchez

my husband sits buddha like watching me weave my self among the sad young men of my time. he thinks i am going to run away. maybe i will.

[thepoetrycurator]

Morning raga: 6/28/84 by Sonia Sanchez

"...stepped out of his immaculate flesh and hummed..."

[thepoetrycurator]

Air Sax by Billy Collins in Whale Day

In the dorm rooms of our snowbound college during certain parts of the Coltrane solos featured on the album Milestones, parts we had deemed exceedingly worthy, we boys would play imaginary tenor saxophones by placing a thumb in our mouths, leaving the free hand to handle the intricacies of the fingering,

and with puffed-out cheeks and eyes closed, we would blow hard, instead of sucking as we had done in our infancy. And even though we would step back to laugh at the silly pathos of ourselves, there was always great intensity and joy in our playing.

[thepoetrycurator]

"The Great Hunt" by Carl Sandburg in Chicago Poems

[thepoetrycurator]

"...So now rebellion is my new religion or something else romantic and American like a crownless king, perhaps an immigrant one atop a throne, in native disguise." -Darrel Alejandro Holnes, "Cristo Negro de Portobelo"

[thepoetrycurator]

April this year, not otherwise

Than April of a year ago,

Is full of whispers, full of sighs,

Of dazzling mud and dingy snow;

Hepaticas that pleased you so

Are here again, and butterflies.

There rings a hammering all day,

And shingles lie about the doors;

In orchards near and far away

The grey wood-pecker taps and bores;

The men are merry at their chores,

And children earnest at their play.

The larger streams run still and deep,

Noisy and swift the small brooks run

Among the mullein stalks the sheep

Go up the hillside in the sun,

Pensively,—only you are gone,

You that alone I cared to keep.

- Edna St. Vincent Millay, “Second Song of April”

[thepoetrycurator]

Robert Frost epigraph in the introduction to "Immortal Poems of the English Language: An Anthology Edited by Oscar Williams"

[thepoetrycurator]

If my Valentine you won't be, I'll hang myself on your Christmas tree.

-Ernest Hemingway

[thepoetrycurator]

Alicante by Jacques Prévert

An orange on the table Your dress on the rug And you in my bed Sweet present of the present Cool of night Warmth of my life

Alicante de Jacques Prévert

Une orange sur la table Ta robe sur le tapis Et toi dans mon lit Doux présent du présent Fraîcheur de la nuit Chaleur de ma vie

[thepoetrycurator]

Osiris or The Flight in Egypt by Jacques Prevert

It's war it's summer Already summer still war And the isolated desolated city Smiles still smiles Smiles smiles just the same With its sweet look of summer Smiles sweetly on those who love each other It's war and it's summer A man and a woman Walk in a museum Their steps are the only steps in this deserted museum desert This museum is the Louvre This city is Paris And the freshness of the world Is sound asleep there A guard awakes hearing the steps Leans on a button and falls back in his dream Meanwhile in its stone niche appears The wonder of Egypt standing in its own light The statue of Osiris living in the dead wood

Osiris Ou La Fuite En Égypte

C'est la guerre c'est l'été Déjà l'été encore la guerre Et la ville isolée désolée Sourit sourit encore Sourit sourit quand même De son doux regard d'été Sourit doucement à ceux qui s'aiment C'est la guerre c'est l'été Un homme avec une femme Marchent dans un musée Leurs pas sont les seuls pas dans ce musée désert Ce musée c'est le Louvre Cette ville c'est Paris Et la fraicheur du monde Est là tout endormie Un gardien se réveille en entendant les pas Appuie sur un bouton et retombe dans son rêve Cependant qu'apparaît dans sa niche de pierre La merveille de l'Égypte debout dans sa lumière La statue d'Osiris vivante dans le bois mort

[thepoetrycurator]

Nicaragua in a Voice by Francisco Aragón

More than the poems —the fruits that sang their juices; dolls, feverish, dreaming of nights,

city streets—for me it was the idle chat between the poems: cordial, intimate almost… like a river's murmur

as if a place—León, Granada—could speak, whistle, inhabit a timbre…as if, closing

my eyes, I had it again, once more within reach: his voice—my father unwell, won't speak.

[thepoetrycurator]

"The Witch Reads Me My Birthchart" by Eloisa Amezcua, as published in LATINO POETRY, The Library of America Anthology, edited by Rigoberto Gonzalez

[mournfulroses]

Huang O, from a poem titled "To The Tune Of Plucking A Cinnamon Branch,," featured in Women Poets of China

[thepoetrycurator]

When I dance, the sun sails safely through the night.

When I dance, the future is formed by my feat.

When I dance, the stars move through the heavens...

When I dance, Venus shimmers the desert,

When I dance, dust becomes silver, stones are made of gold.

-Cosi Fabian, from "Hierodule"