Correspondence
Autumn 1940
More Semantics of Poetry
Sirs: Mr. Wheelwright bases his contribution to the “Semantics of Poetry,” in a recent Kenyon Review, on a terminology by which poetic language can be factually discussed,—”a set of definitive […]
Nonfiction
Winter 1961
The Poetry of Praise
Often we think of the main tradition in American poetry as that of the intense and cryptic metaphors of Emerson, Dickinson, Frost, and Eberhart, and we think of the very […]
Poetry
Summer 1958
Magna Carta
When the quanta jostle in the field of the body, The body is lord of the field. What will he tell his many feudal nobles, How to subside? He’s a […]
Poetry
Summer 1958
Deed
As George Washington hacked at his cherry tree, Joseph said to him This is the tree that fed Mary When she lingered by the way. As George Washington polished his […]
Poetry
Summer 1958
Voyage
From his small city Columbus Set sail in the floodtide of sunlight. The boxes of buildings Basked in secular light. The damp interiors Of shops on the hill streets Dried […]
Poetry
Summer 1958
Aim
Goliath stood up clear in the assumption of status, Strong and unquestioning of himself and others, Fully determined by the limits of his experience. I have seen such a one […]
Poetry
Winter 1956
Monkey
God, a man at Yale, adopted a monkey In order to raise him up in his own image, But only in some respects could the monk identify; Could learn manners, […]
Poetry
Winter 1956
Sheep
Led by Johns Hopkins on a trip through the heart To the uttermost reaches of the body, I was disappointed by X-ray and camera At what was to be found […]
Poetry
Winter 1956
Panther
A panther made of whole cloth set out through the suburbs of Los Angeles Lapping his way as he went. Set out to scream in a thicket of Elysian Park […]
Poetry
Winter 1956
Fish
A radioactive fish is one charged With more of the universe than he can bear, And in this charge he is familiar. Through depths of our galaxy, umbrageous swells, Coral […]
Poetry
Winter 1956
Dog
We have a dumb dog in our neighborhood, Cross-eyed and mangy, running astray, Glancing aslant our walkers, riders, Deliverers, and dogs. His bark is a dumb bark, not to address […]
Poetry
Winter 1956
The Savages
As we rowed from our ships and set foot on the shore In the still coves, We met our images. Our brazen images emerged from the mirrors of the wood […]
Poetry
Winter 1954
Belief
Said, Pull her up a bit will you, Mac, I want to unload there. Said, Pull her up my rear end, first come first serve. Said, Give her the gun, […]
Poetry
Winter 1954
Barge
Everywhere the lights of the settlements Are steadfast in their place, the streets of Tiburon Straight up the hill, and bridges Horizontal at the shortest distance. On the near shore […]
Poetry
Winter 1954
Find
Diligent in the burnt fields above the seaThe boy searches for what, sticks,Cans, he walks like a riderThe rough and stumpy ground. And finds all morning while the sunTravels to […]
Poetry
Winter 1954
Bush
The complicated bush of blood in its branches Reddens at the rise of summer suns. Starts flowers, shoulders the corollary Splendors and reforms of summer noons. Beneath a burning cloud […]
Poetry
Winter 1954
Height
Shoulder to head is the height of my life to me. My level eye Looks to his rib as his long and level eye Looks to the sky. Shoulder to […]
Poetry
Summer 1952
Rumor
I smile that Satan died,—that rumor Wishful, beats round the town, While every evening vicious in the twilight A star falls down, And every morning vicious in the garden A […]
Poetry
Summer 1952
To an Administrator
What a terrific world in which we live, Full of rain restless and decomposed. Hangdog o murderer in the vacant lot, And sunk o admiral of the ocean fleet. All […]
Poetry
Summer 1952
Graham-Paige
Graham-Paige, a car I once rode in, Carried me out of this world, and I was afraid of that, Who wouldn't be? you wouldn't be, I see you Driving across […]
Poetry
Summer 1952
Career
Who run the sea wall in diapers Look to their job. They teeter Straight like engineers in a known world Observing and observed. Their infinitesimal feet rosy as dawn trace […]
Nonfiction
Winter 1951
The Language of the Donne Tradition
In his book The Donne Tradition, published in 1930, George Williamson’s central question was, “What do we owe to the Donne tradition as an inheritance of genuinely poetic value?” The […]
Poetry
Autumn 1949
Siege
The courtyards of the inner heart go round And round, so sure are they Where they will end; the brick Convolutions enter and extend The individual life, and come to […]
Poetry
Autumn 1949
Son
SON Men have their alien sons and love them, The dear fist clenched in theirs, The foreign taste fed at their table, The wayward walking in their name. They love […]
Poetry
Autumn 1949
Bombay
If I woke in Bombay it would be possible The rooftops would confuse me, and the dying men, Accustomed as I am to the skyline of the living And the […]
Poetry
Autumn 1949
Idea of Joy
The idea of joy, abruptly, Like the idea of day, Came and clothed the body of the lady In an array As of field or fire And she withheld Any […]
Poetry
Autumn 1947
Aboriginal
The frenzy of the aboriginal man Makes me a day to last my lifetime in, Says, lifting his head, I call myself a god, Lifting his head to antedate the […]
Poetry
Autumn 1947
Countenance
All where I am your countenance is not Since you wear it to the limit of your office wall. But the face of your countenance perceives me My world for […]
Poetry
Autumn 1947
Yield
In my anguish of joy I spoke peaceably to its sourcesWhere he crated pears and sacked walnuts in the descending year.The orchards were stifled with their leaves and hazes,And our […]
Poetry
Autumn 1947
Riddle
You are a riddle I would not unravel,You are the riddle my life comprehends.And who abstracts the marvelAbstracts the story to its sorriest ends.But not your riddle. It is patent, […]
Poetry
Autumn 1947
Kind
When I think of my kindness which is tentative and quiet And of yours which is intense and free, I am in elaboration of knowledge impatient Of even the patientest […]
Poetry
Autumn 1947
Expectation
Four hundred children expect from one another Each what from himself he has ceased to demand, Each demanding, because as from his brother, Degree of devotion none can understand. So […]
Poetry
Autumn 1947
An Apprehension
An apprehension rose in me to be alive. The crest concealed my memory from view And made the past a death and made it new. If there were blues in […]
Poetry
Summer 1944
Midwatcher
Cream shade down in the houseUpon the whitest noonWithdraws from noon’s dispenseA treble gleaming dream. The dreaming eye yet views,I swear by all this sun,Calendar on the wall And photo […]
Poetry
Summer 1944
Sonata from Above
Wood wind rests in a wood of wood indeed, breathes airsOver a varnishy thicket of banquet chairs,Supplements the structures of a slant of strings,And its own woody wonderment thicketly declares. […]
Poetry
Summer 1944
Nosce Te Ipsum
Occasional mornings when an early fogNot yet dispersed stands in every yardAnd drips and undiscloses, she is severelyPut to the task of herself. Usually here we have view window dawns,The […]
Gerard Manley Hopkins
Summer 1944
The Sweet and Lovely Language
Gerard Manley Hopkins was a champion and great master of epithet. He expected poetry, including his poetry, to catch and convey vividly what eye saw and heart felt. Vivid was […]
Poetry
Summer 1944
The Disturbed
They drummed salvation in the darker districtsAnd a man cried Save me.They closed the circle up, he was not a sober sinner. He pushed at the corner crowd and came […]
Poetry
Summer 1944
Look
Those who look sideways, if their skin is darkLook sideways farther and with more amaze.There’s white and oval startle in the quicklyGleaming gaze. And what the pupil sees, that I […]
Poetry
Summer 1944
Confidence
Thank you for your kind attention. How the ear can rest upon the heart. The long bolster of a life story Fresh at the ear and in every mention Full of comfort. Rest and […]
Poetry
Summer 1944
None
A nothing out of which to create a newWas never nothing enough for a new, neverEmpty lost lone nought enoughTo come clean new in any morning light. Always in that […]
Poetry
Summer 1944
Funeral
They may go to the beach straight from the funeral,You may not be able to reach them by any call,They may not go home at all. They may run in […]
Book Reviews
Winter 1943
Critical Relativism
The Idiom Of Poetry by Frederick Pottle. Cornell University. $2.00. Out of the miscellanies of our poetic stock Professor Pottle has lined up a more useful stability than we have […]
Three Poems
Summer 1941
On Page
What shall the bug do on the whipping page? Read it? That myself cannot, with more eye. Ride it, and travel nowhere in a rage? That takes a heavier spirit […]
Three Poems
Summer 1941
Wading
Seven nuns went wading in the sea. They wore no shoes. They lined up along the shore and the shore washed out And flooded back to the very knee. A […]
Three Poems
Summer 1941
Quiet and Firmer
Cotton gray goods quiet and firmer Sold in small amounts at steady prices. Some were unaware at distance from the market How those bolts reflected prepossessed their cost per head […]