Poet Laureate Robert Pinsky reads Elizabeth Bishopa’s Columbus Day poem on discovery

Columbus Day has become a time when we try to balance elements of horror and glory in the coming of Europeans to this hemisphere.

“I’m not sure anybody’s imagination has gotten that balance quite right, but Elizabeth Bishop, looking at the mystery of the Brazilian landscape, catches the splendor of that landscape and the mystery that drew the first invaders in toward a sexual or imperial conquest that the invaders never quite attained.

First, Bishop describes the fabric of the Brazilian forest, a dense tapestry.

Every square inch filling in with foliage-
big leaves, little leaves, and giant leaves, 
blue, blue green and olive, 
with occasional lighter veins and edges,
or a satin under leaf turned over;
Monster ferns
in silver-gray relief,
and flowers too, like giant water lilies 
up in the air— up rather in the leaves— purple, yellow, two yellows, pink,
rust red, and greenish white;
solid but airy, fresh as if just finished
and taken off the frame.

That’s the fresh woven fabric that the European cannot quite attain, though they invaded. The ending of Bishop’s poem evokes the paradox of Portuguese soldiers glinting like little nail heads lost and transformed, even as they seem to conquer. The hemisphere, Bishop seems to say, eludes our attempts to know it.

in creaking armor, they came and found it all, 
not unfamiliar: n
o lover’s walks, no bowers, 
no cherries to be picked, no late music,
but corresponding, nevertheless,
to an old dream of wealth and luxury
already out of style when they left home- 
wealth, plus a brand new pleasure.
Directly after Mass, humming perhaps 
’L’Homme arme or some such tune,
they ripped away into the hanging fabric, 
each out to catch an Indian for himself-
those maddening little women who kept calling, 
calling to each other, (or had the birds waked up?)
And retreated, always retreating behind it.”

Poet Honors American Service Personnel Killed in War

Wyatt Prunty’s poem, “The Returning Dead,” is a response to the NewsHour’s Honor Roll of service personnel killed in Iraq and Afghanistan. The poem first aired in 2006.

Transcript Below*

*Poetry Foundation provided funding for this project

Read More

(Source: newshour.pbs.org)

Weekly Poem: From ‘Fugue’

From ‘Fugue’ by Elizabeth Alexander

1. Walking (1963)
       after the painting by Charles Alston

You tell me, knees are important, you kiss 
your elders’ knees in utmost reverence.

The knees in this painting are what send the people forward.

Once progress felt real and inevitable, 
as sure as the taste of licorice or lemons. 
The painting was made after marching 
in Birmingham, walking

into a light both brilliant and unseen.

3. 1968

The city burns. We have to stay at home, 
TV always interrupted with fire or helicopters. 
Men who have tweedled my cheeks once or twice 
join the serial dead.

Yesterday I went downtown with Mom. 
What a pretty little girl, said the tourists, who were white. 
My shoes were patent leather, all shiny, and black. 
My father is away saving the world for Negroes, 
I wanted to say.

Mostly I go to school or watch television 
with my mother and brother, my father often gone. 
He makes the world a better place for Negroes. 
The year is nineteen-sixty-eight.

Weekly Poem: ‘The Winter’s Wife’

Weekly Poem: ‘The Winter’s Wife’ by Jennifer Chang

It will be years before I understand

failure. The sun’s last rage

in the winter trees. My yard 

is a failure of field. It is small

and poorly tended. Years before

this hard kernel of worry

rises to a truer height, I can learn

to make shade with my palms,

but I cannot learn to unmoor my want.

I want wild roots to prosper

an invention of blooms, each unknown

to every wise gardener. If I could be

a color. If I could be a question

of tender regard. I know crabgrass

and thistle. I know one algorithm:

it has nothing to do with repetition

or rhythm. It is the route from number

to number (less to more, more

to less), a map drawn by proof 

not faith. Unlike twilight, I do not

conclude with darkness. I conclude.

More Poetry Coverage from NewsHour Art Beat

In Haiti, Writer Kwame Dawes Tells of Quake Aftermath Through Poetry

“Mother of Mothers.”

“When a brave woman’s out walking, she’s mistress life’s spitting image” — Michel-Ange Hyppolite.

The faces of mothers of mothers, their cheekbones gleaming against taut skins, their eyes glazed with the scarring of so much loss. In Haiti, the mothers of mothers have lamented for so long. All that is left is the sturdy presence of grace, the wide-open heart of knowing how much a casket weighs, how it feels on the open palm.

Read More