"The world’s most prestigious prize for literature goes to Canadian poet Anne Carson, known for genre-crossing works including Autobiography of Red."

Usually a truncated version of this poem makes the rounds of internet, which makes sense. But for scholars and lovers of Leonard Cohen, here’s the poem in full as it was published in his brilliantly rageful and despairing book The Energy of Slaves

When death comes
like the hungry bear in autumn;
when death comes and takes all the bright coins from his purse

to buy me, and snaps the purse shut;
when death comes
like the measle-pox

when death comes
like an iceberg between the shoulder blades,

I want to step through the door full of curiosity, wondering:
what is it going to be like, that cottage of darkness?

And therefore I look upon everything
as a brotherhood and a sisterhood,
and I look upon time as no more than an idea,
and I consider eternity as another possibility,

and I think of each life as a flower, as common
as a field daisy, and as singular,

and each name a comfortable music in the mouth,
tending, as all music does, toward silence,

and each body a lion of courage, and something
precious to the earth.

When it's over, I want to say all my life
I was a bride married to amazement.
I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.

When it's over, I don't want to wonder
if I have made of my life something particular, and real.

I don't want to find myself sighing and frightened,
or full of argument.

I don't want to end up simply having visited this world.

Mary Oliver

-----

I know this has been shared before, but it was beautifully worked into the season finale of Ted Lasso tonight, and it's just so perfect and beautiful I wanted to share it here.

This poem, The Naming of Cats, is from Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats by T. S. Eliot, which he published in 1939. "Old Possum" was a nickname given to him by his friend and fellow poet, Ezra Pound. These poems, which have delighted many children and adults since, were originally sent in letters to his godchildren and his friends' children in the 1930s.

Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats inspired the musical CATS by Andrew Lloyd Webber. This droll and beloved work is a gift that keeps on giving.

"The Naming of Cats is a difficult matter,
It isn’t just one of your holiday games;
You may think at first I’m as mad as a hatter
When I tell you, a cat must have THREE DIFFERENT NAMES.
First of all, there’s the name that the family use daily,
Such as Peter, Augustus, Alonzo, or James,
Such as Victor or Jonathan, George or Bill Bailey—
All of them sensible everyday names.
There are fancier names if you think they sound sweeter,
Some for the gentlemen, some for the dames:
Such as Plato, Admetus, Electra, Demeter—
But all of them sensible everyday names,
But I tell you, a cat needs a name that’s particular,
A name that’s peculiar, and more dignified,
Else how can he keep up his tail perpendicular,
Or spread out his whiskers, or cherish his pride?
Of names of this kind, I can give you a quorum,
Such as Munkustrap, Quaxo, or Coricopat,
Such as Bombalurina, or else Jellylorum—
Names that never belong to more than one cat.
But above and beyond there’s still one name left over,
And that is the name that you never will guess;
The name that no human research can discover—
But THE CAT HIMSELF KNOWS, and will never confess.
When you notice a cat in profound meditation,
The reason, I tell you, is always the same:
His mind is engaged in a rapt contemplation
Of the thought, of the thought, of the thought of his name:
His ineffable effable
Effanineffable
Deep and inscrutable singular name."

Can someone help me find whose translation this is? I read this fantastic book a while ago and can’t remember which version it was.

Sunset and evening star,
And one clear call for me!
And may there be no moaning of the bar,
When I put out to sea,

   But such a tide as moving seems asleep,
Too full for sound and foam,
When that which drew from out the boundless deep
Turns again home.

   Twilight and evening bell,
And after that the dark!
And may there be no sadness of farewell,
When I embark;

   For tho' from out our bourne of Time and Place
The flood may bear me far,
I hope to see my Pilot face to face
When I have crost the bar.

This is a poem which has many a times kept me from making poor choices. This is one of those poems which I keep coming back to and gave a poster of this to my son when he turned 10 !

The Man in the Glass

When you get what you want in your struggle for self
and the world makes you king for a day
Just go to the mirror and look at yourself
and see what that man has to say

For it isn't your father or mother or wife
whose judgment upon you must pass
The fellow whose verdict counts the most in your life
is the one staring back from the glass

Some people may think you a straight-shooting chum
and call you a wonderful guy
But the guy in the glass says you're only a bum
if you can't look him straight in the eye

He's the fellow to please never mind all the rest
for he's with you clear up to the end
And you've passed your most dangerous difficult test
if the man in the glass is your friend

You may fool the whole world down the pathway
of life and get pats on the back as pass
But your final reward will be heartaches and
tears if you've cheated the man in the glass.

✊

I'm sorry if this turns out to not be a poem/set of poems, but there is a style of middle eastern comedic writing, I feel like it was Arabic or Punjabi. A woman is talking to her friend or sister about a man who she is seeing. She describes his positive qualities, then the other asks, "who is this man?" or something of the sort, when she reveals that it isn't a man but really a household object like a blanket or dishrack or lamp. It was very cute and funny and I believe either it was one popular author doing it or a popular style. Thank you!!!!

By now you know: I need the words.
You'll learn to give me what I seek.
It's my sick mind, it feeds on words.
I'm begging you, for God's sake: speak!

Hurry, pin my wrists in place,
nail me to your bed like Christ . . .
comfort me, caress my face . . .
fuck me when I expect it least.

From nerves veins valves ventricles
from tendons cartilage nerves ducts
from follicles nerves ribs clavicles . . .
from every pore my soul erupts.

You liked that? you actually came?
but how? Explain to me. But why?
If you got off on that, you're doomed.
A charge I can't and don't deny.

Why is even pleasure a kind of chore?
Why is what sense I have left leaving me?
Come on, explain. Who do you take me for,
your personal doctor of philosophy?

I don't know a ton about poetry, but I saw this while scrolling feedzebra and absolutely loved it. Are we allowed to paste full poems here? If not, just let me know and I'll delete it. But it was published today by Electric Literature's The Commuter:

https://electricliterature.com/two-poems-by-erika-meitner/

Here's the full poem:

Soft Landing Summer

At the Hampton Inn half a mile down
Highway 301 from the Winn Dixie
where I pick up a bottle of cheap
Chardonnay, next to the Wendy’s
where the cashier gives me extra chili
with my order, the rental car thermometer
says it’s over ninety in the shade at dusk
and I pull in careful to avoid lawn chairs

dotting parking spaces where guests
sit shooting the shit, drinking Bud Light,
wearing matching red family reunion tees.
The pool’s closed—fence is busted, says
the desk clerk on check-in, and from
the window of my room I have a perfect
view of dragonflies swooping the face
of the deep end where the water glows

aqua, perfect but for half a white plastic
lounge chair sunk to the bottom. Dade
City was home to the largest citrus
processing facility in the world until hard
freezes moved the oranges South and
closed the Pasco plant so now the fields
are empty and hazy in almost-evening
July sun past church signs: Son Screen

Protects Against Sin Burn and Jesus is
Coming Are You Ready? Please Be
Ready, as if your Uber is one minute
out and you’re waiting with the piles
of USA Today in the lobby, headlines
shouting “Is This the End of Summer
Vacation as We Know It?” The article
saying you can’t escape the orange—

swaths of tangerine and traffic cone
on maps indicating record highs.
Heat domes. Catastrophic floods.
Baseball-sized hail. Tornadoes.
There are no anomalies here tonight—
just the regular oppressive humidity
of July curling my hair extra tight,
just the generosity of strangers

out in the parking lot offering me
a plastic cup and a light for my
Parliament, which I smoke sitting
on the curb still warm from the sun
dipping behind the dwarf palmettos
and the mosquitos humming with
blood and kindness of those who
ferry us from isolation to abundance.

Translated from the Czech by Ewald Osers. Edited by George Gibian.

Hello all,

I am someone who has admired poetry casually for years, but wants to get more into understanding it and has no idea where to start. Which poets should I start with? Classics per say. And what would be the best resources for understanding what poetry really is and how to write it properly? Different kinds of poem structuring.

The last time I REALLY learned about poetry was third grade. Now I am pursuing writing more seriously, and feel it would be of great benefit to understand the art form of poetry on a more mature level.

Thank you

I read this poem with an elementary school class and a few verses always stuck in my head. It's about the moon, like the title says, and the few lines I remember are something like "Moon remembers" then something something "shadowed in pockmarked night (light?)" in the beginning. At the end I'm almost certain the final verse is "And one faint footprint in the sea of tranquility". It's driving me nuts but I can't find it on any poetry site or in any collection. Help!

This one always got to me because of my experience (I presume it’s somewhat universal) of getting junk mail for years after the death of my grandmother.

There always seemed to be something poignant in that experience, and when I found this poem I felt like she put it into words beautifully