Columbia Granger's

The Columbia Granger’s World of Poetry contains 250,000 poems in full text plus bios commentary and criticism.
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[Columbia Granger's @cupgrangers]

After the murder, I called a meeting
to see if we were happy. I declared
I was not — I said I liked the man
we shot. You all disagreed with this.

--from "Gold" by Matthew Sweeney who was born today in 1952. https://t.co/ysBKusOpl1

[Columbia Granger's @cupgrangers]

I am the falcon of the spirit world,
Escaped out of highest heaven
Who out of desire of the hunt,
Am fallen into earthly form

"The Soul," by Rumi, #BOTD, and translated by Emerson. Happy International Translation Day.

[Columbia Granger's @cupgrangers]

I am the falcon of the spirit world,
Escaped out of highest heaven
Who out of desire of the hunt,
Am fallen into earthly form

"The Soul," by Rumi, #BOTD, and translated by Emerson. Happy International Translation Day.

[Columbia Granger's @cupgrangers]

Because I do not hope to turn
Desiring this man's gift and that man's scope
I no longer strive to strive towards such things
(Why should the aged eagle stretch its wings?)

--TS Eliot, #BOTD in 1888. From Ash Wednesday.

[Columbia Granger's @cupgrangers]

Congratulations Arthur Sze, our 25th Poet Laureate!
As he says about violinists in "Architect's Watercolor", his poems

launch fireworks
of sound that arc, explode, dissolve
into threads of melodic charm.

[Columbia Granger's @cupgrangers]

It's International Cloud Day, so here's a poem, by Hosokawa Yusai:

Rising high
among distant islands—
pinnacles of cloud.

[Columbia Granger's @cupgrangers]

the aged person
wanting to become a tree
embraces a tree

--"The aged person" by MItsuhashi Takajo, for #WomeninTranslationMonth. Translated by Makota Ueda. https://t.co/6kVvdFzvOA

[Columbia Granger's @cupgrangers]

God and the gods have moved
outside the jeweled air
and sun motes …

to where a star is:
an amethyst minus a poet.

--From "Sheets" by Fanny Howe, who died on July 9. We will miss her!

[Columbia Granger's @cupgrangers]

Oh! it is sad! And you, have you not found
One heart-throb for the pity, though your eye
Lights at the gold and purple butterfly
Brightening the littered leaves upon the ground?

-- Paul Verlaine, whose marriage ended with his affair with Arthur Rimbaud. #Pride25 #PrideMonth

[Columbia Granger's @cupgrangers]

Oh! it is sad! And you, have you not found
One heart-throb for the pity, though your eye
Lights at the gold and purple butterfly
Brightening the littered leaves upon the ground?

-- Paul Verlaine, whose marriage ended with his affair with Arthur Rimbaud. #Pride25 #PrideMonth

[Columbia Granger's @cupgrangers]

Being out of heart with government
I took a broken root to fling
Where the proud, wayward squirrel went

--From "An Appointment" by WB Yeats, #BOTD. It was the first poem he wrote about public events -- about his disgust over the appointment of curator of Dublin's National Museum

[Columbia Granger's @cupgrangers]

I chant the chant of dilation or pride . . . .

Prodigal, you have given me love—therefore I to you give love!
O unspeakable passionate love.

--Walt Whitman for #PrideMonth #Pride25. https://t.co/AZMESnvHiz

[Columbia Granger's @cupgrangers]

I go out into the street naked
ripe with poems
lost.
--Federico Garcia Lorca, #BOTD in 1898. From "Hour of Stars." #PrideMonth #Pride25

[Columbia Granger's @cupgrangers]

Where are we going, Walt Whitman? The doors close in an hour.
Which way does your beard point tonight?

-- Allen Ginsberg, #BOTD in 1926. From "A Supermarket in California." #PrideMonth #Pride25

[Columbia Granger's @cupgrangers]

For poetry of place: its weathered face
Formed a convenient sheet whereon
The visions of his mind were drawn.

--Thomas Hardy, BOTD in 1840. From "After a Romantic Day." https://t.co/AZMESnvHiz

[Columbia Granger's @cupgrangers]

at the bent spray's edge--
That's the wise thrush; he sings each song twice over,
Lest you should think he never could recapture
The first fine careless rapture!

-- From "Home-Thoughts from Abroad," by Robert Browning, #BOTD in 1812.

[Columbia Granger's @cupgrangers]

We don't remember our birth,
when a mother dies, it's gone.

From "Homecoming" by Victoria Chang, for #AsianAmericanHeritageMonth.

[Columbia Granger's @cupgrangers]

Without reflection, without mercy, without shame,
they built strong walls and high, and compassed me about.

--"Walls" by C.P. Cavafy, who was born AND died #OTD. https://t.co/AZMESnvHiz

[Columbia Granger's @cupgrangers]

What is or is true as
Happiness

Windows opening on the sea,
The green painted railings of the balcony
Against the rock, the bushes and the sea running

--George Oppen, #BOTD, in "A Theological Definition." https://t.co/AZMESnvHiz

[Columbia Granger's @cupgrangers]

When we find the sounds
for words we need, their death
rattle begins to echo in our throats.
-- from "Psalm for Arrival" by Khaled Mattawa for #ArabAmericanHeritageMonth. https://t.co/AZMESnvHiz