The Poet Speaks; Poetry By Request: Jean Harper

The poet speaks. Well the next topic. Jeanne Harper represents poetry readings requested by listeners and poet. And now Jean Harper. Welcome to poetry by request. April 23rd that strange birth and death day for William Shakespeare has come and gone. But for listeners D F of Cambridge and BPT of Newcastle New Hampshire it is never too late to hear the poetry of this genius of the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. On a Columbia recording so John Gielgud reads the famous monologue from Hamlet Act 3 Scene 1. To be or not to be to be. Or not. To me that is the question whether tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune

or to take arms against a sea of troubles and by opposing end them to die to sleep no more. And by a sleep to say we end the heartache and the powers natural shocks that flesh is heir to. It is a consummation devoutly to be wished to die to sleep to sleep but a chance to dream. There is the rub. Or in that sleep of death what dreams may come when we have shuffled off this mortal coil must give us Paul where's the respect that makes calamity of So Long life. For who would bat the whips and scorns of time the oppressors wrong the proud man's contumely the pangs of this pride love the laws delay the insolence of office and the spur which patient merits of the unworthy take when he himself might his quite as make with a bare bodkin.

Who would Father Wills bear to grunt and sweat under a weary life. But but the dread of something after there are the undiscovered country from whose borne no traveler returns. Pasta is the way and makes us for all the bad those eels we had than fly to others that we know not all conscience stuff make cowards of us all. And that's the nature of you. A resolution is sickly a door with a pail cost of thought and enterprises of great pith and moment with this regard that currents turn a ry and lose the name of action a.

We often ask poets to read their requests for us. One of tonight's guests is Norma Farber who will tell us about her choices. I'd like to read a favorite poem of mine by Edith Sitwell. And then a favorite poem of hers by William Shakespeare a man from a far country by Edith Sitwell rose and Alice. Oh all the pretty lasses with their mouths like a callus and they hear a Golden Palace through my heart like a lovely when they blow. Though I am black and not calmly though I am black as the darkest tree I have swarms of gold that will fly like honey bee by the rivers of the sun I will feed my words until a skip like those pleated lambs the water boards and the

rivers ran. Then for all my darkness I shall be the peacefulness of a lovely tree a tree wherein the golden birds singing in the darkest branches Oh. And then this sonnet of Shakespeare's the 19th which Edith Sitwell considers in all probability the greatest sonnet in the English language devouring time. Blunt while the Lions Paul was and make the earth devour her own sweet brew pluck with keen teeth from the fierce tigers jaw. And burn the long lived Phoenix in her blood make glad and sorry seasons as our fleets and do what ere thou wilt swift for to tie him to the wide world and all her fading sweet spot I forbidden the one

most heinous crime. O cob not with thy hours my love's fair brow nor draw no lines there with thine and pin him in my course. Until you do allow for beauty's Patten to succeeding man yet do thy worst all time despite that I wrong my love shall in my verse ever live. Young. A year ago we included a request by a listener on a program which he unfortunately was unable to hear. The poem fits any April so far J.C. of West Roxbury and for all the rest of us we are going to repeat it. Harold Vinal the poet was the author of seven poetry collections. He died in 1985 in his ancestral home. Vinal Haven Maine they all cavernous reads

words before a journey. Let us remember Let us remember now in the evening of our days. Let us recall the early winter of April the first white flower. It was the young man who looked at the spring and said This is a season of our promise. They knew the tint of the bud the shape of the leaf they divined the hidden meaning. But lo. The meaning vanished before they tasted the truth. And we remember no more than they only had ghost of leaves blown on a windy day and the rattle of leaves by a river and others were close to sewing they scattered seed to the fields but were gone before the reaping and others cut the wheat. They had never sewn it will always be so. But in some sudden moments the mind will stumble upon a secret a flower a follower Dia's mockable forgotten snowfields.

There is another country. But tell me this. Who knows what is there and who has followed its water brooks and told us of the music heard under spectral willows. Who has spoken of plowing in those sky fields remember the way back to report. Tell me this. The trader of Graf's remembers the presta vintage. The sailor the long foam tossed against the keel. The huntsman. The fleet footed the warrior the clash of spears and his comrades fall on the woman the hours of her travel. The young girl the taking of I love. Let us remember. Let us remember now in the evening of our days. Let us recall the early hint of April the first white flower. For J A b B a vetting who likes to hear poets read their own work and

AKP of Boston we hear one of this program's favorite poets Audrey Lord read a profound April poem. There are many kinds of seasons the seasons within the seasons without the title of this poem is change of season. We are not cursed forever with becoming somebody else on the way to ourselves. Whoever walks backward is bound for a fall. There are Summers behind me salt with wanting lovers and friends a job wider shoes and a cool drink something to bite into a place to hide out of the rain out of the shifting Molong of seasons where the cruel boys I chased and their skinny dodgeball sisters claimed and died in becoming the brown autumn left in search

of who tore the streamers down at graduation at Christmas on my wedding day. And as winter wore out babies came angry efforts and rewards in their appointed seasons my babies tore out of me like poems. After I slept and woke up with the thought that promise had come again. Sure this time than the dream of being sweet 16 and somebody else when I walked five miles and home to the August city for three dollars thinking now will really be the all-American family. Since we'd already gotten the telephone my sister cut his leash on Broadway the next day and that is the dog of my dreams who bays at the New Moon. As I reach into time up to my elbows

extracting the taste and sharp smell of my first lover's neck rub as the skin of a brown pair ripening. I was terribly sure I would come forever in April with my first love who died on a Sunday morning poisoned and wondering whether someone was ever coming. Has life faced the ocean of my seasons. They start to separate into distinct and particularly faces. Listening to the cover beginning to crack open and whether or not the fruit is worth waiting for this souls and our rolls and apples are blooming. The individual beautiful faces are smiling and moving. Even the pavement begins to flow into a new congregation. The eighth day is coming. I have paid dearly in

time well the love I hoarded without seeing some goes into my words and comes out reason. That was Audrey Lord Reading change of season. Eek Cummings lived and flourished in the 20s and 30s. But his poetry speaks perennially of love and springtime for ca of Pittsford New York. We hear the poet himself on the Cadman recording. Read a poem that began when faces called flowers when faces called Love flowed out of the ground and breathing is wishing and wishing is having but keeping us down and doubting that never gets any. Yes my darling it's spring. Yes the pretty birds product as I can fly.

Yes the little fishy gamble as glad as can be. Yes the mountain moves dancing together. When we have relieved openness without any sound and wishing is having and having is given but the pain is guilty and nothing stands alive we're alive. It's Kiss me now. Sprains. Now the pity. It's hard so she and so now the little fish quiver so you have and so I know the mountain Don seen them out there. When more than was a loss has been found

has been found and having is giving and giving his lady but she uses darkness and wind and created brain. Night becomes day. Oh it's spray dye into the heart of the sky. Oh a little fish climb through them my end of the sea of the mountain. Goddamned same darn thing. There are still a few organ grinder's around to remind us that spring a poet who died a year or so ago wrote about the dark side of April in this poem requested by a Amby of Quincy. Here is Nancy bird Turnus to an organ grinder in spring.

I had forgotten April. Why with a foolish to have you sent her over my doorstep in her little dancing shoes with her windy gossamer garment green as a papal leaf and her quick delighted laughter starring my OH GOD old grief. I had forgotten April. Why with the road so playing should you hold at one dim doorway to break a heart again. The poet Hart Crane committed suicide April 26 1932 by jumping overboard from a steamer in memory of him. And because of swamp Scott has asked to hear it. Little cavernous reads one of Hart Crane's most famous poems to a Brooklyn Bridge. How many dogs from his rippling rest the seagulls wings shall depend people to him shedding white rings of tumult building high over

the chained bay waters liberty. Then with the inviolate forsake our eyes as apparitional as sails that crossed some page of figures to be filed away till the elevators drop us from our day. I think of cinemas panoramic sleights with multitude bent toward some flashing scene never disclosed but hastens do again foretold to other eyes on the same screen and the across the harbor silver paste as though the song took step of the. You had left some motion ever unspent in my stride implicitly by freedom staying out of some subway scuttle cell aloft a Bedlamite speeds to the parapets tilting their moment Les shrill shirt ballooning a jest folds from the speechless caravan. Down the Wall from girder into St.. Noone leaks. RIP to the skies acetylene.

All afternoon the clouds flown by cables the North Atlantic Steel and OB skewers that heaven of the Jews die good an accolade just bestow of anonymity. Time cannot raise a vibrant reprieve and pardon modest show. Oh a hop band altar of the few or a few. HOW GOOD me a toy a lion like clattering strings to repeat threshold of the prophets pledge prayer of power and the lovers cry again the traffic lights it's nice with done fracture and idiom immaculate sigh of stars beading the i-Pad condense it turn that day. And we have seen night lifted and I know I'm of a shadow by the peers I waited only a darkness his eye

shadow clear the city's fiery parcels all on already snow submerge is an irony here. Oh sleepless the Riverland of a vaulting the sea the Perrys dreaming ZOG unto us lowliest sometimes we descend and of the ship. Lend me to God. That was Hart Crane's to Brooklyn Bridge. There is no lack of material for programs abroad spring the fishing season is one of the signs of it which the poet Greg Guzman celebrates in this poem read by Norma Farber who requested it. Dad. Fishing. He stood kneed deep in the river not knowing what would happen. This was the secret if you had any. You kept all the avenues open. He didn't lean on anything

too hard when it rained you ran for cover and listened to it rain when the sun came out he went fishing again the fish he caught were terrific. One of the most moving of the Shakespeare tragedies is out telling a story of a noble brave Moore who was brought to a jealous insanity by the wily Jago Ana Victor recording so Laurence Olivier read the teller's last speech in act 5 Scene 2 just after he had stabbed his faithful wife Desdemona. You. Don't say so and you know it. I pray you in your bed when you show these like you believe believe speak of them as they are

nothing extenuating nor said it matters. And must you be the one that loved not wisely but too with of one not easily jealous but being role playing in the extreme. The one whose hand like the baby sitting game through her role waiting Richo of that role when he does drive one will suck you die. Or be a part of it was the two of them ever being brought here as far as the Arabian dream. Why do some people that you don't believe and say bizarre that in all.

One where I'm indignant and the turbaned Turk beat a Venetian lunch for the good stuff steak. I keep trying not to think that's chicken fried steak and snow cave. It's like killing myself. Another poem by Audrey Lord a far away on Brookline where likes to hear contemporary poetry. This one titled spring number three is read by John Sullivan. Spring is the harshest blurring the lines of choice until summer flash swallows up all this decision.

I remember after the harvest was over when the thick she was were gone and the bones of the gaunt trees uncovered how the dying of autumn was too easy to solve. Our loving. Metaphor is one of the great tools of poetry by way of metaphor things can be said that no ordinary prose can equal in effectiveness. Elizabeth Randall Mills uses metaphor very skillfully as in this poem site with Shadow Rick Houser reads it for k k d. I've conquered it. Men are hog butchering beside the road. Blood runs apple red. Each throat lies open like a bell. But it's been cast of horror what we behold. This was what has been done ours

to death on metal edges beside rock walls breaking where frost has entered. Now is the heart bow down within the object itself and fear no bird will there this spring to weave within her nest. Human hair. William Blake is now recognized as a major poet but the last years of his life during the early 19th century or obscure and poverty stricken in spite of a long list of published works. He was a rebel in his time actually being jailed for sedition and 18 0 3 although acquitted later and released. D f of Cambridge asked to hear something I hears so from Blake's Songs of Innocence. Here is the poem. Spring sound the flute. Now it's mute birds delight day and night.

Nightingale in the dale lark in Sky merrily merrily merrily to welcome in the year little boy full of joy. Little girls sweet and small cock does crow so do you merry voice in front. Noise merrily merrily to welcome in the year. Little lie here I am coming to lick my white neck. Let me pull your soft wool. Let me kiss your soft nice narrowly Merrily we welcome in the year so we can never do more than scratch the surface of the collected works of Shakespear. We will hear another sonnet in honor of his birthday on the Columbia recording. So John Gale good reads sonnet 130. My mistress eyes are nothing like the sun. Coral is far more red than her lips red. If snow be white Why then her breasts are done if hairs be wires black wires grow on her head. I have seen roses

damask red and white but no such roses see I in her cheeks and even some purr fumes or more delight than in the breath from my mistress reeks. I love to hear her speak. Yet well I know that music has a far more pleasing sound. I grant I never saw a goddess go. My mistress when she walks treads on the ground. And yet by heaven I think my love as rare as any she belied with home combat. Although economic poetry lacked titles and capital letters it never lacked love or the enjoyment of life on a cabin recording. Cummings himself reads a poem about April. Yes there's a pledge and can trade yet when trade my love letter. Let's open the year

Bowl is the very web or not either my treasure. When violets appear there's a deep season then reason my eyes. We won an April where. It's almost time to say April is where we were but spring is still with us. Good bye for now.