• Lines to a Poet

  • Jun 1 2020
  • Length: 1 min
  • Podcast
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Lines to a Poet

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  • Summary

  • Lines to a Poet

    by Josephine Jacobsen

    Be careful what you say to us now.
    The street-lamp is smashed, the window is jagged,
    There is a man dead in his blood by the base of the fountain.
    If you speak,
    You cannot be delicate or sad or clever.
    Some other hour, in a moist April,
    We will consider similes for the budding larches.
    You can teach our wits and our fancy then;
    By a green-lit midnight in your study
    We will delve into your sparkling rock.
    But now at dreadful high noon
    You may speak only to our heart,
    Our honor and our need:
    Saying such things as, “See, she is alive . . . “
    Or “Here is water,” or “Look behind you!”

    Josephine Jacobsen (19 August 1908 – 9 July 2003) was a Canadian-born American poet, short story writer, essayist, and critic. She was appointed the twenty-first Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress in 1971.[2] In 1997, she received the Poetry Society of America’s highest award, the Robert Frost Medal for Lifetime Achievement in Poetry.

    More about her here:
    https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/josephine-jacobsen

    Music and performance ©2020 by Scott Taylor
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