Category Archives: Poetry

“The Miracle of Morning” by American National Youth Poet Laureate Amanda Gorman

16 Sunday Jan 2022

Posted by in Poetry, United States

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American National Youth Poet Laureate Amanda Gorman
Photo by Danny Williams

My Poetry Corner January 2022 features the poem “The Miracle of Morning” from the poetry collection Call Us What We Carry: Poems (Penguin Random House, 2021) by African American poet Amanda Gorman, the youngest presidential inaugural poet in U.S. history. Born in 1998 in Los Angeles, California, she has an older brother and a twin sister. They were all raised by their single mother, a sixth grade English teacher at an inner-city public school. Born prematurely, the twins were diagnosed with a speech and auditory impediment. Some words, particularly those with an “r” sound, were hard for Gorman.

In a December 2021 interview, Gorman told Clint Smith of The Atlantic that it wasn’t until she was six or seven years old that she became aware of her speech impediment. “I was in and out of speech therapy for most of my life,” she said. “And what that did for me was force me to look at language, sounds, cadence, pronunciation actually as an access point of healing and recovery, because I was doing the work of learning English time and time again.”

Gorman started writing children’s stories from about age five. Her interest in poetry began in third grade. She found her voice as a young poet through working with WriteGirl, a Los Angeles based non-profit that assists teen girls to discover the power of their voice through writing. At sixteen years old, she became the 2014 Youth Poet Laureate of Los Angeles. The following year, she published her first book of poems, The One for Whom Food is Not Enough (Urban World LA, 2015).

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“Song of the Earth” – Poem by Brazilian Poet Cora Coralina

19 Sunday Dec 2021

Posted by in Brazil, Poetry

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Brazilian Poet Cora Coralina
Photo: Association of the House of Cora Coralina

My Poetry Corner December 2021 features the poem “Song of the Earth” (O Cântico da Terra) from the 1965 debut poetry collection The Alleyways of Goiás and More Stories (Poemas dos Becos de Goiás e Estórias Mais) by one of Brazil’s great twentieth-century poets, known by her pen name, Cora Coralina (1889-1985).

Born in the small town of Goiás Velho, then the capital of Brazil’s Center-West State of Goiás, Cora Coralina (named Ana Lins dos Guimarães Peixoto) was the third of four daughters. Her father, a High Court judge, died shortly after her birth. In her poem, “My Childhood (Freudian),” she writes:

I was sad, nervous and ugly.
Yellow, with a pale face.
Limp legs, falling down carelessly.
Those who saw me like that – said:
“This girl is the living image
of the old sick father.”
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“A Report to the Academy: The Modern Caribbean” – Poem by Trinidadian Poet Raymond Ramcharitar

21 Sunday Nov 2021

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Front Cover of the Poetry Collection Modern, Age, &c by Raymond Ramcharitar [Photo of Sculpture by Winslow Craig]

My Poetry Corner November 2021 features Part 1 from the four-part, long poem “A Report to the Academy: The Modern Caribbean” from the poetry collection, Modern, Age, &c, by the Caribbean journalist, poet, and cultural critic Raymond Ramcharitar. Born in Trinidad, he studied at the University of the West Indies, St. Augustine Campus, where he earned his Bachelor of Science in Economics (1991), Masters in Literature in English (2002), and Doctorate in Cultural History (2007).

After completing his doctorate, Ramcharitar received three overseas fellowships: Post-Doctoral Fellow at the Warwick University, UK (2008); Visiting Scholar at New College, University of Toronto, Canada (2010); and Poetry Fellow at the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference at Middlebury College, Vermont, USA (2011). He currently lives in Trinidad where he is a communications consultant for the ANSA McAL Group of Companies.

In speaking of his third poetry collection, Modern, Age, &c (Peepal Tree Press, UK, 2020), the poet said that he balanced the book among three themes: political (Modern), personal (Age), and the whimsical (&c). The tone varies from sardonic, to satiric, to lyrical.

“Modern is about the malaise: the diseases of our time: depression, anxiety, isolation—The broader themes of loss, disintegration,” the poet said. As he recently turned fifty, Age is his way to examine the shredding of the social contract. “I started to look back to find the threads that hold me together, as a parent, a man,” he said. “And try to find where everything changed: the plan for utopia, or progress, when did it become a tweet, or post on Facebook or Instagram?”

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“My Empire” by Iranian American Poet Kaveh Akbar

17 Sunday Oct 2021

Posted by in Poetry, United States

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Iranian American Poet Kaveh Akbar
Photo Credit: Poet’s Website

My Poetry Corner October 2021 features the poem “My Empire” from the poetry collection Pilgrim Bell: Poems (Graywolf Press, 2021) by Iranian American poet Kaveh Akbar. Born in Tehran to an American mother and Iranian father, Kaveh was two years old when his family migrated to the United States, first settling in Pennsylvania. When Kaveh was five years old, they moved to the Midwest, living in Wisconsin and later Indiana. Since his parents only spoke English at home, the poet speaks little Farsi, his first language.

Akbar earned his MFA at Butler University in Indiana and a PhD in creative writing from Florida State University. He currently teaches at Purdue University (Indiana) and in the low-residency MFA programs at Randolph College (Virginia) and Warren Wilson College (North Carolina). Since September 2020, he also serves as the poetry editor of the progressive magazine, The Nation.

Pilgrim Bell is Akbar’s second poetry following his recovery from alcohol addiction. In “Seven Years Sober,” he writes: Trust God but tie your camel. Trust / God. The bottle by the bed the first / few weeks. Just in case. Trust…. He acknowledges in “Cotton Candy” that his mother wept nightly for eight years / my living / curled its hands around her throat / not choking exactly but like the squeeze / of an outgrown collar…

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“That Moment an Enormous Tail” by Brazilian Poet Alice Sant’Anna

19 Sunday Sep 2021

Posted by in Brazil, Poetry

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Brazilian Poet Alice Sant’Anna

My Poetry Corner September 2021 features the poem “That Moment an Enormous Tail” (Um Enorme Rabo de Baleia) from the poetry collection Tail of the Whale (Rabo de Baleia) by Brazilian poet Alice Sant’Anna. Born in 1988 in the city of Rio de Janeiro, Alice grew up in a very artistic home: Her father was a photographer; her mother was a fashion producer. As a child, she learned to play several musical instruments. Then, at fifteen years old, her artistic future veered toward poetry. Such was the impact after she read the poetry of Brazil’s “marginal generation” poet Ana Cristina César (1952-1983).

During the 1970s the “marginal generation” poets published their books independently, earning the title “marginal.” Following the oral tradition, their poetry used a colloquial and informal style.  

Sant’Anna credits her experience of studying abroad in learning “how to be alone, in silence,” critical for her creative process. Her first trip abroad was to New Zealand where she spent a semester as a sixteen-year-old high school student. There, she began writing poetry while adapting to life in a very small town.

As a twenty-year-old undergraduate in journalism at the Pontifical Catholic University (PUC) of Rio de Janeiro, Sant’Anna published her first book of poetry. In 2009, a year before her graduation, she went to Paris for a semester, providing an impetus for working on her second book, Tail of the Whale (Rabo de Baleia).

In 2013, the year she earned her Masters’ Degree in Literature and Culture at PUC, Sant’Anna’s poetry collection was published to great acclaim, winning the APCA Poetry Prize from the São Paulo Art Critics Association. The collection was published in English in 2016 with translation by Tiffany Higgins, an award-winning American poet and translator.

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“W for Workers” – Poem by Jamaica’s Poet Laureate Olive Senior

15 Sunday Aug 2021

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Jamaica’s Poet Laureate Olive Senior 2021-2024
Photo Credit: olivesenior.com

My Poetry Corner August 2021 features the poem “W for Workers” from the 2021 poetry collection, Pandemic Poems: First Wave, by Jamaica’s third Poet Laureate Olive Senior (2021-2024). Since 1993, the award-winning poet, novelist, short story and non-fiction writer has made Toronto, Canada, her home. She returns frequently to the Caribbean which remains central to her work.

The seventh of ten children, the Poet Laureate was born in 1941 in the wild mountainous landscape in the interior of Jamaica. The child of peasant farmers, the young Olive enjoyed a better, though solitary, life as the only child in the home of a wealthy and cosmopolitan great uncle and great aunt who encouraged her love for reading and writing.

After winning a scholarship to attend the prestigious Montego Bay High School for Girls, Olive embarked on a career in journalism. At nineteen, she joined the staff of The Daily Gleaner, Jamaica’s major newspaper located in Kingston. She soon won a scholarship to study journalism at the Thomson Foundation in Cardiff, Wales. Later, while attending the Carleton University School of Journalism in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, she began writing fiction and poetry. She returned to Jamaica where, in 1982, she joined the Institute of Jamaica as editor of the Jamaica Journal, a magazine that promotes the history and culture of the Caribbean Island nation.

In the summer of 2020, between May and September, when the Covid-19 pandemic transformed our lives, Senior began writing pandemic poems and posting them on her Twitter and Facebook pages “as a way of keeping [her]self engaged and not falling into depression.” Each of the 71 poems in her collection Pandemic Poems: First Wave is “a riff on a word or phrase trending at the period.” This pandemic lexicon has since become a part of our new normal.

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“On a Saturday in the Anthropocene” by American Poet Elizabeth J Coleman

18 Sunday Jul 2021

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American Poet Elizabeth J Coleman
Photo Credit: Website of Elizabeth J Coleman

My Poetry Corner July 2021 features the poem “On a Saturday in the Anthropocene” from the anthology HERE: Poems for the Planet (Copper Canyon Press, 2019) edited by Elizabeth J Coleman an American poet, public-interest attorney, environmental activist, and teacher of mindfulness. A graduate of the University of Pennsylvania Law School and Swarthmore College, she practiced law for over thirty years and has served as an executive at several organizations.

In 2012, she received an MFA in Writing from the Vermont College of Fine Arts. She credits Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) and mindfulness for her decision to become a late-career poet. She lives in New York City where she runs Mindful Solutions LLC and is president of the Beatrice R and Joseph A Coleman Foundation.

In the anthology HERE: Poems for the Planet, Coleman brings together her love for poetry, for justice, and for our planet. With a foreword from His Holiness the Dalai Lama, HERE explores our planet’s beauty and plight through the vision of 128 living poets from all over the world.

“When we see photographs of the earth from space, we see no boundaries between us, just this one blue planet, a natural world that supports us all. Therefore, we have to see humanity as one family and the natural world as our home. It’s not necessarily somewhere sacred or holy, but simply where we live—so it’s in our interest to look after it,” writes the Dalai Lama.

The anthology is divided into five sections. In the first section that puts us in touch with the beauty of our planet, Kentuckian farmer and poet Wendell Berry gives us “The Peace of Wild Things” (p.40):

When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.
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“Father’s Presence” by Brazilian Music Composer & Poet Leonardo André

20 Sunday Jun 2021

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Brazilian Music Composer & Poet Leonardo André
Photo Credit: Official Website at WiX.com

My Poetry Corner June 2021 features the poem “Father’s Presence” (Presença de Pai) by Leonardo André, a Brazilian music composer, music teacher, writer, and poet. He composed his first song at the age of thirteen. In the 1980s, during his years as an undergraduate pursuing an Artistic Education at The Marcelo Tupinambá College in the City of São Paulo, he frequented several poetry groups and joined the Santo Amaro Poets Association.

A year after his graduation, André released five self-published books at the 1990 Biennial Book Fair in São Paulo. These include three children’s books and two poetry collections, Verses that Sing (Versos que Canto) and Verses of Love, Desires, Longing and Solitude (Versos de Amor, Desejos, Saudade e Solidão).

In “Father’s Presence,” André pays homage to a father who is a positive role model in his life. What is made clear at the outset is his father’s constant presence.

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“Waitress / Suppose” – Poem by Caribbean American Poet Jihan Ramroop

16 Sunday May 2021

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Caribbean American Poet Jihan Ramroop
Photo by Em Hampton published on Poet’s Website

My Poetry Corner May 2021 features the poem “Waitress / Suppose” from the debut poetry collection, We Used to Waitress, by the Caribbean American poet, actress, and playwright Jihan Ramroop. Born in Queens, New York, of immigrant Indo-Guyanese parents, Ramroop was raised in Fort Pierce, Florida, and Georgetown, Guyana. She graduated in Theatre and Performance from Purchase College of the State University of New York (SUNY). She lives in upstate New York.

All excerpts of poems featured in this article are taken from Ramroop’s poetry collection, We Used to Waitress, published in 2020. The collection is divided into four parts: Stay, Still, Stubborn, and Suppose.

In Part 1/Stay, the poet notes in “Sunday Inventory” that she has lived in 27 places, went to 14 schools, and held 10 jobs. Throughout this section, she laments love lost for men who did not stay in her life. In “Waitress / Stay,” the final poem in the section, she recalls those days we used to waitress / outside the city / pretending i was / saving up / for dreams and freedom / and something big. Since then, she concludes, everything and nothing changed.

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Mother Did You Know: Guest Post by Swarn Gill

09 Sunday May 2021

Posted by in Family Life, Poetry, Relationships

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Claire de Lune (2019) by Audrey Kawasaki

This Mother’s Day 2021, I share the poem “Mother Did You Know” written by fellow blogger, Swarn Gill. He captures with precision my own experience as a woman and mother. I’m heartened that he’s able to see the truth of millions of years of social conditioning of the human species.

*I dedicate this poem to women in general, but also to my mom, who is an amazing woman and still inspires me to be more to this day.

mother did you know
it’s all your fault
you caused the fall
of man
that them’s the breaks
when you talk to snakes

mother did you know
you’re not quite human
humans should be a male
those other parts
aren’t on the chart

Continue reading at Swarn Gill’s blog, Cloak Unfurled.

Swarn Gill, a biracial Canadian, is a professor of Atmospheric and Earth Science. He lives in Pennsylvania, USA.