AP English Literature Poetry Collections

For every single person whose emotions aren’t valued enough,
this one’s for you.

Page 13

From Home Body, Rupi Kaur

depression is silent
you never hear it coming
and suddenly it’s
the loudest voice in your head

Page 33

From Home Body, Rupi Kaur

anxiety feels like i’m hanging
off the side of a building
and my hand is going to
slip any second

Smile

Nat King Cole

Smile though your heart is aching
Smile even though it's breaking
When there are clouds in the sky, you'll get by
If you smile through your fear and sorrow
Smile and maybe tomorrow
You'll see the sun come shining through for you
Light up your face with gladness
Hide every trace of sadness
Although a tear may be ever so near

Speech: “To be, or not to be,
that is the question”

From Hamlet, William Shakespeare

To be, or not to be, 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 heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to.

We the Birds

Mariana Delgado

I make myself think of the selfish and ignorant
Human I’ve slowly become over time.
But why can’t I be one of those?
Who lives without regret or worry because they are
Everything I’ve ever wanted to be?

The reason I am the way that I am
Is because, in this society, you have to do
What everyone does in order to survive
Charles Darwin said it first.

A bird that can’t camouflage
Is prone to be hurt by the predators
A bird that doesn’t have the right beak
Is prone to starve because it can’t eat.
A bird that can’t become independent
Would face nature’s biggest hardships.
A bird that can’t fly
Would fall, and die

A person who can’t blend into their surroundings
Is hurt by the people who see them as outcasts
A person who doesn’t have the right body
Is prone to starve just to get that ideal shape
A person who is become medicine dependent
If not taken, would go through a 24-hour hell
A person who can’t motivate itself to keep going
Would fall, and die.

Why is our life Darwin’s theory of evolution?
When the point of everything is to be extraordinary?
Why are there cowards that critique your
Creativity to their content?

We are the birds to this planet
And the reason we do what the majority is doing
Is to avoid exclusion, hate, depression, death.
If we don’t adapt to our surroundings, we die.

So stop making this theory its own
Before it becomes a law of life.

“Tell me what’s wrong.”
That white couch felt like a void I could fall off from at any moment. The presence of a lump in the back
of my throat, tears begging for release, my heart pounding in my head…
Knowing what’s wrong and refusing to admit it is only one of the many things I did while dealing with
anxiety and depression for the past 6 years of my life. I pushed it under the covers until it became
impossible to ignore, and refuse to accept it until nowadays. It’s impossible to analyze what I’ve
experienced to its perfection, but every single poem here reflects in shorter words the feelings I couldn’t
and still can’t explain on this road of realization.
Rupi Kaur, an Indian poet who now resides in Canada, is one of those who put even the biggest feelings in
the smallest number of words to perfection. In her book Home Body, she focuses on the smaller
conversations we have with our own bodies. In her poems highlighted on pages 2 and 3, she describes the
feelings of anxiety and depression I face. She structures both of them in a four verse stanza. This short and
unusual structure shows how simple it can seem for other people when you feel your world is crippling. In
addition, interrupting one whole sentence by splitting it into four different verses is used to create a feeling
of impatience, related to the mental challenge I face almost daily. Moreover, her use of simple
personification and similes bring the illness to life as if they were humans. Describing them as “the loudest
voice in your head” or the feeling of “hanging off the side of a building” makes them so understandable to
society by comparing it to a feeling others could realistically experience.
Over time, I declined emotionally to the point I became a younger version of Hamlet, asking myself the
question of which was better: “To be or not to be.” The soliloquy by the White, English author, William
Shakespeare, is one that I sat to reflect on. Comparing the idea of dying to one where you go “to sleep”
reflects the carelessness one inherits with their life when they are depressed. In addition, the metaphor
between the suffering of life with “the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune” as emotional pressure and
complex situations eventually evolve into physical pain that leaves you unable to move. Your chest feels
lifeless as if a thousand arrows have pierced the air out of it.
In an attempt to overcome my hate towards this genetic flaw, I sought out Nat King Cole, an african-
american artist from the early 1900s who has always been one of my favorites because of my grandparents,
especially with his song “Smile.” It’s always been a tear-jerker for me, now more than ever. The repetitive
contrast between having “Smile” at the beginning of almost every verse and finishing it
with “aching,” “breaking,” “sorrow,” or “sadness” creates this balance where a person feels
understood but motivated to be happy. I try to listen to this whenever my “heart is
aching”, because the tone present is one that inspires me to “light up” my “face with
gladness.” In other words, the verses added to encourage me to smile because “maybe
tomorrow/ you’ll see the sun come shining through for you.”
Regardless of still suffering from anxiety, I’ve evolved to reflect on my experience
and those of other people, while also seeing it from an outsider's perspective. In my
own poem “We the Birds” I implement the metaphor between humans and the
“cookie-cutter” standards with Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution, where those
specimens who don’t adapt to the latest changes, die. This is something we
see in society so often where if people don’t do what others are
doing regardless of their personal opinion, they tend to fall
under social pressure which usually doesn’t end properly.
In addition to the metaphor, I use parallelism with words
such as “A bird” and “A person” to apply some
emphasis to the metaphor. I also use it with the word
“why” and make it repetitive in order to represent the
constant questioning I went through in this process.



a world of dew

The world of dew is, yes,
a world of dew,
but even so

The Old Pond, Matsuo Bosho

The old pond-
a frog jumps in,
sound of water.

The Earth, Patrick Mikeska

Whistling green forests,
and vast wavy blue oceans.
Only on our Earth.

The Earth Shakes, Steve Sanfield

The earth shakes
just enough
to remind us.

The light of a Candle, Yosa Buson

The light of a candle
is transferred to another candle—
spring twilight.

Poetry has been used for thousands of years to
indirectly or simply convey ideas, feelings, or complaints.
With my collection, I have aimed to work on portraying
nature for all of the beauty that it beholds. Many poems,
especially haikus give brief explanations that make them
more interesting since it leaves a lot of the thought and
feeling to come from the reader's interpretation versus
directly from the author's symbolism and opinion as done
in books and short stories. I believe that Haiku is one of the
best styles of poetry when looking for reader creativity and
thought since they force you to create your own opinion or
beliefs about the poem based on the 17 syllables given.
Since my theme is nature I chose a collection of poems
that allude to nature's beauty, and aspects of it without
specifically talking about nature most of the time since as
I stated before it adds an extra layer of interest, and
mystery to the poems. In my poetry collection, we see
various types of poems, some modern, some from a more
classical era where nature was very prevalent in society,
and also some haikus that are by old Japanese poets.
These different types of poetry help illustrate the impact of
nature on people over various centuries since nature
changed, for better and worst over time due to human
influence. In many of the poems, nature is the main
theme/topic, but it is not directly so through words. The
authors in many of the poems make a point to speak of
nature in a way that isn’t super obvious. Like in Matsuo

Boshos's poem (The Old Pond) “The old pond-a frog
jumps in, sound of water.” Where there are elements of
nature or descriptive aspects that could be interpreted in
that way. Due to the vague poetry style and the few
syllables though the poem could be interpreted in many
different ways, and with many themes since it is so
open-ended and free to the interpretation of the reader. In
my personal poem I used more direct language, that
makes the lineage to nature more obvious and prevalent
in the poem, but still leaves room for reader interpretation
and analysis in the poem.

MIA HALLESLEVENS

"Venus"

Constellations Mia Halleslevens

The stars that elegantly rest across your cheeks
Form the loveliest constellation I’ve ever found
With this red string that ties us bound
The cold air is the only entity that speaks

In the quiet embrace of our connected physiques
My feet touching the petalled ground
The only witness, the shy moon behind a perverse cloud
Years of friendship perished into our selfish critiques

Exchanging looks, your warmth filled eyes
A delicate hand caresses your hair
It's my hand, there are no lies

In this long yet awaited stare
It's unbelievable how fast time flies
Just like dandelions in this cool air

After Work Richard Jones

Coming up from the subway
into the cool Manhattan evening,
I feel rough hands on my heart –
women in the market yelling
over rows of tomatoes and peppers,
old men sitting on a stoop playing cards,
cabbies cursing each other with fists
while the music of church bells
sails over the street,
and the father, angry and tired
after working all day,
embracing his little girl,
kissing her,
mi vida, mi corazón,
brushing the hair out of her eyes

so she can see.

Sonnet C.B. Trail

This is for the afternoon we lay in the leaves,
after it had been winter for half a year.
And I kissed you and unbuttoned your jeans
and touched you and made you smile, my dear.
And of all the good things that love means,
one of them is to touch you there.
And to see you smile, among the leaves
and feel your wetness and your sweet short hair.
And kiss your breasts and put my tongue
into the delirium between your soft pale thighs.
Because the winter has been much too long
and soon will come again when this love dies.
I will hear sermons preached, and some of them be true,

but I will not regret that afternoon with you.

When I'm With You Blake Lee

In your arms,
I'm in my safe haven.
With you holding me tight,
I have no other craving.

All I need
is that one look
that says you're always there,
just like in a fairy tale book.

Your eyes talk to me
as the world stands still.
My once empty heart
now with love does fill.

Your eyes tell me
that you'll love me every day.
No matter what may come,
you'll be there to stay.

I tell you everything
and never with a lie:
all my worldly secrets
and everything that once made me cry.

Everything in my past,
with you I can forget it all.
I know I can trust you
to catch me if I fall.

If only I could explain
how much love I have for you.
Then maybe, just maybe,
you'd feel it too.

Her Door Mary Leader

There was a time her door was never closed.
Her music box played “Für Elise” in plinks.
Her crib new-bought—I drew her sleeping there.

The little drawing sits beside my chair.
These days, she ornaments her hands with rings.
She’s seventeen. Her door is one I knock.

There was a time I daily brushed her hair
By window light—I bathed her, in the sink
In sunny water, in the kitchen, there.

I’ve bought her several thousand things to wear,
And now this boy buys her silver rings.
He goes inside her room and shuts the door.

Those days, to rock her was a form of prayer.
She’d gaze at me, and blink, and I would sing
Of bees and horses, in the pasture, there.

The drawing sits as still as nap-time air—
Her curled-up hand—that precious line, her cheek…
Next year her door will stand, again, ajar
But she herself will not be living there.

My One-Sided Love Hussein A. Termos

My love to her is a roaring fire.
She's all I ever did or will desire.
Without her I am no more,
'Cause she's all I live for.

She's my red colored rose,
Yet I don't know why her I chose.
Guess that's the way the heart is,
That way of working is only his.

I hide behind a "hey" or a "hi,"
But the truth is that I'm just too shy.
The truth is that I'm just too scared
Of her reaction if she knew I cared.

Every day my feelings I fight,
Try to change them, make them right,
But they already long ago are,
They already went too far.

Sometimes I feel like a creep.
I feel I'm on a mountain that's too steep.
Sometimes at night I can't even sleep
Because of what's hidden down deep.

Love is a vast subject; a mysterious and whimsical emotion that can be
expressed in various distinct manners. For each individual, love is
experienced uniquely. Hence, every love story that is portrayed in a poem
will be distinctive to the writer.

I’m young. I’m immature. I don’t have enough experience to express or
analyze love. As a lonely person, I never thought I would undergo this
intriguing emotion. There was a time, I believed love was something
perfect that would spring out of a couple. To my surprise, love is so broad
that there are different types of it: familiar, intimate, obsessive, one-
sided… So different in their own way, yet they all trace back to the same
emotion: love. What makes us skip a beat when we see that person? Why
does the love we feel towards them feel different than the love towards
our fathers? In this logic, the emotion should be named something else,
but it isn’t. It’s called love. It's still love. This thought made circles in my
head, although it would only lead to confusion and exhaustion.

As I regrouped my thoughts, I tried understanding it with the easiest
‘form’ of love: family. Even when there’s issues, everyone still loves their
families. The sense of protection and care towards your blood is
irreplaceable: that’s love. We can see this in the poem 'After Work' by
Richard Jones, where a “tired”, overworked father is filled with happiness
once he sees his daughter after work. Such simple words, “...mi vida, mi
corazón'', my life, my love, that this father tells his daughter, already gives
us an image of their close relationship. This type of love is protective,
endearing, caring, considerate, and concerning. It's the opposite to
intimate love.

Intimate love used to be a taboo for me. In a culture like mine, where
women are supposed to be perfect and clean virgins, intimacy or sexuality

is something to not be spoken about, yet is seen as an obligation once
you’re married. As Sor Juana, a Mexican nun stated in her poem, 'Hombres

necios que acusáis', named in English 'You Foolish Men': “With foolish
arrogance / you hope to find a Thais / in her you court, but a Lucretia /
when you've possessed her.” For this reason, I am not allowed to express
this controversial sentiment my heart desires. The type of love that is not
towards our fathers. No, not that love. Rather, the love that as Blake Lee
states, “my once empty heart” gets filled with. The love that in C.B. Trail’s
'Sonnet' is seen through the author's personal memories put into writing. A
sexual, yet intimate type of love they experienced at some point in their

lives, transformed into a beautiful poem that strives off of literary
elements such as enjambments: “And of all the good things that love
means, / one of them is to touch you there.” Giving the effect of the poem
having a similar structure to one of a narrative, allowing the reader to
continue the lecture instead of taking a pause after every verse. A common
yet embarrassing form of showing love, one that I must keep secret if I

commit.

However, this intimate love is often not shared emotionally through two
people. Everyone has had these experiences: having a crush in highschool

that is out of your league, crushing on celebrities, singers, etc. This one
sided love is burdensome, especially if it's towards someone you know

personally. The feelings and insecurities are how Hussein A. Termos
describes it, “The truth is that I'm just too scared/ Of her reaction if she
knew I cared.” This type of love is undesired, it leads to heart strings being

pulled and distractions that keep you away from being yourself in the
everyday scenario.

I came to a realization that
as humans, we will
experience all of these
different types of love at
least once in our life. As
soon as we’re brought into
this world, the love our
parents and/or guardians
have for us moves us
forward into the world.
Then, the intimate love
brought upon our social
relationships created, will
lead us to our first sexual
and personal experiences
that will uniquely belong to
us. This theme, although
broad and confusing,
highlights our daily life and
shapes us into ourselves.
Love is needed, and love is
deserved.



Holes in the Roof
Caroline Ketelhohn

I wish I had a little house all to myself
I’d punch holes in the roof
For the sun to pour through
And no one would be able to find me

The city’s shrinking out the window now
Am I shrinking instead?
The Greek boy is a statue now
Fitting, for a Greek boy
I wish that I’d shrink faster
That the city’d disappear
I want to leave, I want to stay
But I can’t stay, but I don’t want to go

But maybe if I left I could escape

The memory of hands on me
I didn’t want them on me
Being out in public and forgetting how to breathe
Fingers shaking so much I can’t even hold my pencil
I can’t even hold my fork when I eat

But then again

Every time I board that northern bound plane
I feel the burning pain of abandon

Hold on

Why is this cut on my leg so vibrantly red?

In any case,

I wish I had a little house, just for myself
I would punch holes in the roof
The sun would pour through
No one would be able to find me

A Bird, came down the Walk
Emily Dickinson

A Bird, came down the Walk -
He did not know I saw -
He bit an Angle Worm in halves
And ate the fellow, raw,

And then, he drank a Dew
From a convenient Grass -
And then hopped sidewise to the Wall
To let a Beetle pass -

He glanced with rapid eyes,
That hurried all abroad -
They looked like frightened Beads, I thought,
He stirred his Velvet Head. -

Like one in danger, Cautious,
I offered him a Crumb,
And he unrolled his feathers,
And rowed him softer Home -

Than Oars divide the Ocean,
Too silver for a seam,
Or Butterflies, off Banks of Noon,
Leap, plashless as they swim.

You Are Jeff
#14
Richard Siken

After work you go to the grocery store to get some milk and a carton of cigarettes. Where did you
get those bruises? You don’t remember. Work was boring. You find a jar of bruise cream and a can
of stewed tomatoes. Maybe a salad? Spinach, walnuts, blue cheese, apples, and you can’t decide
between the Extra Large or Jumbo black olives. Which is bigger anyway? Extra Large has a blue
label, Jumbo has a purple label. Both cans cost $1.29. While you’re deciding, the afternoon light is
streaming through the windows behind the bank of checkout counters. Take the light inside you
like a blessing, like a knee in the chest, holding onto it and not letting it go. Now let it go.

From Blossoms
Li-Young Lee

From blossoms comes
this brown paper bag of peaches
we bought from the boy
at the bend in the road where we turned toward
signs painted Peaches.

From laden boughs, from hands,
from sweet fellowship in the bins,
comes nectar at the roadside, succulent
peaches we devour, dusty skin and all,
comes the familiar dust of summer, dust we eat.

O, to take what we love inside,
to carry within us an orchard, to eat
not only the skin, but the shade,
not only the sugar, but the days, to hold
the fruit in our hands, adore it, then bite into
the round jubilance of peach.

There are days we live
as if death were nowhere
in the background; from joy
to joy to joy, from wing to wing,
from blossom to blossom to
impossible blossom, to sweet impossible blossom.

The Cure
Ginger Andrews

Lying around all day
with some strange new deep blue
weekend funk, I’m not really asleep
when my sister calls
to say she’s just hung up
from talking with Aunt Bertha
who is 89 and ill but managing
to take care of Uncle Frank
who is completely bed ridden.
Aunt Bert says
it’s snowing there in Arkansas,
on Catfish Lane, and she hasn’t been
able to walk out to their mailbox.
She’s been suffering
from a bad case of the mulleygrubs.
The cure for the mulleygrubs,
she tells my sister,
is to get up and bake a cake.
If that doesn’t do it, put on a red dress.

Fragment 94
Sappho

I just really want to die.
She, crying many tears, left me
And said to me:
"Oh, how terribly we have suffered, we two,
Sappho, really I don't want to go away."
And I said to her this:
Go and be happy, remembering me,
For you know how we cared for you.
And if you don't I want to remind you
.............and the lovely things we felt
with many wreathes of violets
and ro(ses and cro)cuses
and.............. and you sat next to me
and threw around your delicate neck
garlands fashioned of many woven flowers
and with much...............costly myrrh
..............and you anointed yourself with royal.....
and on soft couches.......(your) tender.......
fulfilled your longing..........

Happiness
Raymond Carver

So early it's still almost dark out.
I'm near the window with coffee,
and the usual early morning stuff
that passes for thought.
When I see the boy and his friend
walking up the road
to deliver the newspaper.
They wear caps and sweaters,
and one boy has a bag over his shoulder.
They are so happy
they aren't saying anything, these boys.
I think if they could, they would take
each other's arm.
It's early in the morning,
and they are doing this thing together.
They come on, slowly.
The sky is taking on light,
though the moon still hangs pale over the water.
Such beauty that for a minute
death and ambition, even love,
doesn't enter into this.
Happiness. It comes on
unexpectedly. And goes beyond, really,
any early morning talk about it.

The Orange
Wendy Cope

At lunchtime I bought a huge orange—
The size of it made us all laugh.
I peeled it and shared it with Robert and Dave—
They got quarters and I had a half.

And that orange, it made me so happy,
As ordinary things often do
Just lately. The shopping. A walk in the park.
This is peace and contentment. It’s new.

The rest of the day was quite easy.
I did all the jobs on my list
And enjoyed them and had some time over.
I love you. I’m glad I exist.

Sometimes life seems too big. There’s so much of it, it’s too complex, too much to handle, and
trying to think about it all at once makes you cry. Sometimes you want to escape to a little house all
for yourself, with lots of sunlight streaming in. Sometimes the thought of a stream of sunlight
makes you cry too.

Life can be overwhelming, but that’s if you blind yourself to what’s good, to what’s
real—the simple beauty of it all. If you take time to look around you and appreciate the little things,
you’ll see that happiness is dispersed throughout them all.

On a day like any other, you could take time to watch a bird hop around and live its own life,
and you’ll find a world completely separate from your own. Emily Dickinson did this—when “a Bird,
came down the Walk… drank a Dew… hopped sidewise to the Wall… And he unrolled his
feathers”—and wrapped the innocent story up in the familiar, comforting vessel of ABCB quatrains,
for nothing but a passive, playful pleasure. She knew there was no need to think about it all too
much, nor attach the weight of existential meaning to it. Not everything has to be complex. It’s
enough to pay attention to the little things around us, to enjoy another’s existence and lessen the
burden of our own. When we go through the routine of grocery shopping—Richard Siken’s prose
narration contributing to the colornessless and melancholy—life may seem empty, but then we
take note of “the afternoon light… streaming through the windows behind the bank of checkout
counters,” and suddenly there’s hope of something more. We take the light inside us “like a
blessing.” We indulge in the pleasure of our produce purchase—“hold the fruit in our hands, adore
it, then bite into the round jubilance of peach,” in Li-Young Lee’s words—and are happy, for that
moment. But afterward, we’re reminded that that small yet adored item is only one “sweet,
impossible blossom” that momentarily distracts us from the inevitability of death, always “in the
background.”

At times, life seems like a drab affair, with the hints of joy throughout being futile. But life
is not, by default, drab. When we feel that way, that’s just “the mulleygrubs,” as defined by Ginger
Andrews. “The cure for the mulleygrubs… is to get up and bake a cake. If that doesn’t do it, put on a
red dress.” It seems amazing that small things like that can renew our faith in life, but it’s not. Small
things like that are what human beings are supposed to be focused on. This has always been the
case; the centuries-old expression of the sentiment proves it. Circa 600 BC, when Sappho parted
with a tearful lover, she told her to remember when they strung around their “neck garlands
fashioned of many woven flowers.” Society—with its many complications and destructive
obligations—forced them apart, but at least they had that memory of flowers around their necks to
console them.

It seems like such an easy, simple notion, but then why does the heart ache with longing at
the thought of it? It’s so easy to be happy. The way human society is constructed makes us think
we’re not entitled to it, that we have to throw ourselves completely at our other obligations. But at
times of difficulty, what we long for are the easy moments. Bake a cake, put on a red dress, pick up
some flowers, and in the future, you’ll remember that in those moments you were happy.

People have always been people. There are parts missing from Sappho’s fragment 94—lost
to time and translation—but regardless, it is clear from her writing that true happiness and love are
not complex nor quantitative, but rather, made up of the small pleasures of the moment.

“Happiness,” Raymond Carver says, “comes on unexpectedly. And goes beyond, really, any
early morning talk about it.” He saw two boys delivering newspapers in the morning, and they
weren’t even saying anything, but he knew they were so happy, just “doing this thing together.”

Happiness is not a problem to be solved; you shouldn't have to work your whole life to get
there. If you think of it that way, you won’t see that it’s everywhere around you. It’s a human right,
as much as life and liberty are. You just need to embrace it—to breathe it in like air.

There are moments—ones like any other—where you realize you don’t hurt anywhere, that
you’re happy. And it’s a heart wrenching epiphany for something so simple. Wendy Cope felt it and
realized “This is peace and contentment. ” It’s so difficult for us, but so easy—to acknowledge the
bird on the walk, the afternoon light through the window, a yummy peach, the fun of baking a cake,
of stringing flowers together, an early morning walk with the sky taking on light, a particular
orange—to feel the content roll over us, having been there all along, and be able to say “I’m glad I
exist.”

Last Goodbyes

Selected by Minji Kwak

To those left behind.

Funeral Blues

W.H. Auden

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,

Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message 'He is Dead'.
Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.

He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;

I thought that love would last forever: I was wrong.

The stars are not wanted now; put out every one,
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun,

Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood;
For nothing now can ever come to any good.

Memory

Hayden Carruth



A woman I used to know well died
A week ago. Not to be mysterious:
She and I were married. I'm told
She fell down dead on a street in
Lower Manhattan, and I suppose
She suffered a stroke or a heart attack.
The last time I saw her was in the spring

Of 1955, meaning forty-four
Years ago, and now when I try
To imagine her death I see in my
Mind a good-looking, twenty-nine-
Year-old woman sprawled on the pavement.
It does no good to go and examine
My own ravaged face in the bathroom
Mirror; I cannot transpose my ravage-
Ment to her. She is fixed in my mind
As she was. Brown hair, brown eyes,
Slender and sexy, coming home
From her job as an editor in a huge
Building in midtown. Forty-four
Years is longer than I thought. My dear,
How could you have let this happen to you?

We Are Seven

William Wordsworth

———A simple Child,
That lightly draws its breath,
And feels its life in every limb,
What should it know of death?

I met a little cottage Girl:
She was eight years old, she said;
Her hair was thick with many a curl
That clustered round her head.

She had a rustic, woodland air,
And she was wildly clad:

Her eyes were fair, and very fair;
—Her beauty made me glad.

“Sisters and brothers, little Maid,
How many may you be?”

“How many? Seven in all,” she said,
And wondering looked at me.

“And where are they? I pray you tell.”
She answered, “Seven are we;
And two of us at Conway dwell,
And two are gone to sea.

“Two of us in the church-yard lie,
My sister and my brother;

And, in the church-yard cottage, I
Dwell near them with my mother.”

“You say that two at Conway dwell,
And two are gone to sea,

Yet ye are seven! I pray you tell,
Sweet Maid, how this may be.”



Then did the little Maid reply,
“Seven boys and girls are we;
Two of us in the church-yard lie,
Beneath the church-yard tree.”



“You run about, my little Maid,

Your limbs they are alive;
If two are in the church-yard laid,

Then ye are only five.”



“Their graves are green, they may be seen,”
The little Maid replied,

“Twelve steps or more from my mother’s
door,

And they are side by side.



“My stockings there I often knit,
My kerchief there I hem;

And there upon the ground I sit,
And sing a song to them.



“And often after sun-set, Sir,
When it is light and fair,
I take my little porringer,
And eat my supper there.

“The first that died was sister Jane;
In bed she moaning lay,

Till God released her of her pain;
And then she went away.

“So in the church-yard she was laid;
And, when the grass was dry,

Together round her grave we played,
My brother John and I.

“And when the ground was white with snow,
And I could run and slide,

My brother John was forced to go,
And he lies by her side.”

“How many are you, then,” said I,
“If they two are in heaven?”

Quick was the little Maid’s reply,
“O Master! we are seven.”

“But they are dead; those two are dead!
Their spirits are in heaven!”

’Twas throwing words away; for still
The little Maid would have her will,

And said, “Nay, we are seven!”

Words Unspoken

Minji Kwak




When I came home to find you gone,
I knew, I knew in my mind;
You had surgery and was
(not) recovering,
but

I let the silence cover my ears.



The silence shattered into small pieces
Slit into me, devoured me that night,

when I saw:
You lay there
White bed, clothes, tubes, covers
Sleeping (unconscious), the constant beeping
ringing in my ears, clearer than ever
signaling that you were alive (dying).



As my mother pushed my brother and I
To say our (last) words, I was (not) ready to say goodbye.

The silence caved in,
deformed my words into sobs
and spit them out with the tears.



What would I have said?

Don’t hurt. Don’t leave.
Wake up right now and come back home.
It’s scary to sleep with an empty bed to my side.
I’m not ready to say goodbye, I know you’re not too.



From time to time,
As I dwell on these words, tethered to a perpetual hush,

I wonder:
If I had spoken, would you have heard me?

My Mother and Lucille Clifton Have Tea

Parneshia Jones

When I get to where I’m going
I want the death of my children explained to me.

—Lucille Clifton

They meet over tea and potato chips.
Brown and buttermilk women,
hipped and hardened,
legs uncrossed but proper
still in their smiles;

smiles that carry a sadness in faint creases.
A sadness they will never be without.

One asks the other,
“What do they call a woman who has lost a child?”

The other sighs between sips of lukewarm tea.
There is no name for us.

“No name? But there has to be a name for us.
We must have something to call ourselves.”

Surely, history by now and all the women
who carry their babies’ ghosts on their backs,

mothers who wake up screaming,
women wide awake in their nightmares,
mothers still expected to be mothers and human,
women who stand under hot showers weeping,
mothers who wish they could drown standing up,
women who can still smell them—hear them,
the scent and symphony of their children,

deep down in the good earth.

“Surely, history has not forgotten to name us?”



No woman wants to bear
whatever could be the name for this grief.
Even if she must bear the grief for all her days,
it would be far too painful to be called by that name.



“I’ve lost two, you know.”

Me too.
“I was angry at God, you know.”

Me too.
“I stopped praying but only for a little while,
and then I had no choice. I had to pray again.
I had to call out to something that was no longer there.

I had to believe God knew where it was.”



“I fear death no longer. It has taken everything.
But should I be? Should I be afraid of what death has taken?

That it took and left no name?”



The other who sighs between sips of lukewarm tea
leans over and kisses the cheek of the one still with questions.

She whispers…



No, you don’t have to be afraid.
Death is no more scary than the lives we have lived

without our babies, bound to this grief
with no name.

One Art

Elizabeth Bishop

The art of losing isn’t hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent

to be lost that their loss is no disaster.

Lose something every day. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn’t hard to master.

Then practice losing farther, losing faster:
places, and names, and where it was you meant

to travel. None of these will bring disaster.

I lost my mother’s watch. And look! my last, or
next-to-last, of three loved houses went.
The art of losing isn’t hard to master.

I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.

I miss them, but it wasn’t a disaster.

—Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan’t have lied. It’s evident

the art of losing’s not too hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.

The Locust Swarm

Hsu Chao

Locusts laid their eggs in the corpse
Of a soldier. When the worms were
Mature, they took wing. Their drone

Was ominous, their shells hard.
Anyone could tell they had hatched

From an unsatisfied anger.
They flew swiftly towards the North.

They hid the sky like a curtain.
When the wife of a soldier

Saw them, she turned pale, her breath
Failed her. She knew he was dead
In battle, his corpse lost in
The desert. That night she dreamed
She rode a white horse, so swift
It left no footprints, and came
To where he lay in the sand.
She looked at his face, eaten
By the locusts, and tears of
Blood filled her eyes. Even after
She would not let her children
Injure any insect which
Might have fed on the dead. She
Would lift her face to the sky
And say, "O locusts, if you
Are seeking a place to winter,
You can find shelter in my heart."

About Last Goodbyes

Poets, like any other human, suffer losses throughout their lifetimes.
Yet, through their verses, they embrace the hurt, pain, and rage of suffering
a loss; some eventually come to accept it. This collection aims to interweave
these different emotions related to loss, ending on a hopeful note as it guides
others to heal from the pain. In these verses, poets lament, mourn, and
reminisce those that have left them.

For instance, the constant repetition of assuring phrases of hope and
positivity masks the speakers’ despondency. Elizabeth Bishop’s “One Art”
constantly states that “the art of losing isn’t hard to master”. On one hand,
this constant repetition indicates the ubiquity of loss amongst people: as
common as it is, Bishop suggests that it should not be a big concern.
Moreover, a whimsical tone across the entire poem, in turn, creates a sense
of discomfiture: the tone is forced as if the poet is hiding her true state of
mind behind feigned liveliness. A similar device is used in William
Wordsworth’s conversation with a little girl in, “We Are Seven”. The poem is
structured as an alternating dialogue between a man and a little girl as they
talk about her family. The girl’s constant repetition of “We are seven”
despite her two siblings’ death affirms her innocence. Unlike Bishop, the girl
is too young to comprehend her siblings’ death. She still considers them to
be part of her life and describes how “...there upon the ground I sit, / And
sing a song to them… / I take my little porringer, / And eat my supper there.”
Likewise, in “My Mother and Lucille Clifton Have Tea” by Parneshia Jones, a
dialogue between the poet’s mother and poet Lucille Clifton emphasize the
grief and pain they feel over their lost children. As one asks “What do they
call a woman who has lost a child?”, the other answers that there is no such
word because “no woman wants to bear / whatever could be
the name for this grief.” As one shares her experience, the
other empathizes with her and consoles her. In the poem,
the two women are portrayed differently: one still grieves
and the other has moved on. The latter slowly guides the “one
still with questions” into acceptance, having shared her
experience.

A chronological narration of the events helps certain poets navigate
their feelings as they mourn their loss. In “Funeral Blues”, Auden issues a
series of commands to “stop all the clocks, / cut off the telephone”, and
eventually demands the universe to shut down, “to pack up the moon and
dismantle the sun,” summoning images that reflect his insurmountable grief.
Similarly, Hsu Chao’s “The Locust Swarm” narrates the story of a woman
who is able to find a connection to her dead husband. He writes that as the
locusts “hid the sky like a curtain”, the wife realized “he was dead / in battle”.
Yet, despite her “tears of blood” at the sight of his corpse deformed by the
locusts, the wife eventually embraced them as a connection to her husband,
stating that if they are “seeking a place to winter, / [they] can find shelter in
my heart.” Bishop follows a similar pattern, advising the reader to start by
accepting “the fluster of lost door keys,” before practicing “losing farther,
losing faster”. As they progress through the increasing magnitude of their
loss, Auden and Chao embrace the grief while Bishop deflects with a
sarcastic tone: “the art of losing’s not too hard to master / though it may look
like (Write it!) like disaster.”

Meanwhile, others narrate their stream of consciousness as they
process their loss. The verses in “Memory” by Hayden Carruth are
disrupted by unusual line breaks, ending in incomplete sentences and words
that finish in the next line. This enjambment represents their fractured
relationship. His struggle and confusion become apparent as his thoughts
drift from their last encounter to the passing of time as he writes of his “own
ravaged face in the bathroom” and how he “cannot transpose [his] ravage- /
ment to her”. His narration ultimately ends in a vexed question, “My dear, /
How could you have let this happen to you?” encompassing his frustration
and grief over the passing of his former partner.

To the reader, it is my hope that this collection
provides solace from knowing that there is
someone who shares the experience, and with
time to be able to look back and reminisce them
with joy.