In this installment, Jeffrey Thomson reads “London” by William Blake. Thomson’s third book of poems, Renovation, was part of the Carnegie Mellon University Press poetry series in 2005. His second collection of poems, The Country of Lost Sons, inaugurated a new poetry series from Parlor Press at Purdue University in February 2004 and first book, The Halo Brace, was brought out in a limited edition letterpress version from Birch Brook Press in 1998. He is an Assistant Professor of Creative Writing at the University of Maine, Farmington.

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William Blake’s “London”

I wander thro’ each charter’d street,
Near where the charter’d Thames does flow,
And mark in every face I meet
Marks of weakness, marks of woe.

In every cry of every Man,
In every Infant’s cry of fear,
In every voice, in every ban,
The mind-forg’d manacles I hear.

How the Chimney-sweeper’s cry
Every black’ning Church appalls;
And the hapless Soldier’s sigh
Runs in blood down Palace walls.

But most thro’ midnight streets I hear
How the youthful Harlot’s curse
Blasts the new born Infant’s tear,
And blights with plagues the Marriage hearse.

admin Uncategorized jeffrey thomson, london, william blake

In this installment, Barry Silesky reads “Song” [“I peeled bits of straws”] by John Clare. Silesky’s third book of poems, This Disease, will be out from Tampa University Press, Fall 2006. He is author of biographies of Lawrence Ferlinghetti and John Gardner, as well as editor of the literary journal ACM (Another Chicago Magazine). He teaches poetry at Loyola University-Chicago.

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John Clare, “Song” ["I peeled bits of straws"]

I peeled bits of straws and I got switches too
From the grey peeling willow as idlers do,
And I switched at the flies as I sat all alone
Till my flesh, blood, and marrow was turned to dry bone.
My illness was love, though I knew not the smart,
But the beauty of love was the blood of my heart.
Crowded places, I shunned them as noises too rude
And fled to the silence of sweet solitude.
Where the flower in green darkness buds, blossoms, and fades,
Unseen of all shepherds and flower-loving maids–
The hermit bees find them but once and away.
There I’ll bury alive and in silence decay.

I looked on the eyes of fair woman too long,
Till silence and shame stole the use of my tongue:
When I tried to speak to her I’d nothing to say,
So I turned myself round and she wandered away.
When she got too far off, why, I’d something to tell,
So I sent sighs behind her and walked to my cell.
Willow switches I broke and peeled bits of straws,
Ever lonely in crowds, in Nature’s own laws–
My ball room the pasture, my music the bees,
My drink was the fountain, my church the tall trees.
Who ever would love or be tied to a wife
When it makes a man mad all the days of his life?

admin Uncategorized barry silesky, john clare, song [i peeled bits of straws]

In this installment, Charles North reads “The Daffodils” by William Wordsworth. North is poet-in-residence at Pace University in Manhattan. In addition to receiving four awards from the Fund for Poetry, he is a two-time winner of the National Endowment for the Arts Creative Writing Fellowship. His books include: Six Buildings (Swollen Magpie Press 1977), Leap Year, Poems 1968-1978 (Kulchur 1978), Year of the Olive Oil (Hanging Loose Press 1989), No Other Way: Poets, Critics, and Painters (Hanging Loose Press 1998), New and Selected Poems (Sun and Moon Press, 1999), and The Nearness of the Way You Look Tonight (Adventures in Poetry 2001), among others.

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William Wordsworth, “The Daffodils”

I WANDER’D lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o’er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host of golden daffodils,
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the Milky Way,
They stretch’d in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced, but they
Outdid the sparkling waves in glee:—
A poet could not but be gay
In such a jocund company!
I gazed, and gazed, but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.

admin Uncategorized charles north, the daffodils, william wordsworth