In this installment, Anne Shaw reads “The Tyger” by William Blake. Shaw is the author of Undertow (2007), winner of the Lexi Rudnitsky Poetry Prize from Persea Books. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in journals including New American Writing, Hayden’s Ferry Review, Gulf Coast, New Ohio Review, and Subtropics. A recipient of a Gertrude Stein Award from Green Integer Press and a finalist for the Colorado Poetry Prize, she is assistant professor of English at Franklin Pierce University.

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William Blake, “The Tyger”

Tyger! Tyger! burning bright
In the forests of the night.
What Immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

In what distant deeps or skies
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand, dare sieze the fire?

And what shoulder, and what art,
Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
And when thy heart began to beat,
What dread hand? and what dread feet?

What the hammer? What the chain?
In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? what dread grasp
Dare its deadly terrors clasp?

When the stars threw down their spears,
And water’d heaven with their tears,
Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the lamb make thee?

Tyger! Tyger! burning bright,
In the forests of the night.
What Immortal hand or eye
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?

admin Uncategorized anne shaw, the tyger, william blake

In this installment, Andrew Kozma reads Part IV of “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” by Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Kozma received his M.F.A. from the University of Florida and his Ph.D. in English Literature and Creative Writing from the University of Houston. He was born in Tucson, Arizona, but only lived there nine months, so your guess is as good as his as to where he’s from. His poems have been published in AGNI On-line, Hunger Mountain, Dislocate, Forklift, Ohio, and Third Coast and he has published non-fiction in The Iowa Review. His first book of poems, City of Regret, was chosen by Richard Jackson for the Zone 3 First Book Award and was released in 2007.

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Samuel Taylor Coleridge, “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner,” Part IV

“I fear thee, ancient Mariner!
I fear thy skinny hand!
And thou art long, and lank, and brown,
As is the ribbed sea-sand.

I fear thee and thy glittering eye,
And thy skinny hand, so brown.”—
Fear not, fear not, thou Wedding Guest!
This body dropped not down.

Alone, alone, all, all alone,
Alone on a wide wide sea!
And never a saint took pity on
My soul in agony.

The many men, so beautiful!
And they all dead did lie:
And a thousand thousand slimy things
Lived on; and so did I.

I looked upon the rotting sea,
And drew my eyes away;
I looked upon the rotting deck,
And there the dead men lay.

I looked to heaven, and tried to pray;
But or ever a prayer had gushed,
A wicked whisper came, and made
My heart as dry as dust.

I closed my lids, and kept them close,
And the balls like pulses beat,
For the sky and the sea, and the sea and the sky
Lay like a load on my weary eye,
And the dead were at my feet.

The cold sweat melted from their limbs,
Nor rot nor reek did they:
The look with which they looked on me
Had never passed away.

An orphan’s curse would drag to hell
A spirit from on high;
But oh! more horrible than that
Is the curse in a dead man’s eye!
Seven days, seven nights, I saw that curse,
And yet I could not die.

The moving Moon went up the sky,
And nowhere did abide:
Softly she was going up,
And a star or two beside—

Her beams bemocked the sultry main,
Like April hoar-frost spread;
But where the ship’s huge shadow lay,
The charmèd water burnt always
A still and awful red.

Beyond the shadow of the ship,
I watched the water snakes:
They moved in tracks of shining white,
And when they reared, the elfish light
Fell off in hoary flakes.

Within the shadow of the ship
I watched their rich attire:
Blue, glossy green, and velvet black,
They coiled and swam; and every track
Was a flash of golden fire.

O happy living things! no tongue
Their beauty might declare:
A spring of love gushed from my heart,
And I blessed them unaware:
Sure my kind saint took pity on me,
And I blessed them unaware.

The self-same moment I could pray;
And from my neck so free
The Albatross fell off, and sank
Like lead into the sea.

admin Uncategorized andrew kozma, samuel taylor coleridge, the rime of the ancient mariner

In this installment, Jennifer Kwon Dobbs reads “Sonnet LXXVII” from Elegiac Sonnets by Charlotte Turner Smith. Dobbs was born in Wonju-Si, South Korea. Her debut collection, Paper Pavilion, received the White Pine Press Poetry Prize and was published in 2007. Currently, she is assistant professor of creative writing at St. Olaf College and lives in Minneapolis.

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Charlotte Turner Smith, “Sonnet LXXVII” [From Elegiac Sonnets]

To the Insect of the Gossamer

SMALL, viewless aeronaut, that by the line
Of Gossamer suspended, in mid air
Float’st on a sun beam–Living atom, where
Ends thy breeze-guided voyage;–with what design,
In ether dost thou launch thy form minute,
Mocking the eye?–Alas! before the veil
Of denser clouds shall hide thee, the pursuit
Of the keen Swift may end thy fairy sail!–
Thus on the golden thread that Fancy weaves
Buoyant, as Hope’s illusive flattery breathes,
The young and visionary poet leaves
Life’s dull realities, while sevenfold wreaths
Of rainbow-light around his head revolve.
Ah! soon at Sorrow’s touch the radiant dreams dissolve!

admin Uncategorized charlotte turner smith, elegiac sonnets, jennifer kwon dobbs, sonnet lxxvii

In this installment, Jennifer Kwon Dobbs reads “Sonnet LXX” from Elegiac Sonnets by Charlotte Turner Smith. Dobbs was born in Wonju-Si, South Korea. Her debut collection, Paper Pavilion, received the White Pine Press Poetry Prize and was published in 2007. Currently, she is assistant professor of creative writing at St. Olaf College and lives in Minneapolis.

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Charlotte Turner Smith, “Sonnet LXX” [From Elegiac Sonnets]

On being cautioned against walking over a headland
overlooking the sea, because it was frequented by a
Lunatic.

IS there a solitary wretch who hies
To the tall cliff, with starting pace or slow,
And, measuring, views with wild and hollow eyes
Its distance from the waves that chide below;
Who, as the sea-born gale with frequent sighs
Chills his cold bed upon the mountain turf,
With hoarse, half utter’d lamentation, lies
Murmuring responses to the dashing surf?
In moody sadness, on the giddy brink,
I see him more with envy than with fear;
He has no nice felicities that shrink
From giant horrors; wildly wandering here,
He seems (uncursed with reason) not to know
The depth or the duration of his woe.

admin Uncategorized charlotte turner smith, elegiac sonnets, jennifer kwon dobbs, sonnet lxx

In this installment, Elizabeth Volpe reads “The Human Abstract” by William Blake. A 2001 and 2004 Pushcart Prize nominee, Volpe lives in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan. Her poems have appeared in many journals, including: Atlanta Review, Crab Orchard Review, Connecticut Review, River Styx, Cave Wall, and roger. She won The Briarcliff Review 2004 Poetry Contest, the 2006 Metro Detroit Writers Contest, and the 2008 Juniper Prize from Alligator Juniper. Her chapbook won the 2007 Robert Watson Poetry Award from Spring Garden Press/The Greensboro Review, and she was nominated for 2008 Best New Poets.

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William Blake, “The Human Abstract”

Pity would be no more,
If we did not make somebody Poor:
And Mercy no more could be,
If all were as happy as we;

And mutual fear brings peace;
Till the selfish loves increase.
Then Cruelty knits a snare,
And spreads his baits with care.

He sits down with holy fears,
And waters the ground with tears:
Then Humility takes its root
Underneath his foot.

Soon spreads the dismal shade
Of Mystery over his head;
And the Catterpiller and Fly.
Feed on the Mystery.

And it bears the fruit of Deceit.
Ruddy and sweet to eat;
And the Raven his nest has made
In its thickest shade.

The Gods of the earth and sea,
Sought thro’ Nature to find this Tree
But their search was all in vain;
There grows one in the Human Brain

admin Uncategorized elizabeth volpe, the human abstract, william blake