In this installment, Jericho Brown reads “Love’s Philosophy” by Percy Bysshe Shelley. Brown worked as the speechwriter for the Mayor of New Orleans before receiving his Ph.D. in creative writing and literature from the University of Houston. He also holds an MFA from the University of New Orleans and a BA from Dillard University. The recipient of the Whiting Writers Award, the Bunting Fellowship from the Radcliffe Institute at Harvard University, and two travel fellowships to the Krakow Poetry Seminar in Poland, Brown teaches creative writing as an Assistant Professor of English at the University of San Diego. His poems have appeared in The Iowa Review, jubilat, New England Review, Oxford American, and several other journals and anthologies. Brown teaches creative writing as an Assistant Professor of English at the University of San Diego. His first book, Please (New Issues, 2008), won the 2009 American Book Award.

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Percy Bysshe Shelley, “Love’s Philosophy”

The fountains mingle with the river
And the rivers with the ocean,
The winds of heaven mix for ever
With a sweet emotion;
Nothing in the world is single;
All things by a law divine
In one another’s being and mingle.
Why not I with thine?—

See the mountains kiss high heaven
And the waves clasp one another;
No sister-flower would be forgiven
If it disdained its brother;
And the sunlight clasps the earth
And the moonbeams kiss the sea:
What is all this sweet work worth
If thou kiss not me?

DougGuerra Uncategorized jericho brown, love's philosophy, percy bysshe shelley

In this installment, Nickole Brown reads “Imitation of Spenser” by John Keats. Brown is the author of Sister, a novel-in-poems published by Red Hen Press (2007). She graduated from the M.F.A. Program at the Vermont College of Fine Arts and has received grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Kentucky Foundation for Women, and the Kentucky Arts Council. She has served as the National Publicity Consultant for the Palm Beach Poetry Festival, as well as the Program Coordinator for the VCFA writing residency in Slovenia. She currently lives in Louisville, Kentucky, where she is a Lecturer at Bellarmine University and the University of Louisville. She is also on the faculty at the low-residency MFA program at Murray State, is the co-editor for the Marie Alexander Poetry Series at White Pine Press, and works as the National Publicity Consultant for Arktoi Books

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John Keats, “Imitation of Spenser”

Now Morning from her orient chamber came,
And her first footsteps touch’d a verdant hill;
Crowning its lawny chest with amber flame,
Silv’ring the untainted gushes of its rill;
Which, pure from mossy beds, did down distill,
And after parting beds of simple flowers,
By many streams a little lake did fill,
Which round its marge reflected woven bowers,
And, in its middle space, a sky that never lowers.

There the king-fisher saw his plumage bright
Vieing with fish of brilliant dye below;
Whose silken fins, and golden scales’ light
Cast upward, through the waves, a ruby glow:
There saw the swan his neck of arched snow,
And oar’d himself along with majesty;
Sparkled his jetty eyes; his feet did show
Beneath the waves like Afric’s ebony,
And on his back a fay reclined volumptuously.

Ah! could I tell the wonders of an isle
That in that fairest lake had placed been,
I could e’en Dido of her grief beguile;
Or rob from aged Lear his bitter teen:
For sure so fair a place was never seen,
Of all that ever charm’d romantic eye:
It seem’d an emerald in the silver sheen
Of the bright waters; or as when on high,
Through clouds of fleecy white, laughs the coerulean sky.

And all around it dipp’d luxuriously
Slopings of verdure through the glossy tide,
Which, as it were in gentle amnity,
Rippled delighted up the flowery side;
As if to glean the ruddy tears, it tried,
Which fell profusely from the rose-tree stem!
Happily it was the workings of its pride,
In strife to throw upon the shore a gem
Outvieing all the buds in Flora’s diadem.

DougGuerra Uncategorized imitation of spenser, john keats, nicole brown

In this installment, Steve McCaffrey reads “Signs of Winter” by John Clare. Experimental Canadian poet Steve McCaffrey is the author of over a dozen volumes of poetry and has twice received the Gertrude Stein Award for Innovative American Poetry.  He was one of the co-founders of the Toronto Research Group and is also the author or editor of several important books of criticism, including Rational Geomancy: The Kids of the Book Machine, North of Intention, and Prior to Meaning.

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John Clare, “Signs of Winter”

Tis winter plain the images around
Protentious tell us of the closing year
Short grows the stupid day  the moping fowl
Go roost at noon—upon the mossy barn
The thatcher hangs and lays the frequent yaum
Nudged close to stop the rain that drizzling falls
With scarce one interval of sunny sky
For weeks still leeking on that sulky gloom
Muggy and close a doubt twixt night and day
The sparrow rarely chirps the thresher pale
Twanks with sharp measured raps the weary frail
Thump after thump right tiresome to the ear
The hedger lonesome brustles at his toil
And shepherds trudge the fields without a song
The cat runs races with her tail—the dog
Leaps oer the orchard hedge and knarls the grass
The swine run round and grunt and play with straw
Snatching out hasty mouthfuls from the snack
Sudden upon the elm tree tops the crows
Uncerimonious visit pays and croaks
Then swops away—from mossy barn the owl
Bobs hasty out—wheels round and scared as soon
As hastily retires—the ducks grow wild
And from the muddy pond fly up and wheel
A circle round the village and soon tired
Plunge in the pond again—the maids in haste
Snatch from the orchard hedge the mizled cloaths
And laughing hurry in to keep them dry

DougGuerra Uncategorized john clare, signs of winter, steve mccaffrey

In this installment, Alexander Long reads “To John Clare” by John Clare. Long’s first two books are Vigil (New Issues Poetry & Prose, 2006) and Light Here, Light There (C & R Press, 2009). With Christopher Buckley, he is co-editor of A Condition of the Spirit: The Life & Work of Larry Levis (Eastern Washington University Press, 2004). His work has appeared or is forthcoming in AGNI, The American Poetry Review, American Writers, Blackbird, Callaloo, and The Southern Review, among others. An assistant professor of English at John Jay College, Long also plays bass and writes songs with the band Redhead Betty Takeout.

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John Clare, “To John Clare”

Well, honest John, how fare you now at home?
The spring is come, and birds are building nests;
The old cock-robin to the sty is come,
With olive feathers and its ruddy breast;
And the old cock, with wattles and red comb,
Struts with the hens, and seems to like some best,
Then crows, and looks about for little crumbs,
Swept out by little folks an hour ago;
The pigs sleep in the sty; the bookman comes-
The little boys lets home-closing nesting go,
And pockets tops and taws, where daisies bloom,
To look at the new number just laid down,
With lots of pictures, and good stories too,
And Jack the Giant-killer’s high renown.

DougGuerra Uncategorized alexander long, john clare, to john clare

In this installment, Aracelis Girmay reads “Dream-Pedlary” by Thomas Lovell Beddoes. Girmay is the author of Teeth, a collection of poems published by Curbstone Press in 2007. Her poems have also been published in Ploughshares, Bellevue Literary Review, Indiana Review, Callaloo, and MiPOesias, among other journals. A Cave Canem fellow, Girmay teaches writing workshops in New York & California.

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Thomas Lovell Beddoes, “Dream-Pedlary”

If there were dreams to sell,
What would you buy?
Some cost a passing bell;
Some a light sigh,
That shakes from Life’s fresh crown
Only a rose-leaf down.
If there were dreams to sell,
Merry and sad to tell,
And the crier rang the bell,
What would you buy?

A cottage lone and still,
With bowers nigh,
Shadowy, my woes to still,
Until I die.
Such pearls from Life’s fresh crown
Fain would I shake me down.
Were dreams to have at will,
This would best heal my ill,
This would I buy.

But there were dreams to sell
Ill didst thou buy;
Life is a dream, they tell,
Waking, to die.
Dreaming a dream to prize,
Is wishing ghosts to rise;
And, if I had the spell
To call the buried well,
Which one should I?

If there are ghosts to raise,
What shall I call
Out of hell’s murky haze,
Heaven’s blue pall?
Raise my lov’d long-lost boy
To lead me to his joy.
There are no ghosts to raise;
Out of death lead no ways;
Vain is the call.

Know’st thou not ghosts to sue?
No love thou hast.
Else lie, as I will do,
And breathe thy last.
So out of Life’s fresh crown
Fall like a rose-leaf down.
Thus are the ghosts to woo;
Thus are all dreams made true,
Ever to last!

DougGuerra Uncategorized aracelis girmay, dream-pedlary, thomas lovell beddoes