Twelve Women Poets at the Turn of the 21st Century

Ruth Stone (1915-2011)

Academy of American Poet – Ruth Stone

The Poetry Foundation – Ruth Stone

Modern American Poets – Ruth Stone

What Love Comes To: New and Selected Poems

Poems Online

Madeleine DeFrees (1919-2015)

Poet’s Website

Academy of American Poets – Madeleine DeFrees

Blue Dusk: New and Selected Poems (2001)

Denise Levertov (1923-1997)

Academy of American Poets – Denise Levertov

The Poetry Foundation – Denise Levertov

Modern American Poets – Denise Levertov

The Collected Poems of Denise Levertov (2014)

Poems Online

YT Clip

Maya Angelou (1928-2014 )

Poet’s Website

The Academy of American Poets – Maya Angelou

The Poetry Foundation – Maya Angelou

The Complete Collected Poems of Maya Angelou (2009)
Poems Online

Mary Oliver (1935-)

Publisher’s Website

The Academy of American Poets – Mary Oliver

The Poetry Foundation – Mary Oliver

New and Selected Poems, Vol. I (1992) and New and Selected Poems, Vol. II (2005)

Poems Online 

Louise Glück (1943-)

The Academy of American Poets – Louise Glück

The Poetry Foundation – Louise Glück

Poems, 1962-2012

Poems Online

Marilyn Nelson (1946-)

Poet’s Website

The Academy of American Poets – Marilyn Nelson

The Poetry Foundation – Marilyn Nelson

Fields of Praise: New and Selected Poems (1997) and Faster Than Light: New and Selected Poems, 1996-2011 (2012)

Poems Online

Jane Kenyon (1947-1995)

The Academy of American Poets – Jane Kenyon

The Poetry Foundation – Jane Kenyon

Otherwise: New & Selected Poems (1997)

Poems Online 

Joy Harjo (1951-)

Poet’s Website

The Academy of American Poets – Joy Harjo

The Poetry Foundation – Joy Harjo

How We Became Human: New and Selected Poems, 1975-2001 (2002)

Poems Online  …

“She Had Some Horses” (read aloud by the poet)

More: Native American Women Poets

Rita Dove (1952-)

The Academy of American Poets – Rita Dove

The Poetry Foundation – Rita Dove

Modern American Poets – Rita Dove

Achievement – Rita Dove

Selected Poems (1993)

Poems Online

Ana Castillo (1953-)

Poet’s Website

The Poetry Foundation – Ann Castillo

My Father was a Toltec and Selected Poems, 1973-1988 and I Ask the Impossible (2011)

Marilyn Chin (1955-)

The Academy of American Poets – Marilyn Chin

The Poetry Foundation – Marilyn Chin

Modern American Poets – Marilyn Chin

Rhapsody in Plain Yellow (2003)

and The Phoenix Gone, the Terrace Empty (2009)

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A Medieval Valentine Song

 

about this heart

 

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“As I Walked Out One Evening” by W.H. Auden

As I walked out one evening,
Walking down Bristol Street,
The crowds upon the pavement
Were fields of harvest wheat.

And down by the brimming river
I heard a lover sing
Under an arch of the railway:
‘Love has no ending.

‘I’ll love you, dear, I’ll love you
Till China and Africa meet,
And the river jumps over the mountain
And the salmon sing in the street,

‘I’ll love you till the ocean
Is folded and hung up to dry
And the seven stars go squawking
Like geese about the sky.

‘The years shall run like rabbits,
For in my arms I hold
The Flower of the Ages,
And the first love of the world.’

But all the clocks in the city
Began to whirr and chime:
‘O let not Time deceive you,
You cannot conquer Time.

‘In the burrows of the Nightmare
Where Justice naked is,
Time watches from the shadow
And coughs when you would kiss.

‘In headaches and in worry
Vaguely life leaks away,
And Time will have his fancy
To-morrow or to-day.

‘Into many a green valley
Drifts the appalling snow;
Time breaks the threaded dances
And the diver’s brilliant bow.

‘O plunge your hands in water,
Plunge them in up to the wrist;
Stare, stare in the basin
And wonder what you’ve missed.

‘The glacier knocks in the cupboard,
The desert sighs in the bed,
And the crack in the tea-cup opens
A lane to the land of the dead.

‘Where the beggars raffle the banknotes
And the Giant is enchanting to Jack,
And the Lily-white Boy is a Roarer,
And Jill goes down on her back.

‘O look, look in the mirror,
O look in your distress:
Life remains a blessing
Although you cannot bless.

‘O stand, stand at the window
As the tears scald and start;
You shall love your crooked neighbour
With your crooked heart.’

It was late, late in the evening,
The lovers they were gone;
The clocks had ceased their chiming,
And the deep river ran on.

W.H. Auden

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