Edward de Vere's Memorial For His Son, Who Died at Birth May 1583.

Standard Citation: Purdy, Gilbert Wesley. “Edward de Vere's Memorial 
For His Son, Who Died at Birth May 1583.”Virtual Grub Street. 5 July 2017.

Hedingham Castle, the ancestral
seat of the De Vere family.

We do not know much about Anne de Vere née Cecil, the Countess of Oxford, wife of Edward de Vere.  Even noblewomen generally left little biography behind them.  But some brief introduction is in order before we proceed to the memorial poems she and her husband wrote to mourn the son who may only have lived outside the womb for minutes.

We know that she was the daughter of William Cecil and Mildred Cooke.  Cecil was the First Secretary (sometimes called the Secretary of State), to Queen Elizabeth I, from her ascent to the throne of England until he was created Baron of Burghley and appointed Lord High Treasurer on July 13, 1572.[1]  Upon the death of the Earl of Leicester, in 1588, Burghley became the Queen’s closest friend and adviser.

Mildred Cooke was a wonder of her time.  Her father, Sir Anthony Cooke, had given his five daughters the same education as his sons.  Not only did she know contemporary languages and Latin but she was particularly fluent in Classical Greek.  This some 100 years before England could boast even a small academic community of male scholars in the Greek language.  Acquisition of the language was something of a wonder and a sign of the highest intellectual achievement.

Being born from such distinguished parents the occasional curious fact emerges from one or another document.  From Cecil’s diary we learn that “Litell Tannikyn,” as her father lovingly called her, was born on a Saturday night between the hours of 11 and 12, in the bedroom on the Thames River side of his house at Canon-Row, Westminster.

die Sabati, nocte, intr hora undecima et duodecimo, in domo mea Wesmonast. in cubiculo prox. Thamesi, edidit in partu uxor mea Mildreda.  Int' hor. 3* et 4* post meridie filia que postea die lune baptizata nome suscep. Anna, imponetibus illud Walto Mildmay, milite, Anna Comit Pembrok, Anna Dona Petre.[2]

She was baptized the following Monday.  Sir Walter Mildmay, her father’s closest friend at the time, stood as god father.  Anna, the Countess of Pembroke, stood as god mother.  It is said that, while Tannikyn lived, she was her father’s favorite child.

William Cecil surely thought he was establishing his beloved daughter for a long life as matron over one of the most prestigious and wealthy families in England when he arranged for her to marry Edward de Vere, the 17^th Earl of Oxford.  The nuptials were celebrated on December 19, 1571, in a grand ceremony at Westminster Cathedral.  The reception was held at Cecil’s grand estate at Theobalds.  It hosted the Queen herself, the great nobles and officers of the realm, and the senior diplomatic representatives of many of the countries of Europe.

Edward de Vere had no intention, however, of losing his place as the Queen’s favorite at Court.  He remained in constant attendance at whichever palace the Court occupied at a given time.  He continued to travel in the Queen’s retinue wherever she went on progress.  He did not choose to bring his wife with him.  After some time, her mother, Mildred, complained, and Cecil found himself in a very uncomfortable position between an angry wife, a devastated daughter and an offended Queen.

---

[1] Purdy, Gilbert Wesley.  Edward de Vere was Shakespeare: at long last the proof, Richmond, VA: The Virtual Vanaprastha, 2013.  58.

[2] Burgon, John William.  The Life and Times of Sir Thomas Gresham, 1, 228.  London: Robert Jennings, 1839.  (Cited from Landsdowne MS. No. 118, f. 91.)  

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• Desperately Seeking Bridget (de Vere).  August 24, 2014.  "Even most people who assert that the Earl of Oxford was the poet and playwright Shake-speare (a group to which I resoundingly belong) do not seem to know that she was engaged, in 1598, to William Herbert, soon to inherit the Earldom of Pembroke,..."

• Shake-speare and the Influence of Ronsard.  May 22, 2014.  "If Shake-speare were actually born in 1564, the question should naturally arise as to why so many of the sources for his works were written between 1560 and 1580,..."
• Check out the English Renaissance Article Index for many more articles and reviews about this fascinating time and about the Shakespeare Authorship Question.

American Life in Poetry #218:

BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006

Here is one of my favorite mother-daughter poems, by Marie Howe, who lives in New York City and who has a charming little girl.

Hurry


We stop at the dry cleaners and the grocery store
and the gas station and the green market and
Hurry up honey, I say, hurry,
as she runs along two or three steps behind me
her blue jacket unzipped and her socks rolled down.

Where do I want her to hurry to? To her grave?
To mine? Where one day she might stand all grown?
Today, when all the errands are finally done, I say to her,
Honey I'm sorry I keep saying Hurry--
you walk ahead of me. You be the mother.

And, Hurry up, she says, over her shoulder, looking
back at me, laughing. Hurry up now darling, she says,
hurry, hurry, taking the house keys from my hands.



American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org), publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by the Department of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright (c)2008 by Marie Howe, and reprinted from "When She Named Fire," ed., Andrea Hollander Budy, Autumn House Press, 2009. First published in "The Kingdom of the Ordinary" by Marie Howe, W.W. Norton, 2008. Used by permission of Marie Howe and the publisher. Introduction copyright (c)2009 by The Poetry Foundation. The introduction's author, Ted Kooser, served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006. We do not accept unsolicited manuscripts.

Also at Virtual Grub Street by/about Ted Kooser:

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American Life in Poetry #29: Debra Nystrom.

BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE

Many of you have seen flocks of birds or schools of minnows acting as if they were guided by a common intelligence, turning together, stopping together. Here is a poem by Debra Nystrom that beautifully describes a flight of swallows returning to their nests, acting as if they were of one mind. Notice how she extends the description to comment on the way human behavior differs from that of the birds.

Cliff Swallows
               --Missouri Breaks

Is it some turn of wind
that funnels them all down at once, or
is it their own voices netting
to bring them in--the roll and churr
of hundreds searing through river light
and cliff dust, each to its precise
mud nest on the face--
none of our own isolate
groping, wishing need could be sent
so unerringly to solace. But
this silk-skein flashing is like heaven
brought down: not to meet ground
or water--to enter
the riven earth and disappear.

Reprinted from "Torn Sky," Sarabande Books, 2004, by permission of the poet. Copyright (c) 2004 by Debra Nystrom, an Associate Professor of English at the University of Virginia. This weekly column is supported by
The Poetry Foundation, The Library of Congress, and the Department of English at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln. This column does not accept unsolicited poetry.




Also at Virtual Grub Street by/about Ted Kooser:

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American Life in Poetry #28: Ron Rash.

BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE

Although this poem by North Carolina native Ron Rash may seem to be just about trout fishing, it is the first of several poems Rash has written about his cousin who died years ago. Indirectly, the poet gives us clues about this loss. By the end, we see that in passing from life to death, the fish's colors dull; so, too, may fade the memories of a cherished life long lost.



Speckled Trout

Water-flesh gleamed like mica:
orange fins, red flankspots, a char
shy as ginseng, found only
in spring-flow gaps, the thin clear
of faraway creeks no map
could name. My cousin showed me
those hidden places. I loved
how we found them, the way we
followed no trail, just stream-sound
tangled in rhododendron,
to where slow water opened
a hole to slip a line in
and lift as from a well bright
shadows of another world,
held in my hand, their color
already starting to fade.



First published in "Weber Studies," 1996, and reprinted from "Raising the Dead," Iris Press, 2002, by permission of the author. Copyright (c) 1996 by Ron Rash, a writer and professor of Appalachian Cultural Studies at Western Carolina University, whose newest novel is "Saints at the River," Picador Press, 2005. This weekly column is supported by The Poetry Foundation, The Library of Congress, and the Department of English at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln. This column does not accept unsolicited poetry.



Also at Virtual Grub Street by/about Ted Kooser:

• The Ted Kooser Page: Links to online Interviews, Recordings, Poetry, Prose, Reviews, Photos and more;
• American Gothic (a review of Delights and Shadows by Ted Kooser. Copper Canyon Press, 2004);
• Ted Kooser and the American Life in Poetry column;
• American Life in Poetry #32: Kurt Brown;
• American Life in Poetry #31: Gloria G. Murray;
• American Life in Poetry #30: Naomi Shihab Nye;
• American Life in Poetry #29: Debra Nystrom;
• American Life in Poetry #28: Ron Rash;
• American Life in Poetry #17: Wendell Berry;
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• American Life in Poetry #10: Marge Piercy;
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American Life in Poetry #27: Angela Shaw.

BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE

In this lovely poem by Angela Shaw, who lives in Pennsylvania, we hear a voice of wise counsel: Let the young go, let them do as they will, and admire their grace and beauty as they pass from us into the future.


Children in a Field

They don't wade in so much as they are taken.
Deep in the day, in the deep of the field,
every current in the grasses whispers hurry
hurry, every yellow spreads its perfume
like a rumor, impelling them further on.
It is the way of girls. It is the sway
of their dresses in the summer trance--
light, their bare calves already far-gone
in green. What songs will they follow?
Whatever the wood warbles, whatever storm
or harm the border promises, whatever
calm. Let them go. Let them go traceless
through the high grass and into the willow--
blur, traceless across the lean blue glint
of the river, to the long dark bodies
of the conifers, and over the welcoming
threshold of nightfall.

Reprinted from "Poetry," September, 2004, Vol. 184, No. 5, by permission of the author. Poem copyright (c) 2004 by Angela Shaw. This weekly column is supported by The Poetry Foundation, The Library of Congress, and the Department of English at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln. This column does not accept unsolicited poetry.



Also at Virtual Grub Street by/about Ted Kooser:

• The Ted Kooser Page: Links to online Interviews, Recordings, Poetry, Prose, Reviews, Photos and more;
• American Gothic (a review of Delights and Shadows by Ted Kooser. Copper Canyon Press, 2004);
• Ted Kooser and the American Life in Poetry column;
• American Life in Poetry #32: Kurt Brown;
• American Life in Poetry #31: Gloria G. Murray;
• American Life in Poetry #30: Naomi Shihab Nye;
• American Life in Poetry #29: Debra Nystrom;
• American Life in Poetry #28: Ron Rash;
• American Life in Poetry #17: Wendell Berry;
• American Life in Poetry #11: David Wagoner;
• American Life in Poetry #10: Marge Piercy;
• American Life in Poetry #4: Ruth Stone;
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American Life in Poetry #26: Claudia Emerson.

BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE

Descriptive poetry depends for its effects in part upon the vividness of details. Here the Virginia poet, Claudia Emerson, describes the type of old building all of us have seen but may not have stopped to look at carefully. And thoughtfully.



Stable

One rusty horseshoe hangs on a nail
above the door, still losing its luck,
and a work-collar swings, an empty
old noose. The silence waits, wild to be
broken by hoofbeat and heavy
harness slap, will founder but remain;
while, outside, above the stable,
eight, nine, now ten buzzards swing low
in lazy loops, a loose black warp
of patience, bearing the blank sky
like a pall of wind on mourning
wings. But the bones of this place are
long picked clean. Only the hayrake's
ribs still rise from the rampant grasses.



Poem copyright (c) 1997 by Claudia Emerson Andrews, a 2005 Witter Bynner Fellow of the Library of Congress. Reprinted from "Pharoah, Pharoah" (1997) by permission of the author, whose newest book, "Late Wife," will appear this fall; both collections are published by Louisiana State University's Southern Messenger Poets. This weekly column is supported by The Poetry Foundation, The Library of Congress, and the Department of English at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln. This column does not accept unsolicited poetry.





Also at Virtual Grub Street by/about Claudia Emerson:

• The Claudia Emerson Page. Links to online Interviews, Recordings, Poetry, Reviews, Photos and more.
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Also at Virtual Grub Street by/about Ted Kooser:

• The Ted Kooser Page: Links to online Interviews, Recordings, Poetry, Prose, Reviews, Photos and more;
• American Gothic (a review of Delights and Shadows by Ted Kooser. Copper Canyon Press, 2004);
• Ted Kooser and the American Life in Poetry column;
• American Life in Poetry #81: Tess Gallagher;
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• American Life in Poetry #31: Gloria G. Murray;
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• American Life in Poetry #29: Debra Nystrom;
• American Life in Poetry #28: Ron Rash;
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American Life in Poetry #25: Rodney Torreson.

BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE

Emily Dickinson said that poems come at the truth at a slant. Here a birdbath and some overturned chairs on a nursing home lawn suggest the frailties of old age. Masterful poems choose the very best words and put them in the very best places, and Michigan poet Rodney Torreson has deftly chosen "ministers" for his first verb, an active verb that suggests the good work of the nursing home's chaplain.


The Bethlehem Nursing Home

A birdbath ministers
to the lawn chairs,
all toppled: a recliner
on its face, metal arms
trying to push it up;
an overturned rocker,
curvature of the spine.
Armchairs on their sides,
webbing unraveled.
One faces the flowers.
A director's chair
folded, as if prepared
to be taken up.



From "A Breathable Light," New Issues Poetry and Prose, 2002, and first published in "Cape Rock". Copyright (c) 2002 by Rodney Torreson; reprinted by permission of the author. This weekly column is supported by The Poetry Foundation, The Library of Congress, and the Department of English at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln. This column does not accept unsolicited poetry.




Also at Virtual Grub Street by/about Ted Kooser:

• The Ted Kooser Page: Links to online Interviews, Recordings, Poetry, Prose, Reviews, Photos and more;
• American Life in Poetry #49: Rodney Torreson;
• American Life in Poetry #48: Walt McDonald;
• American Life in Poetry #32: Kurt Brown;
• American Life in Poetry #31: Gloria G. Murray;
• American Life in Poetry #30: Naomi Shihab Nye;
• American Life in Poetry #29: Debra Nystrom;
• American Life in Poetry #28: Ron Rash;
• American Life in Poetry #17: Wendell Berry;
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• American Life in Poetry #10: Marge Piercy;
• American Life in Poetry #4: Ruth Stone;
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Also at Virtual Grub Street from The Poetry Foundation:

• Poetry Foundation Syndicate Column Index.

American Life in Poetry #24: Martin Walls.

BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE

In this poem by New York poet Martin Walls, a common insect is described and made vivid for us through a number of fresh and engaging comparisons. Thus an ordinary insect becomes something remarkable and memorable.


Cicadas at the End of Summer

Whine as though a pine tree is bowing a broken violin,
As though a bandsaw cleaves a thousand thin sheets of
      titanium;
They chime like freight wheels on a Norfolk Southern
      slowing into town.

But all you ever see is the silence.
Husks, glued to the underside of maple leaves.
With their nineteen fifties Bakelite lines they'd do
      just as well hanging from the ceiling of a space
      museum--

What cicadas leave behind is a kind of crystallized memory;
The stubborn detail of, the shape around a life turned

The color of forgotten things: a cold broth of tea & milk
      in the bottom of a mug.
Or skin on an old tin of varnish you have to lift with
      lineman's pliers.
A fly paper that hung thirty years in Bird Cooper's pantry
      in Brighton.

Reprinted from "Small Human Detail in Care of National Trust," New Issues Press, Western Michigan University, 2000, by permission of the author. Poem copyright (c) by Martin Walls, a 2005 Wytter Bynner Fellow of the Library of Congress. His latest collection "Commonwealth" is available from March Street Press. This weekly column is supported by The Poetry Foundation, The Library of Congress, and the Department of English at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln. This column does not accept unsolicited poetry.



Also at Virtual Grub Street by/about Ted Kooser:

• American Gothic (a review of Delights and Shadows by Ted Kooser. Copper Canyon Press, 2004);
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• American Life in Poetry #32: Kurt Brown;
• American Life in Poetry #31: Gloria G. Murray;
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• American Life in Poetry #29: Debra Nystrom;
• American Life in Poetry #28: Ron Rash;
• American Life in Poetry #17: Wendell Berry;
• American Life in Poetry #11: David Wagoner;
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• American Life in Poetry #4: Ruth Stone;
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American Life in Poetry #23: E. G. Burrows.

BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE

In this fine poem about camping by Washington poet E. G. Burrows, vivid memories of the speaker's father, set down one after another, move gracefully toward speculation about how experiences cling to us despite any efforts to put them aside. And then, quite suddenly, the father is gone, forever. But life goes on, the coffee is hot, and the bird that opens the poem is still there at its close, singing for life.


Camping Out

I watched the nesting redstart
when we camped by Lake Winnepesaukee.
The tent pegs pulled out in soft soil.
Rain made pawprints on the canvas.

So much clings to the shoes,
the old shoes must be discarded,
but we're fools to think that does it:
burning the scraps.

I listened for the rain at Mt. Monadnock,
for the barred owl on a tent peak
among scrub pines in Michigan.
I can hear my father stir

and the cot creak. The flap opens.
He goes out and never returns
though the coffee steams on the grill
and the redstart sings in the alders.



Reprinted from "Passager," 2001, by permission of the author. Copyright (c) 2001 by E. G. Burrows, whose most recent book is "Sailing As Before", Devil's Millhopper Press, 2001. This weekly column is supported by The Poetry Foundation, The Library of Congress, and the Department of English at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln. This column does not accept unsolicited poetry.



Also at Virtual Grub Street by/about Ted Kooser:

• American Gothic (a review of Delights and Shadows by Ted Kooser. Copper Canyon Press, 2004);
• Ted Kooser and the American Life in Poetry column;
• American Life in Poetry #32: Kurt Brown;
• American Life in Poetry #31: Gloria G. Murray;
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• American Life in Poetry #4: Ruth Stone;
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American Life in Poetry #22: Jean L. Connor.

BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE

In this short poem by Vermont writer Jean L. Connor, an older speaker challenges the perception that people her age have lost their vitality and purpose. Connor compares the life of such a person to an egret fishing. Though the bird stands completely still, it has learned how to live in the world, how to sustain itself, and is capable of quick action when the moment is right.



Of Some Renown

For some time now, I have
lived anonymously. No one
appears to think it odd.
They think the old are,
well, what they seem. Yet
see that great egret

at the marsh's edge, solitary,
still? Mere pretense
that stillness. His silence is
a lie. In his own pond he is
of some renown, a stalker,
a catcher of fish. Watch him.



Reprinted from "Passager," 2001 by permission of the author. Copyright (c) 2001 by Jean L. Connor whose first book of poetry, "A Cartography of Peace," is published by Passager Books, Baltimore. This weekly column is supported by The Poetry Foundation, The Library of Congress, and the Department of English at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln. This column does not accept unsolicited poetry.



Also at Virtual Grub Street by/about Ted Kooser:

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• Ted Kooser and the American Life in Poetry column;
• American Life in Poetry #32: Kurt Brown;
• American Life in Poetry #31: Gloria G. Murray;
• American Life in Poetry #30: Naomi Shihab Nye;
• American Life in Poetry #29: Debra Nystrom;
• American Life in Poetry #28: Ron Rash;
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• American Life in Poetry #11: David Wagoner;
• American Life in Poetry #10: Marge Piercy;
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American Life in Poetry #21: Karin Gottshall.

BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE

How many of us, alone at a grave or coming upon the site of some remembered event, find ourselves speaking to a friend or loved one who has died? In this poem by Karin Gottshall the speaker addresses someone's ashes as she casts them from a bridge. I like the way the ashes take on new life as they merge with the wind.


The Ashes

You were carried here by hands
and now the wind has you, gritty
as incense, dark sparkles borne

in the shape of blowing,
this great atmospheric bloom,
spinning under the bridge and expanding—

shape of wind and its pattern
of shattering. Having sloughed off
the urn's temporary shape,

there is another of you now—
tell me which to speak to:
the one you were, or are, the one who waited

in the ashes for this scattering, or the one
now added to the already haunted woods,
the woods that sigh and shift their leaves—

where your mystery billows, then breathes.



Karin Gottshall works at the Middlebury College library in Vermont. This poem first appeared in "Tar River Poetry", Vol. 44, No. 1, Fall, 2004. Reprinted by permission of the author. Poem copyright © 2004 by Karin Gottshall. This weekly column is supported by The Poetry Foundation, The Library of Congress, and the Department of English at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln. This column does not accept unsolicited poetry.




Also at Virtual Grub Street by/about Ted Kooser:

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• Poetry Foundation Syndicate Column Index.

American Life in Poetry #20: Jane Hirshfield.

BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE

In this fascinating poem by the California poet, Jane Hirshfield, the speaker discovers that through paying attention to an event she has become part of it, has indeed become inseparable from the event and its implications. This is more than an act of empathy. It speaks, in my reading of it, to the perception of an order into which all creatures and events are fitted, and are essential.



The Woodpecker Keeps Returning

The woodpecker keeps returning
to drill the house wall.
Put a pie plate over one place, he chooses another.

There is nothing good to eat there:
he has found in the house
a resonant billboard to post his intentions,
his voluble strength as provider.

But where is the female he drums for? Where?

I ask this, who am myself the ruined siding,
the handsome red-capped bird, the missing mate.



Poem copyright (c) 2005 by Jane Hirshfield from her forthcoming book "After" (Harper Collins, 2006), and reprinted by permission of the author. This weekly column is supported by The Poetry Foundation, The Library of Congress, and the Department of English at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln. This column does not accept unsolicited poetry.



Also at Virtual Grub Street by/about Ted Kooser:

• The Ted Kooser Page: Links to online Interviews, Recordings, Poetry, Prose, Reviews, Photos and more;
• American Gothic (a review of Delights and Shadows by Ted Kooser. Copper Canyon Press, 2004);
• Ted Kooser and the American Life in Poetry column;
• American Life in Poetry #32: Kurt Brown;
• American Life in Poetry #31: Gloria G. Murray;
• American Life in Poetry #30: Naomi Shihab Nye;
• American Life in Poetry #29: Debra Nystrom;
• American Life in Poetry #28: Ron Rash;
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• American Life in Poetry #10: Marge Piercy;
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American Life in Poetry #19: Shirley Buettner.

BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE

At the beginning of the famous novel, "Remembrance of Things Past," the mere taste of a biscuit started Marcel Proust on a seven-volume remembrance. Here a bulldozer turns up an old doorknob, and look what happens in Shirley Buettner's imagination.



Discovered

While clearing the west
quarter for more cropland,
the Cat quarried
a porcelain doorknob

oystered in earth,
grained and crazed
like an historic egg,
with a screwless stem of

rusted and pitted iron.
I turn its cold white roundness
with my palm and
open the oak door

fitted with oval glass,
fretted with wood ivy,
and call my frontier neighbor.
Her voice comes distant but

clear, scolding children
in overalls
and highbutton shoes.
A bucket of fresh eggs and

a clutch of rhubarb rest
on her daisied oil-cloth.
She knew I would knock someday,
wanting in.



From "Walking Out the Dark" (Juniper Press, 1984). Copyright (c) 1984 by Shirley Buettner and reprinted by permission of the author. This weekly column is supported by The Poetry Foundation, The Library of Congress, and the Department of English at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln. This column does not accept unsolicited poetry.




Also at Virtual Grub Street by/about Ted Kooser:

• American Gothic (a review of Delights and Shadows by Ted Kooser. Copper Canyon Press, 2004);
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• American Life in Poetry #37: Shirley Buettner;
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Also at Virtual Grub Street from The Poetry Foundation:

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American Life in Poetry #18: Dan Gerber.

BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE

Every reader of this column has at one time felt the frightening and paralyzing powerlessness of being a small child, unable to find a way to repair the world. Here the California poet, Dan Gerber, steps into memory to capture such a moment.




The Rain Poured Down

My mother weeping
in the dark hallway, in the arms of a man,
not my father,
as I sat at the top of the stairs unnoticed--
my mother weeping and pleading for what I didn't know
then and can still only imagine--
for things to be somehow other than they were,
not knowing what I would change,
for, or to, or why,
only that my mother was weeping
in the arms of a man not me,
and the rain brought down the winter sky
and hid me in the walls that looked on,
indifferent to my mother's weeping,
or mine,
in the rain that brought down the dark afternoon.



Dan Gerber's most recent book is "Trying to Catch the Horses" (Michigan State University Press, 1999). "The Rain Poured Down" copyright (c) 2005 by Dan Gerber and reprinted by permission of the author. This weekly column is supported by The Poetry Foundation, The Library of Congress, and the Department of English at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln. This column does not accept unsolicited poetry.




Also at Virtual Grub Street by/about Ted Kooser:

• American Gothic (a review of Delights and Shadows by Ted Kooser. Copper Canyon Press, 2004);
• Ted Kooser and the American Life in Poetry column;
• American Life in Poetry #32: Kurt Brown;
• American Life in Poetry #31: Gloria G. Murray;
• American Life in Poetry #30: Naomi Shihab Nye;
• American Life in Poetry #29: Debra Nystrom;
• American Life in Poetry #28: Ron Rash;
• American Life in Poetry #17: Wendell Berry;
• American Life in Poetry #11: David Wagoner;
• American Life in Poetry #10: Marge Piercy;
• American Life in Poetry #4: Ruth Stone;
• More from American Life in Poetry >>>

American Life in Poetry #17: Wendell Berry.

BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE

Nearly all of us spend too much of our lives thinking about what has happened, or worrying about what's coming next. Very little can be done about the past and worry is a waste of time. Here the Kentucky poet Wendell Berry gives himself over to nature.



The Peace of Wild Things

When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.



Reprinted from "Collected Works" (North Point Press, 1985) by permission of the author. Wendell Berry's most recent book is "Given: Poems" (Shoemaker and Hoard, 2005). Poem copyright (c) 1985 by Wendell Berry. This weekly column is supported by The Poetry Foundation, The Library of Congress, and the Department of English at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln. This column does not accept unsolicited poetry.




Also at Virtual Grub Street by/about Wendell Berry:

• The Wendell Berry Page: Links to online Interviews, Recordings, Poetry, Prose, Reviews, Photos and more;
• American Life in Poetry #68: Wendell Berry.

Also at Virtual Grub Street by/about Ted Kooser:

• The Ted Kooser Page: Links to online Interviews, Recordings, Poetry, Prose, Reviews, Photos and more;
• American Gothic (a review of Delights and Shadows by Ted Kooser. Copper Canyon Press, 2004);
• Ted Kooser and the American Life in Poetry column;
• American Life in Poetry #30: Naomi Shihab Nye;
• American Life in Poetry #26: Claudia Emerson;
• American Life in Poetry #20: Jane Hirshfield;
• American Life in Poetry #11: David Wagoner;
• American Life in Poetry #4: Ruth Stone;
• American Life in Poetry #3: Marnie Walsh;
• American Life in Poetry #1: David Allan Evans;
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American Life in Poetry #16: Lisel Mueller.

BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE

There are thousands upon thousands of poems about love, many of them using predictable words, predictable rhymes. Ho-hum. But here the Illinois poet Lisel Mueller talks about love in a totally fresh and new way, in terms of table salt.



Love Like Salt

It lies in our hands in crystals
too intricate to decipher

It goes into the skillet
without being given a second thought

It spills on the floor so fine
we step all over it

We carry a pinch behind each eyeball
It breaks out on our foreheads

We store it inside our bodies
in secret wineskins

At supper, we pass it around the table
talking of holidays and the sea.



Reprinted from "Alive Together: New and Selected Poems" (LSU Press, 1996) by permission of the author. Poem copyright (c) 1996 by Lisel Mueller. This weekly column is supported by The Poetry Foundation, The Library of Congress, and the Department of English at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln. This column does not accept unsolicited poetry.



Also at Virtual Grub Street by/about Lisa Mueller:

• The Lisel Mueller Page: Links to online Interviews, Recordings, Poetry, Prose, Reviews, Photos and more;
• American Life in Poetry #85: Lisel Mueller;
• The Garden of Memory. Pulitzer-prize winning poet Lisel Mueller's gentle, steady voice was shaped by a harsh history.

Also at Virtual Grub Street by/about Ted Kooser:

• The Ted Kooser Page: Links to online Interviews, Recordings, Poetry, Prose, Reviews, Photos and more;
• American Life in Poetry #32: Kurt Brown;
• American Life in Poetry #31: Gloria G. Murray;
• American Life in Poetry #30: Naomi Shihab Nye;
• American Life in Poetry #29: Debra Nystrom;
• American Life in Poetry #28: Ron Rash;
• American Life in Poetry #17: Wendell Berry;
• American Life in Poetry #11: David Wagoner;
• American Life in Poetry #10: Marge Piercy;
• American Life in Poetry #4: Ruth Stone;
• More from American Life in Poetry >>>

Also at Virtual Grub Street from The Poetry Foundation:

• Poetry Foundation Syndicate Column Index.

American Life in Poetry #15: Janet McCann.

BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE

Many of us are collectors, attaching special meaning to the inanimate objects we acquire. Here, Texas poet Janet McCann gives us insight into the significance of one woman's collection. The abundance and variety of detail suggest the clutter of such a life.



The Woman Who Collects Noah's Arks

Has them in every room of her house,
wall hangings, statues, paintings, quilts and blankets,
ark lampshades, mobiles, Christmas tree ornaments,
t-shirts, sweaters, necklaces, books,
comics, a creamer, a sugar bowl, candles, napkins,
tea-towels and tea-tray, nightgown, pillow, lamp.
Animals two-by-two in plaster, wood,
fabric, oil paint, copper, glass, plastic, paper,
tinfoil, leather, mother-of-pearl, styrofoam,
clay, steel, rubber, wax, soap.
Why I cannot ask, though I would like
to know, the answer has to be simply
because. Because at night when she lies
with her husband in bed, the house rocks out
into the bay, the one that cuts in here to the flatlands
at the center of Texas. Because the whole wood structure
drifts off, out under the stars, beyond the last
lights, the two of them pitching and rolling
as it all heads seaward. Because they hear
trumpets and bellows from the farther rooms.
Because the sky blackens, but morning finds them always
safe on the raindrenched land,
bird on the windowsill.



Reprinted from PoemMemoirStory by permission of the author. Janet McCann's most recent book is "Emily's Dress" (Pecan Grove Press, 2005). Poem copyright (c) 2003 by Janet McCann. This weekly column is supported by The Poetry Foundation, The Library of Congress, and the Department of English at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln. This column does not accept unsolicited poetry.



Also at Virtual Grub Street by/about Ted Kooser:

• American Gothic (a review of Delights and Shadows by Ted Kooser. Copper Canyon Press, 2004);
• Ted Kooser and the American Life in Poetry column;
• American Life in Poetry #81: Tess Gallagher;
• American Life in Poetry #70: Sharon Olds;
• American Life in Poetry #31: Gloria G. Murray;
• American Life in Poetry #30: Naomi Shihab Nye;
• American Life in Poetry #29: Debra Nystrom;
• American Life in Poetry #28: Ron Rash;
• America Life in Poetry #26: Claudia Emerson;
• American Life in Poetry #17: Wendell Berry;
• American Life in Poetry #11: David Wagoner;
• American Life in Poetry #4: Ruth Stone;
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To return there where once appeared before...

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by Michelangelo Buonarroti
translation by Gilbert Wesley Purdy


To return there where once appeared before
That immortal form, your earthly keep,
Like an angel filled with blushing modesty
To heal each mind, all the world would honor.
This alone I desire, and is Love to me itself;
Not to penetrate your serene composure:
The thing which Love has yet to discompose for
Having only hold of hope, in which virtue dwells.
Nor otherwise embrace things new and rare
By which nature gets its way; it is heaven
From out its endless bounties clothes you so.
Nor does God display His grace for me elsewhere
More than in that most sweet and mortal raiment;
And which alone I love, seeing there its picture go.



Gilbert Wesley Purdy's work in poetry, prose and translation has appeared in many journals, paper and electronic, including: Jacket Magazine (Australia); Poetry International (San Diego State University); Grand Street; the Valparaiso Poetry Review; The Pedestal Magazine; SLANT (University of Central Arkansas); Orbis (UK); Eclectica; and Quarterly Literary Review Singapore. His work in journalism has been cited by MSNBC, Newsweek, and Americas.Org. His Hyperlinked Online Bibliography is now also hosted at BlogSpot.

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American Life in Poetry #14: Georgiana Cohen.

BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE

Often everyday experiences provide poets with inspiration. Here Georgiana Cohen observes a woman looking out her window and compares the woman to the sunset. The woman's "slumped" chin, the fence that separates them, and the "beached" cars set the poem's tone; this is clearly not a celebration of the neighborhood. Yet by turning to clouds, sky, and breath, Cohen underscores the scene's fragile grace.


Old Woman in a Housecoat

An old woman in
a floor-length housecoat
has become sunset
to me, west-facing.
Turquoise, sage, or rose,
she leans out of her
second floor window,
chin slumped in her palm,
and gazes at the
fenced property line
between us, the cars
beached in the driveway,
the creeping slide of
light across shingles.
When the window shuts,
dusk becomes blush and
bruises, projected
on vinyl siding.
Housecoats breathe across
the sky like frail clouds.


Reprinted from "Cream City Review," 2004, by permission of the author, a writer and journalist living in Boston. Â Poem copyright 2004 by Georgiana Cohen. This weekly column is supported by The Poetry Foundation, The Library of Congress, and the Department of English at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln. This column does not accept unsolicited poetry.



Also at Virtual Grub Street by/about Ted Kooser:

• American Gothic (a review of Delights and Shadows by Ted Kooser. Copper Canyon Press, 2004);
• Ted Kooser and the American Life in Poetry column;
• American Life in Poetry #32: Kurt Brown;
• American Life in Poetry #31: Gloria G. Murray;
• American Life in Poetry #30: Naomi Shihab Nye;
• American Life in Poetry #29: Debra Nystrom;
• American Life in Poetry #28: Ron Rash;
• American Life in Poetry #17: Wendell Berry;
• American Life in Poetry #11: David Wagoner;
• American Life in Poetry #10: Marge Piercy;
• American Life in Poetry #4: Ruth Stone;
• More from American Life in Poetry >>>

American Life in Poetry #13: Kevin Griffith.

BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE

Birthdays, especially those which mark the passage of a decade, are occasions not only for celebration, but for reflection. In "Turning Forty," Ohio poet Kevin Griffith conveys a confusion of sentiments. The speaker feels a sense of peace at forty, but recalls a more powerful, more confident time in his life.


Turning Forty

At times it's like there is a small planet
inside me. And on this planet,
there are many small wars, yet none
big enough to make a real difference.
The major countries--mind and heart--have
called a truce for now. If this planet had a ruler,
no one remembers him well. All
decisions are made by committee.
Yet there are a few pictures of the old dictator--
how youthful he looked on his big horse,
how bright his eyes.
He was ready to conquer the world.


Reprinted from "Cooweescoowee, A Journal of Arts and Letters," by permission of the author, whose most recent book is "Paradise Refunded" (Backwaters Press, 1998). Poem copyright 2004 by Kevin Griffith. This weekly column is supported by The Poetry Foundation, The Library of Congress, and the Department of English at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln. This column does not accept unsolicited poetry.



Also at Virtual Grub Street by/about Ted Kooser:

• American Gothic (a review of Delights and Shadows by Ted Kooser. Copper Canyon Press, 2004);
• Ted Kooser and the American Life in Poetry column;
• American Life in Poetry #32: Kurt Brown;
• American Life in Poetry #31: Gloria G. Murray;
• American Life in Poetry #30: Naomi Shihab Nye;
• American Life in Poetry #29: Debra Nystrom;
• American Life in Poetry #28: Ron Rash;
• American Life in Poetry #17: Wendell Berry;
• American Life in Poetry #11: David Wagoner;
• American Life in Poetry #10: Marge Piercy;
• American Life in Poetry #4: Ruth Stone;
• More from American Life in Poetry >>>