A Poem A Day (Day 6): "The God Abandons Antony" by C. P. Cavafy

To read the poem, click here: "The God Abandons Antony"

To hear Leonard Cohen's exquisite adaptation, click here: "Alexandra Leaving"

Note: a buddy of mine just criticized my pronunciation of "delectation," but I don't care what the dictionaries say. I've been pronouncing it with a short "e" for many years, and I will fight for that. For me, delectation requires that delectable short "e."

A Poem A Day (Day 5): "Failing and Flying" by Jack Gilbert

To read the poem, click here: "Failing and Flying"

A Poem A Day (Day 4): "How to Be Eaten by a Lion" by Michael Johnson

A Poem A Day (Day 3): "Rain Light" by W. S. Merwin

This isn't the greatest reading of this exquisite poem by W. S. Merwin, but Timothy made a cameo and demanded that I use this version. This is take one: spontaneity over perfection.

To read the poem (and please do read it!), click here: Rain Light

Also, to hear Merwin himself read it, click here: Merwin Reads "Rain Light"

A Poem A Day (Day 2): "Monet Refuses the Operation" by Lisel Mueller

To read the full poem, click here: Monet Refuses

A Poem A Day: "Try to Praise the Mutilated World" by Adam Zagajewski (Tr. Clare Cavanagh)

To read the poem, click here: "Try to Praise the Mutilated World"

Lawrence Durrell's "Echo"

Below is one of my favorite Durrell poems, the fragile and gorgeous "Echo," which opens the 1956 edition of Durrell's Selected Poems. Read the poem out loud and notice its use of echo (rhyme), which builds to a crescendo in the final line, especially in the exquisite "unbeckonable," which overtly echoes "echo" in the very spine of the word, and in the final "bird," which nicely re-sounds the "b" from the prior word at the same time that it picks up the "word-heard" rhyme from lines 3 and 4, respectively. The poem manages to echo the ultimately inaudible ground from which language arises and to which it beautifully strains to return.

ECHO

Nothing is lost, sweet self,

Nothing is ever lost.
The unspoken word
Is not exhausted but can be heard.
Music that stains
The silence remains
O echo is everywhere, the unbeckonable bird!