Category Archives: Poetry

The current state of affairs (both in the world and in my head… I hate Mondays) calls for a particular excerpt from “Oh, the Places You’ll Go!” I got the book as a high school graduation present from a lovely family that I have since lost touch with. I used to read this out loudContinue reading “Monday Night Poetry Club”

This is another one of my own translations. It’s about Kiev, my home. This poem was originally published in a collection entitled “White Flock,” in 1917. The poem itself appears to have been written in 1914. The statue of Vladimir the Christener still stands over the River Dnipro, just like it did when Akhmatova describedContinue reading “Monday Night Poetry Club”

This is one of the best short poems that I’ve ever come across, I think. It perfectly captures the peculiar nature of childhood memory against a backdrop of racism. There isn’t a single word here that’s out of place (I’m a florid writer myself, and so I like minimalism). People sometimes say that this poemContinue reading “Monday Night Poetry Club”

TWO FIGURES These figures moving in my rhyme, Who are they? Death, and death’s dog, Time. – N. Scott Momaday

I was ten years old when I discovered this, via a neighbour. Highly complex poetry in English was hard to understand at that point, not that it was necessarily a bad thing. Thank you for introducing me to poetry in the English language, Shel. SHAKING Geraldine now, stop shaking that cow For heaven’s sake, forContinue reading “Monday Night Poetry Club”