Goodbye, National Poetry Month!

April 30, 2015

Time sure flies when you’re having fun.  It’s hard to believe another National Poetry Month is already drawing to a close, but for one last hurrah, don’t miss this great mini-film adaptation of W.S. Merwin’s poem “Antique Sound.”  Enjoy, and make sure to keep coming back to Off the Shelf for Poetry 365 – a great […]


National Poetry Month: April 30th

April 30, 2015

To the Break of Dawn by Michael Robbins I wandered lonely as Jay-Z after the Fat Boys called it quits, before the rapper from Mobb Deep met up with the Alchemist. I wandered lonely all along The Watchtower’s office front in Dumbo, then across the bridge that tempts the bedlamite to song. From here you […]


National Poetry Month: April 29th

April 29, 2015

Your Laughter by Pablo Neruda Take bread away from me, if you wish, take air away, but do not take from me your laughter. Do not take away the rose, the lance flower that you pluck, the water that suddenly bursts forth in joy, the sudden wave of silver born in you.


National Poetry Month: April 28th

April 28, 2015

The Missing Person by Donald Justice He has come to report himself A missing person. The authorities Hand him the forms. He knows how they have waited With the learned patience of barbers In small shops, idle, Stropping their razors.


National Poetry Month: April 27th

April 27, 2015

The World Is Too Much With Us by William Wordsworth The world is too much with us; late and soon, Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers;– Little we see in Nature that is ours; We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon! This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon; The […]


National Poetry Month: April 25th

April 25, 2015

Natural History by E.B. White The spider, dropping down from twig, Unwinds a thread of her devising: A thin, premeditated rig To use in rising. And all the journey down through space, In cool descent, and loyal-hearted, She builds a ladder to the place From which she started. Thus I, gone forth, as spiders do, […]


National Poetry Month: April 24th

April 24, 2015

Novel by Arthur Rimbaud I. No one’s serious at seventeen. –On beautiful nights when beer and lemonade And loud, blinding cafes are the last thing you need –You stroll beneath green lindens on the promenade. Lindens smell fine on fine June nights! Sometimes the air is so sweet that you close your eyes; The wind […]


National Poetry Month: April 23rd (Happy Birthday, William Shakespeare!)

April 23, 2015

Sonnet XXV by William Shakespeare Let those who are in favor with their stars Of public honor and proud titles boast, Whilst I, whom fortune of such triumph bars, Unlooked for joy in that I honor most. Great princes’ favorites their fair leaves spread But as the marigold at the sun’s eye; And in themselves […]


National Poetry Month: April 22nd

April 22, 2015

Patience by Rabindranath Tagore If thou speakest not I will fill my heart with thy silence and endure it. I will keep still and wait like the night with starry vigil and its head bent low with patience. The morning will surely come, the darkness will vanish, and thy voice pour down in golden streams […]


National Poetry Month: April 21st

April 21, 2015

Life is Fine by Langston Hughes I went down to the river, I set down on the bank. I tried to think but couldn’t, So I jumped in and sank. I came up once and hollered! I came up twice and cried! If that water hadn’t a-been so cold I might’ve sunk and died. But […]


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