Poetry

I stopped looking for you I stopped waiting for you I stopped dying for you and I started dying for myself

— Leonard Cohen · I stopped looking for you

One day you finally knew what you had to do, and began, though the voices around you kept shouting

— Mary Oliver · The Journey

there's a bluebird in my heart that wants to get out but I'm too tough for him, I say, stay in there, I'm not going

— Charles Bukowski · Bluebird

Now I am out of element And far from anything my own, My sources drained of all content, The pieces of my spirit strewn.

— Theodore Roethke · Against Disaster

Defeat, my Defeat, my self-knowledge and my defiance, Through you I know that I am yet young and swift of foot And not to be trapped by withering laurels. And in you I have found aloneness And the joy of being shunned and scorned.

— Kahlil Gibran · Defeat

and squander the power of the noblest gift, only to make men worse, more skeptical, and sadder? Is this your sacred calling as prophets and as artists?… Where are our enthusiasts, our dreamers, our troubadours, to sing us the meaning of the world and the splendors of nature?

— Alexandru Vlahuță · Where Are Our Dreamers

When I do count the clock that tells the time, And see the brave day sunk in hideous night; When I behold the violet past prime, And sable curls all silver’d o’er with white;

— William Shakespeare · Sonnet 12: When I Do Count

Do not love half lovers Do not entertain half friends Do not indulge in works of the half talented Do not live half a life and do not die a half death

— Kahlil Gibran · Do Not Love Half Lovers

Bring the Symphony Orchestra there is a thunderstorm you're playing a Wagner overture and the people leave their seats under the trees and run inside to

— Charles Bukowski · Rain

Out of the night that covers me, Black as the Pit from pole to pole, I thank whatever gods may be For my unconquerable soul.

— W.E. Henley · Invictus

I might as well begin by saying how much I like the title. It gets me right away because I’m in a workshop now so immediately the poem has my attention, like the Ancient Mariner grabbing me by the sleeve.

— Billy Collins · Workshop

I have been one acquainted with the night. I have walked out in rain—and back in rain. I have outwalked the furthest city light. I have looked down the saddest city lane.

— Robert Frost · Acquainted with the Night

*A couple years ago, I was told a story about a soldier who was set on fire and burned to death because he was gay. After that, I started reading similar stories about people in the GLBTQ community who were tortured or killed by being set on fire and burned. I couldn’t stop think…

— Andrea Gibson · Ashes

Do not try to save the whole world or do anything grandiose. Instead, create

— Martha Postlethwaite · The Clearing

I shall forget you presently, my dear, So make the most of this, your little day, Your little month, your little half a year Ere I forget, or die, or move away,

— Edna St. Vincent Millay · I shall forget you presently

Whose woods these are I think I know. His house is in the village though; He will not see me stopping here To watch his woods fill up with snow.

— Robert Frost · Stopping by Woods on a Snowy…

Rhyme XI —I am ardent, I am dark-skinned, I am the symbol of passion, my soul is filled with longing for pleasures. Are you looking for me? —No, it’s not you. —My forehead is pale, my tresses golden: I can offer you endless joys, I hold a treasure of tenderness. Are you calling…

— Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer · Rima XI (Rhyme XI)

The nutritionist said I should eat root vegetables Said if I could get down 13 turnips a day I would be grounded, rooted.

— Andrea Gibson · The Nutritionist

Indelicate is he who loathes The aspect of his fleshy clothes,— The flying fabric stitched on bone, The vesture of his skeleton,

— Theodore Roethke · Epidermal Macabre