“Recuerdo”
The speaker of the poem recalls a memory about taking a ride on the Staten Island Ferry with a friend that is so intense she is able to recall many vivid details.
“Thursday”
A woman is caught short by her lover’s rejection as she considers why it must follow that what is loved on Wednesday must still be loved on Thursday.
“Renascence”
Where landscapes and seascapes become metaphors for the burden of the poet: omniscient awareness of the misery of the world.
“The Pond”
The title tidal pool becomes the location of suicide in which a lily grasped in death is still a thing of everlasting beauty.
“The Poet and His Book”
Immortality is assured for the poet as long as the poems can continue to persuade the reader to turn the pages of the book.
“Apostrophe to Man (on reflecting that the world is ready to go to war again)”
The entirety of human must bear the brunt of bringing the world to the brink of war and beyond again and again.
“Spring”
A poetic argument against the tradition of celebrating spring in verse simply for the same of celebrating the arrival of the season.
“Czecho-Slovakia”
The shaming of the politics of doing nothing in the face of rising fascism.
“On the Wide Heath”
The story of a sad man held hostage to a shrewish wife for fear having nothing at all.
"Never May the Fruit Be Plucked"
Fruit as a metaphor for love within the context of loving what you have because it can never be expected to grow elsewhere.
“On Hearing a Symphony of Beethoven”
A poem teaching that even the most passive of artistic experiences can become collaborative when the will is there to analyze and interpret.
“Euclid Alone Has Looked on Beauty Bare”
A celebration of the rare moments of greatness and flashes of genius of which man is capable.
“Ballad of the Harp-Weaver”
A very poor woman fantasizes of having the power to weave clothes for prince from the strings of her harp
“Justice Denied in Massachusetts”
The Sacco and Vanzetti miscarriage of justice in poetic form.
“What Lips My Lips Have Kissed, and Where, and Why”
A requiem by the poet for having taken part in the very fact of romance itself more than regretful ode for a love gone wrong.
“Indifference”
A woman who is profoundly committed to surrendering to everything life has waiting, but is indifferent to it by virtue of only waiting and not taking a proactive approach to appreciating it.
“Witch-Wife"
A husband is grateful that his wife has surrendered to him, but begrudges the fact that even so, he knows he can never hope to have her completely.
“Love is not All”
An exercise in understatement in which messages of previous poems seem to be subverted with messages about the vitality of finding and being in love.
“The Return”
A poem taking the view that nature is not only constant, but exists independently of all the meaning that humans invest it with.
“On Thought in Harness”
A poem designed specifically to thumb a nose at those who pigeonhole creative minds into a cage without access to the artist’s soul.
