April 30: Farewell, with poems by Jane Hirshfield and Simon Armitage

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13 Responses to “April 30: Farewell, with poems by Jane Hirshfield and Simon Armitage”

1. Janice in GA says:

   April 30, 2011 at 10:24 am

   I just wanted to say how much I enjoy the Poem-A-Day every April. I’ve been on the mailing list for a few years now. I’m always happy when April comes around.

   Many thanks, Knopf, for the Poem-A-Day feature!
2. Laurel Moss says:

   April 30, 2011 at 10:46 am

   Would that you could continue with a poem a day. I have enjoyed those you have presented and each day when coffeeing down, I read and meditate on the poems. Here is my presentation of Deer:
   Stick legged
   with wing ears
   devouring grass quieter than a motor
   Just the tear and chomp and chew.
   Stopping, stooping at a ghost sound
   Onyx eyes stilled in alarm
   a silent leap
   delicately darting into brush
   vanishing, a mirage of levitation

   Thank you for this opportunity my thanks particularly to Jane Hirshfield for her Deer.
   Laurel
3. Roger says:

   April 30, 2011 at 11:35 am

   Thank you for the poems of April. Must be a lot of work but would you consider doing it year round? Once a week maybe? But thank you for the poems.
4. Genie says:

   April 30, 2011 at 12:43 pm

   Deep gratitude to the Knopf Poetry Team–a lovely way to spend spring mornings, reading these wonderful poems. Thank you!

   ~ Until we meet again over a warm cup of tea, a quite morning, and a fine bit of poetry to sit with ~
5. Melvin Rosenberg says:

   April 30, 2011 at 12:45 pm

   The Knopf Poetry Team is to be commended for presenting constant readers two good poems for this final day of Poetry Month. And while both poems intrigue , the Armitage takes over its knee and gives me a deserved poetic spanking. It is very contemporary but it is in dialogue with all the history of poetry. I assume that the Manic Street Preachers, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, and the Teardrop Explodes are all music groups, the first and last may be made up. I am not a pop music fan. I also take that is religious poem, and maybe a satire on the cult of celebrity or the worship of pop culture and its phony icons. The word “slouched” in the penultimate line invokes Yeats’s Sailing to Byzantium: “slouching toward Bethlehem to be born”, one of the most quoted and discussed phrases in all 20th century poetry. It isn’t crucial to know exactly what Armitage had in mind. All I know is, it is important and intriguing and speaks to me and my properly spanked backside.
6. Rimaya Suchiang says:

   April 30, 2011 at 1:56 pm

   The April of 2011 will be the most memorable month of my life. It happens that I was born on 25th April, so this year I’ve got the best gift of my life through this Poem-a-day.
   Thank you so much!
7. Barbara Bamberger says:

   April 30, 2011 at 5:29 pm

   I loved the Poetry of the Month emails. The chosen poems were great. I wish it would continue year round, but since it doesn’t I’ll just have to spend time in your website. Thank you for brightening my day each morning.
8. Elizabeth B. Word says:

   April 30, 2011 at 6:53 pm

   Please don’t stop.

   Although a voracious reader, I’ve never been into poetry.

   Now I’m addicted and look forward with interest to the particular perspective of the author.

   Poem-A-Day’s daily meditation is my one minute vacation.

   Keep going,
   Elizabeth
9. Betsey says:

   April 30, 2011 at 11:14 pm

   The Supple Deer takes my breath away!
   Thank you for a lovely month of Poetry a Day!
10. Al Johnson says:

    May 1, 2011 at 2:51 am

    Armitage’s poem is the kind of poetry you want
    to read and go home and cry about. I concur
    with melvin rosenberg when he says “I have no idea what the poem means but it represents the truth”. I’m not a pop music fan either – I can’t stand that tinsel with all its shim shammery, phoniness, and pop stars with I.Q.s less than 50. I don’t agree with society when it raises those sorts of people to the elite. Why don’t we commit idolatry with poets and not pop stars? And the word “soupy” (in my opinion) invokes the Campbell soup company when it says “It’s Amazing What Soup Can Do”.

    Thanks for all the poems Knopf Poetry Team!
11. Rob Tietze says:

    May 2, 2011 at 1:05 pm

    Thanks so much for your April celebration of poetry…I was especially glad to see Phillip Levine highlighted, although perhaps with a different poem…although I know that it is difficult to select 30+ poets to represent, I can’t imagine the following poets being left off the list! I feel these are true luminaries in the history of AmeriCan poetry…with the exception of Yeats and Rilke of course….perhaps next time…? Thank you again…

    W.D. Snodgrass
    Elizabeth Spires
    Robert Frost
    WB Yeats
    Theodore Roethke
    Randall Jarrell
    Elizabeth Bishop
    Sylvia Plath
    Walt Whitman
    Rilke
12. Diana Mandli says:

    May 2, 2011 at 1:57 pm

    Thank you, Knopf Poetry Team, for another wonderful month of poems! I look forward to Poem-a-Day every year. Every year, the Poetry Team introduces me to poets whose works I have not read before; every year, the Knopf selections inspire me to further reading, and my list of favorite poems and poets grows. What a wonderful gift! Thank you so much.
13. Antoinette Martin says:

    May 19, 2011 at 1:00 pm

    Oprah has done it again. I didn’t know there was a month designated to celebrate poetry. Her site lead me to your wonderful website, poem a day Knopfdoubleday. Thank you for sharing such great poetry!.
    Your site makes me so very happy!