Jupiter Hammon (1711-1806) lived in slavery his entire life and was nevertheless the first African American poet published in North America. Read more about Jupiter Hammon’s life here.
Nikki Giovanni calls the Poetry Crisis Line
Read “The Laws of Motion” by Nikki Giovanni here.
Transcript:
Jerry (counselor): Poetry Crisis Line, what is your emergency?
Nikki Giovanni: The laws of science teach us a pound of gold weighs as much as a pound of flour
Jerry: Like When Galileo dropped them off the Leaning Tower?
Nikki: …though if dropped from any undefined height in their natural state one would reach bottom and one would fly away.
Jerry: Is that how that experiment went?
Nikki: Laws of motion tell us an inert object is more difficult to propel than an object heading the wrong direction is to turn around.
Jerry: Like a car or like a tennis ball? And you do think we can still turn it around?
Ben Jonson calls the Poetry Crisis Line
Happy 448th birthday to Ben Jonson!
Gil Scott-Heron calls the Poetry Crisis Line
Alanis Morissette calls the Rock & Roll Crisis Line (part 2 of 2)
Alanis Morissette calls the Rock & Roll Crisis Line (part 1 of 2)
A pop star turned 46.
Happy birthday to Alanis Morissette.
Poets Answer an Age-Old Question (part 6)
Happy birthday to Theodore Roethke, who would have turned 112 on Monday, had it not been Memorial Day. Uh, I mean, had it not been for his untimely death in 1963. Except that, you know, a timely death would have caught up with him by now.
Poets answer an age-old question
Why did the chicken cross the road?
Theodore Roethke:
I cross the road, but take the crossing slow,
But don’t ask why—for now I do not know.
(I learn by going where I have to go.)
If All Poems Were Limericks: The Man He Killed, by Thomas Hardy
If all poems were limericks:
“The Man He Killed” by Thomas Hardy
Had he and I met by an inn,
we might have drunk whiskey and gin.
I shot him instead
and now that he’s dead
I wonder what else might have been.
Alexander Pope calls the Poetry Crisis Line
The Poetry Crisis Line continues to rob the cradle. Happy 332nd birthday to Alexander Pope.
Omar Khayyam calls the Poetry Crisis Line
Happy birthday to Omar Khayyam, who is 972 today!