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Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Searching... Author: PLUMLY, STANLEY Matches Found: 168 Plumly, Stanley Poet's Biography 168 poems available by this author ABOVE BARNESVILLE First Line: In the body the night sky in ascension AFTER RILKE First Line: There is the poverty of children shy with child Last Line: Still married to need and the needs of others AFTER WHISTLER First Line: In his portrait of carlyle, whistler builds %from the color out Last Line: Hers, in the calendar dark, my head against her heart AGAINST STARLINGS Poem Text First Line: Their song is almost painful the way it Subject(s): Starlings AGAINST STARLINGS First Line: Their song is almost painful the way it Subject(s): Starlings ALMS First Line: The woman in my building who skips Last Line: It happened in a moment that took %hours. Then they ran AMERICAN ASH First Line: The day is late enough you could stand Last Line: Branch, green, the sudden burden of the leaves ANALOGIES OF THE LEAF First Line: Almost dark, late spring. And nothing in the chances ANOTHER NOVEMBER First Line: In the blue eye of the medievalist there is a cart in the road Last Line: Someone's face at the window ARGUMENT & SONG First Line: Like the piping of plenty, the mocker ART OF POETRY First Line: No apologies, no explanations Last Line: How requisite these hands holding these words AUTUMNAL Poem Text First Line: Not long before she died my mother told me Subject(s): Mothers; Death; Venice, Italy; Dead, The BILL'S HANGOVER First Line: First thing in the morning first things: first light Last Line: The dark cardinal weight of the light heart doubled BIRTHDAY First Line: An old morality, these evening doorways into rooms Last Line: Into my father's %arms, who lifts me, like a discovery, out of this life BLOSSOM First Line: And after a while he'd say his head was a rose Last Line: He spits his apple out and shoots himself in the mouth with his finger BUTTON MONEY First Line: You might as well pray for rain Last Line: For a penny, all you could hold CANTO XVIII First Line: In hell there is a great and giving ground Last Line: Bitterly, it was joy beyond value CARDINAL Poem Text First Line: Against the green the line in red Subject(s): Cardinals (birds) CARDINAL First Line: Against the green the line in red Last Line: Breaking and rising. Then the sun Subject(s): Cardinals (birds) CARDINALS IN A SHOWER AT UNION SQUARE First Line: At first they look like any other birds Last Line: Ready to rise and pour its heart out all over CEDAR WAXWING ON SCARLET FIRETHORN Poem Text First Line: To start again with something beautiful Subject(s): Kent State University - Riot, 1970 CEDAR WAXWING ON SCARLET FIRETHORN First Line: To start again with something beautiful Last Line: Who, when they answer, have the power of song Subject(s): Kent State University - Riot, 1970 CHEER Poem Text First Line: Like the waxwings in the juniper, Subject(s): Birds CHERTEA First Line: You know its voice Last Line: The color seemed to bleed %back into them CHINESE TALLOW First Line: I wanted to put the tree in the room Last Line: I wanted to wake in a room bright with small dark leaves CLOUD BUILDING First Line: All night there'd have been COLD PASTORAL First Line: Lee may's weeds in april's attache Last Line: The umbels, whorls, bracts and involucres COMING INTO LA GUARDIA LATE AT NIGHT First Line: The glide almost outside of time, the plane COMMELINA VIRGINICA First Line: Sky-high the light would be gold already Last Line: The smell of fresh-cut wood and putting things in my pockets COMMENT ON THOM GUNN'S 'IN SANTA MARIA DEL POPOLO' CONCERNING ..... First Line: As much as art about seeing in the dark Last Line: Through a window or coins dropped for a candle COMPLAINT AGAINST THE ARSONIST First Line: This pyrrhic fire the barn burned down and blew back Last Line: Around the horse that came out stumbling, then soared CONAN DOYLE'S COPPER BEECHES First Line: In the story they're in a clump at the front Last Line: Emptiness, letting a few leaves fall CONSTABLE CLOUDS, FOR KEAT'S Poem Text Recitation by Author First Line: They come in off the sea peaceable masters Subject(s): Keats, John (1795-1821); Clouds CONSTABLE'S CLOUDS FOR KEATS First Line: They come in off the sea peaceable masters Last Line: Wondering what our feelings are without us DARK ALL AFTERNOON First Line: The boats are rented, complete with open sail Last Line: Will not come in DETAIL WAITING FOR A TRAIN Poem Text First Line: The main floor of penn station, early Subject(s): Pennsylvania Station, New York City; Death; Dead, The DETAIL WAITING FOR A TRAIN First Line: The main floor of penn station, early Last Line: That open on their own and close at will DIGGING POTATOES, 1950 First Line: Evenings we went out alone to that long field Last Line: In the dark drinking beer like old army buddies Subject(s): Food Habits; Potatoes DOVE Poem Text First Line: Shapes as a series of edges, each edge Subject(s): Nature DOVE First Line: Shapes as a series of edges, each edge Last Line: Those lines in earth drawn with sticks that will be %straight but not in this life, love, nor money Subject(s): Nature DOVES IN JANUARY First Line: Long o's, long o's, long o's, and then a pause Last Line: As if in a moment a day could pass DRUNK First Line: Once, in canada, at dusk DRUNKS First Line: In 1948, when I was nine years old, I helped my father Last Line: Magical. I knew we would never turn over DUSK COMING ON OUTSIDE--------, NEW YORK Poem Text First Line: A kind of mountain pond or lake Subject(s): Nature DUSK COMING ON OUTSIDE--------, NEW YORK First Line: A kind of mountain pond or lake Last Line: Bending into wavelengths through the glass %with the fluency of water, water's cold gray eyes Subject(s): Nature DWARF WITH VIOLIN, GOVERNMENT CENTER STATION Poem Text First Line: The long-distance connections fade and rectify Subject(s): Loss; Moving & Movers; Refugees; U.s. - Immigration And Emigration DWARF WITH VIOLIN, GOVERNMENT CENTER STATION First Line: The long-distance connections fade and rectify Last Line: Everything looked alive as if forgotten Subject(s): Loss; Moving And Movers; Refugees; U.s. - Immigration And Emigration EARLY AND LATE IN THE MONTH First Line: White birds on the cold green winter grass, wet ELEVENS Poem Text First Line: The sun flatlining the horizon, the wind Subject(s): Childhood Memories; Travel; Journeys; Trips ELEVENS First Line: The sun flatlining the horizon, the wind Last Line: A bird took all the heart out of the air Subject(s): Childhood Memories; Travel FARRAGUT NORTH Poem Text First Line: In the tunnel-light at the top of the station two or three Subject(s): Loss; Moving & Movers; Refugees; U.s. - Immigration And Emigration FARRAGUT NORTH First Line: In the tunnel-light at the top of the station two or three Last Line: Truant spirit, moving dead leaves with the wind among the shadows Subject(s): Loss; Moving And Movers; Refugees; U.s. - Immigration And Emigration FIELD First Line: In ornithology there occurs the phrase the abrupt edge Last Line: Doorway, until the coast is clear FIFTH & 94TH First Line: People are standing, as if out of the rain Last Line: Above her body the thousand windows blur FISHING DRUNK First Line: One of the coolers filled with ice, the one Last Line: Out here, in the cold dark, in canada FOR ESTHER Poem Text First Line: From the back it looks like a porch Subject(s): Railroads; Railways; Trains FOR ESTHER First Line: From the back it looks like a porch Last Line: To tell me, out of the body, out of the body travel Subject(s): Railroads FOR JUDITH ON VALENTINE'S DAY First Line: The round green tree - impossible to pick Last Line: The difficult passage back to the everlasting FOR MY FATHER, DEAD AT FIFTY-SIX, ON MY FIFTY-SIXTH BIRTHDAY Poem Text First Line: I watched you humble a man in a fight once Subject(s): Fathers & Sons; Death; Childhood Memories; Dead, The FOR MY FATHER, DEAD AT FIFTY-SIX, ON MY FIFTY-SIXTH BIRTHDAY First Line: I watched you humble a man in a fight once Last Line: Of rising and changing back into a man FOUNDRY GARDEN First Line: Mythis of the landscape FOUNTAIN PARK First Line: At a hundred feet or more the maples FOUR APPALOOSAS First Line: First the glycerin, green transparency of rain GIRAFFE First Line: The only head in the sky Last Line: So tall %the sun will rise GLENN GOULD Poem Text First Line: I heard him that one night in cincinnati Subject(s): Gould, Glenn; Music & Musicians GROUND BIRDS IN OPEN COUNTRY Poem Text First Line: They fly up in front of you so suddenly Subject(s): Birds GROUND BIRDS IN OPEN COUNTRY First Line: They fly up in front of you Last Line: Having already gathered in great numbers on the ground HARRY SULLENBURGER First Line: Like an orphanage on fire, the purest Last Line: Toasting the end of the world to the air HE'S OUT OF BREATH ONLY HALFWAY UP THE HILL First Line: He's out of breath only halfway up the hill, Last Line: Out for change, anything, wounds in the air, rest. Variant Title(s): Boy On The Ste HEDGEROWS First Line: How many names. Some trouble Last Line: Of the turning of the year and the dead father HERON First Line: You still sometimes sleep HORSE IN THE CAGE Poem Text First Line: Its face, as long as an arm, looks down & down. Subject(s): Horses; Fathers; Dreams; Nightmares HUMAN EXCREMENT Poem Text First Line: The detail and distinguishing odor Subject(s): Nature HUMAN EXCREMENT First Line: The detail and distinguishing odor Last Line: After all, so animal or angry, %this answer to longing and our hunger Subject(s): Nature HUMILITY ELM First Line: Growing up I never thought of it by name Last Line: And we arrived and died within our names buried inside wood IMAGINARY PRISONS Poem Text First Line: A piranesian interior. Operatic space Subject(s): Piranesi, Giambattista (1720-1778); Buildings & Builders; Imagination; Fancy IN ANSWER TO AMY'S QUESTION WHAT'S A PICKEREL Poem Text First Line: Pickerel have infinite, small bones, and skins Subject(s): Nature IN ANSWER TO AMY'S QUESTION WHAT'S A PICKEREL First Line: Pickerel have infinite, small bones, and skins Last Line: Is level with the lake, the wind calm, %the air ice-blue, blue-black, and flecked with rain Subject(s): Nature IN PASSING Poem Text First Line: On the canadian side, we're standing far enough away Subject(s): Boats; Rain IN PASSING First Line: On the canadian side, we're standing far enough away Last Line: The new rain rising slowly from the river IN THE OLD JEWISH CEMETERY IN PRAGUE First Line: Winter riot of waves the way these stones Last Line: Snowfall, dust, the piling and the drift INFIDELITY Poem Text First Line: The two-toned olds swinging sideways out of Subject(s): Childhood Memories; Parents; Quarrels; Parenthood; Arguments; Disagreements INFIDELITY First Line: The two-toned olds swinging sideways out of the drive Last Line: Parents, one of whom was driving away IRON LUNG First Line: So this is the dust that passes through porcelain Last Line: You could lie down where you were and listen to the dead JAMES WRIGHT ANNUAL FESTIVAL First Line: That night we flew into pittsburgh where tom flynn met the plane KARATE First Line: If I could chop wood. %if I could just cut through %this furniture Last Line: If I could only drive nails %deep into the hard rose of the wood Subject(s): Sports; Wrestling And Wrestlers KEATS IN BURNS COUNTRY Poem Text First Line: It isn't so much that burns, like the best Subject(s): Keats, John (1795*1821); Burns, Robert (1759-1796); Scotland KEATS IN BURNS COUNTRY First Line: It isn't so much that burns, like the best Last Line: The snow cloud of ben nevis you'll be dead KUNITZ TENDING ROSES First Line: Naturally he doesn't hear too well Last Line: In the hand, the hand torn with caring LAPSED MEADOW Poem Text First Line: Wild has its skills Subject(s): Gardens & Gardening LAPSED MEADOW First Line: Wild has its skills Last Line: Bare-knuckled, part of the year %blossoming Subject(s): Gardens And Gardening LAST PARENT First Line: Of course she'll wave goodbye, the oceanliner's Last Line: Whose wake, against the dark, this sail LAZARUS AT DAWN First Line: Your whole life you are two with one taken Last Line: Invisible, incurable, endless LONG COMPANIONS Recitation by Author MAGPIE First Line: First, the fence-sitting, followed by Last Line: That will be something MAPLES First Line: In a wheat field, at evening, the wheat Last Line: What the wind, you said, had put there MARRIAGE IN THE TREES First Line: When the wind was right everything else Last Line: More hawthorns blazing out, telling truth MEN WORKING ON WINGS First Line: In dreams they were everything hurt MISSIONARY POSITION First Line: Even the light coming down is slick with rain Last Line: I am going to let the rain come down, all over me MOTHER First Line: Everything is a secret Last Line: Sleep is always summer. %that's why this leaf MOVIE Poem Text First Line: Days I drove those distances it was night most of the time, the Subject(s): Motion Pictures; Travel; Movies; Cinema; Journeys; Trips MOVIE First Line: Days I drove those distances it was night most of the time, the Last Line: In snow, if all that you did was get out of the car you'd never %get there Subject(s): Motion Pictures; Travel MY LAWRENCE Poem Text First Line: The future, rain in every syllable and cell Last Line: It was raining and no one knew who lawrence was Subject(s): Fathers; Family Life; Coal Mines & Miners; Lawrence, David Herbert (1885-1930) MY MOTHER'S FEET Poem Text First Line: How no shoe fit them Subject(s): Mothers; Feet MY MOTHER'S FEET First Line: How no shoe fit them Last Line: Every step of the way shining out of them NAG'S HEAD First Line: The weather starts at sea-level -- ten-, twelve Last Line: The bodies stacked like timber to be burned NOBODY SLEEPS First Line: One theory is that acid wastes in the blood Last Line: Which, if you were dreaming, would wake you NONE OF US DIES ENTIRELY-SOME OF US, ALL First Line: None of us dies entirely-some of us, all Last Line: The heart, whose loss is felt, though invisible. NOVEMBER 11, 1942-NOVEMBER 12, 1997 First Line: My friend's body walking toward me Last Line: And breath itself, cupped till it runneth over NOW THAT MY FATHER LIES DOWN BESIDE ME First Line: We lie in that other darkness, ourselves Last Line: No single, turning light. And I would not touch him %who lies deeper in the drifting dark than life OFF A SIDE ROAD NEAR STAUNTON Poem Text First Line: Some nothing afternoon, no one anywhere, Subject(s): Landscape ONE-LEGGED WOODEN REDWING First Line: Whittled to size and military dress Last Line: Whiskey, stub cigar, and small pieces of wood OUT-OF-THE-BODY TRAVEL Poem Text First Line: And then he would lift this finest / of furniture Subject(s): Violins OUT-OF-THE-BODY TRAVEL First Line: And then he would lift this finest %of furniture Last Line: I will feel the wind coming down hard %like his hand, in fe ver, on my forehead Subject(s): Violins PANEGYRIC FOR GEE Poem Text First Line: The anachronistic face of the bulldog Subject(s): Animals; Dogs PANEGYRIC FOR GEE First Line: The anachronistic face of the bulldog Last Line: Whose singing sober voice alone breaks hearts Subject(s): Animals; Dogs PEPPERGRASS First Line: Nothing you could know, or name, or say %in your sleep Last Line: Nothing you could name %blowing the lights out, one by one PITYRIASIS ROSEA Poem Text First Line: We say the blood rose, meaning it came to the surface Subject(s): Aids (disease); Sickness; Illness PITYRIASIS ROSEA First Line: We say the blood rose, meaning it came to the surface Last Line: Passed on, scattered, or poured back into the earth Subject(s): Aids (disease); Sickness POLIO Poem Text First Line: Those humid hours taht lingered on for days Subject(s): Children; Growth; Childhood POLIO First Line: Those humid hours taht lingered on for days Last Line: Another year of colds and growing pains for days Subject(s): Children; Growth POSTHUMOUS KEATS Poem Text First Line: The road is so rough severn is walking, Subject(s): Keats, John (1795-1821) POSTHUMOUS KEATS First Line: The road is so rough severn is walking PROMISING THE AIR First Line: A woman I loved talked in her sleep to children Last Line: Kept her promise to the air. And for the boy READING WITH THE POETS Poem Text First Line: Whitman among the wounded, at the bedside, Subject(s): Keats, John (1795-1821); Whitman, Walt (1819-1891) READING WITH THE POETS First Line: Whitman among the wounded, at the bedside Last Line: Now in the night our faces kissed by the healer RED SOMERSAULT First Line: The night my mother died Last Line: In weather sleeps in cars SHADOWER First Line: They were being led -- though not so much led Last Line: As they did, once you turned your head and thought SICKLE First Line: Sharper than the scythe, which, like the ladder Last Line: You wanted, when you were finished, a field SIMILE Poem Text First Line: This heart I found at low tide this morning Subject(s): Seashore; Detritus; Beach; Coast; Shore SITTING ALONE IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT Poem Text First Line: Maybe it was summer and I was back home for a while Subject(s): Fathers SIX SHAPES IN NATURE First Line: There's a river of birds in migration SNIPERS First Line: The owls are impossible, priceless Last Line: Where we'll never kill them all, nor see an owl SNOWING, SOMETIMES First Line: You couldn't keep it out Last Line: Than flour, piled in the %small far corners SOME CANVASES THAT WILL RETAIN THEIR CALM... First Line: The gesso whitens on the negro faces Last Line: Until the canvases look like nothing %seen; and mouths %are shut like fists around their silence SONNET First Line: Whatever it is, however it comes, it takes time Last Line: And it is morning, my mother's arms around him SOULS OF SUICIDES AS BIRDS First Line: Because of his fierce red-orange hair Last Line: Noise high in the tulip poplars SPIRIT BIRDS Poem Text First Line: The spirit world the negative of this one Subject(s): Ghosts SPRING WINE First Line: That moment when the couple's kissing lasts Last Line: Love's cup at the lip. And these two people %out in the world drinking the whole of it STATE BIRDS First Line: Chosen for their numbers as much as their numinous presences Last Line: Seagull, to be, like the sego lily, its sign in the desert SUMMER CELESTIAL First Line: At dusk I row out to what looks like light or anonymity Last Line: Each body buoyed, even blessed, by what the other cannot have SWEAT First Line: Summer was worse but winter too the water seemed poured out of him Last Line: Builder who dismantles, brick by board, his own ruined body in order %to build THE CROWS AT 3 A.M. Poem Text First Line: The politically correct, perfect snow of vermont Last Line: In the air live in a lonelness we can only imagine Subject(s): Vermont; Crows; Solitude; Fitzgerald, F. Scott (1896-1940) THE FOUNDRY GARDEN Poem Text Subject(s): Fathers; Family Life; Relatives THE MARRIAGE IN THE TREES Poem Text First Line: When the wind was right everything else Subject(s): Trees THE MORNING AMERICA CHANGED Poem Text First Line: Happened in the afternoon at villa serbelloni. TOWARD UMBRIA First Line: It isn't the poppies Last Line: Ploughmen and gleaners, shepherds-of-the keep, %those on theroad, those lost TREE FERNS Poem Text First Line: They were the local ohio palm, tropic in the heat of trains. Subject(s): Palm Trees; Railroads; Railways; Trains TREE FERNS First Line: They were the local ohio palm, tropic in the heat of trains Last Line: Or break off what you can and cut it clean TWO AUTUMNS First Line: A prophecy of mist - it came in october TWO MOMENTS, FOR MY MOTHER First Line: Lacrimal, clavicle, patella Last Line: One color, then another -- lily, chrysanthemum, dew VALENTINE First Line: In summer they bunched like fruit, green Last Line: We lay on the sleep of children VICTORY HEIGHTS First Line: Five, six, seven stories hight: you could throw VIRGINIA BEACH First Line: Those mornings in green mountains Last Line: Will carry, clear that it will all come back in another form WADERS AND SWIMMERS First Line: The first morning it flew out of the fog Last Line: Is nothing but air, nothing but first light and summer %and water rising in a smoke of waters WALKING OUT First Line: I would walk out of this flesh Last Line: Out of body, leaving behind, in a wake %of absence, clothes, fingerprints, words WHITE BIBLE First Line: The only one in the king james version Last Line: A chaos on the surface WHITE OAKS ASCENDING First Line: In the mind-weave Last Line: I died, I climbed a tree, I sang WIGHT Poem Text First Line: In the dark we disappear, pure being Subject(s): Life WILDFLOWER Poem Text Subject(s): Flowers WILDFLOWER First Line: Some - the ones with fish names - grow so north %they last only a month Last Line: Her face lily-white, kissed and dry and cold WILL WORK FOR FOOD First Line: He was off the road on the island, the Last Line: Brother to dragons, companions to owls WILLIAM MATTHEW'S ARMISTICE POPPIES First Line: Lucky elevens, saturday, november Last Line: On the other side great souls WITH STEPHEN IN MAINE First Line: The huge mammalian rocks in front of the lawn Last Line: But far and hurt from where he is seeing WOMAN DROWNS AFTER SLIPPING FROM FLOATING REFRIGERATOR First Line: In those days they were still called iceboxes Last Line: The moonlight drinking at the surfaces WOMAN ON TWENTY-SECOND EATING BERRIES Poem Text First Line: She's not angry exactly but all business Subject(s): Food & Eating WOMAN ON TWENTY-SECOND EATING BERRIES First Line: She's not angry exactly but all business Last Line: How natural this woman eating berries, how alone WYOMING POETRY CIRCUIT First Line: Climbing down out of the rain, which is what Variant Title(s): The Wyoming Poetry Tou |
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