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Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Searching... Author: VOIGT, ELLEN BRYANT Matches Found: 115 Voigt, Ellen Bryant Poet's Biography 115 poems available by this author A MARRIAGE POEM Poem Text First Line: Morning: the caged baby Subject(s): Marriage; Family Life; Weddings; Husbands; Wives; Relatives APPLE TREE First Line: No choice for the apple tree Last Line: This one, this one life ART OF DISTANCE, 4 First Line: What art and money do is dig things up Last Line: First a net, then a veil, and then a shroud ART OF DISTANCE, 5 First Line: When you saw your father last, he was tied into a chair Last Line: In order that the infant be delivered ART OF DISTANCE, V First Line: After lunch, on the side porch Last Line: Hulling peas in a china bowl-sometimes %the world looks back AT THE MOVIE: VIRGINIA, 1956 Poem Text First Line: This is how it was: Subject(s): Racism; Southern States; Motion Pictures; Youth; Racial Prejudice; Bigotry; South (u.s.); Movies; Cinema AT THE MOVIE: VIRGINIA, 1956 First Line: This is how it was Last Line: While they were free, lounging above us, %their laughter pelting down on us like trash AT THE PIANO First Line: At the piano, the girl, as if rowing upstream Last Line: No one could be happier than this AT THE PIANO: VARIATIONS First Line: The almost visible wall Last Line: In the clearing: plank by plank %and each plank true AUTUMN IN THE YARD WE PLANTED First Line: Whoever said that I should count on mind? Last Line: Though surely they could see it from where they are BAT First Line: Reading in bed, full of sentiment BLUE RIDGE Poem Text First Line: Up there on the mountain road, the fireworks Subject(s): Fireworks; Man-woman Relationships; Middle Age; Grief; Male-female Relations; Sorrow; Sadness BLUE RIDGE First Line: Up there on the mountain road, the fireworks Last Line: Their separate, discontinuous lanterns BRIEF DOMESTIC HISTORY First Line: A lonely man has come to our door Last Line: Because I make great soup, great apple pie BRIGHT LEAF Poem Text First Line: Like words put to a song, the bunched tobacco leaves Subject(s): Tobbaco Farms; Women - Employment; Children; Farm Life; Southern States; Professional Women; Women In Business; Women's Careers; Childhood; Agriculture; Farmers; South (u.s.) BRIGHT LEAF First Line: Like words put to a song, the bunched tobacco leaves Last Line: Trying to cut the gummy resin, that stubborn %black satin withing the greens CHOSEN First Line: You cannot see the horns from where you sit CUSP First Line: So few birds-the ones that winter through DANCING WITH POETS Poem Text First Line: The accident' is what he calls the time Subject(s): Bars & Bartenders; Dancing & Dancers; Pubs; Taverns; Saloons DANCING WITH POETS First Line: The accident' is what he calls the time Last Line: To the overwhelming drone of the living world Subject(s): Bars And Bartenders; Dancing And Dancers DAUGHTER First Line: There is one grief worse than any other Last Line: That leaves me stunned %by your survival DEAR MATTIE, YOU'RE SWEET TO WRITE ME EVERY DAY First Line: Dear mattie, you're sweet to write me every day. Last Line: I'll try to bring you back some french perfume. EFFORT AT SPEECH First Line: Nothing was as we'd thought, the sea Last Line: I felt I was seeing through the skull- %and then away EXILE First Line: The widow refuses sleep, for sleep pretends FARM WIFE Poem Text First Line: Dark as the spring river, the earth Subject(s): Farm Life; Agriculture; Farmers FARM WIFE First Line: Dark as the spring river, the earth Last Line: Its black mouth like a scar Subject(s): Farm Life FARMER First Line: In the still-blistering late afternoon Last Line: Like minor disappointments %instructive poisons, something he could use Subject(s): Farm Life FIELD TRIP First Line: This time they're thirteen, no longer Last Line: Bad boy who carved a scorpion on his arm FIRST SONG First Line: Great ugliness defeated, and great evil: the hero Last Line: God of silence, %who lays the golden staff across their eyes FISH First Line: Fish in a bowl, cat on the rug, a vase Last Line: This fish in my net %and me thrown back ten years FOR MY FATHER First Line: Turning from a loss FOR MY HUSBAND Poem Text First Line: Is it a dream Subject(s): Marriage; Weddings; Husbands; Wives FOR MY HUSBAND First Line: Is it a dream Last Line: Whose sad head %looms over any choice you make? Subject(s): Marriage FOR MY MOTHER Poem Text First Line: When does the soul leave the body? Subject(s): Mothers FOR MY MOTHER First Line: When does the soul leave the body? Last Line: Sunflowers outside the window, %drooping over the snow like tongueless bells Subject(s): Mothers FROG First Line: Can't help himself, goes in and out of water FUGUE First Line: The body, a resonant bowl GARDEN, SPRING, THE HAWK First Line: Like a struck match: redbird, riding the wet Last Line: To keep a little distance from what we are GROUNDHOG Recitation by Author HAPPINESS POEMS First Line: A small figure going up the mountain HARNESS First Line: The lamp still lit in the studio Last Line: He turned to the blank page %and set the ruined thing to work again HERZENLIED First Line: Floodgates open upriver, the current Last Line: But the ferryman in the prow, easing us %with a last, passionate lie HIMALAYA Poem Text First Line: Branches: wings: we sheltered in thick fir trees. Subject(s): Mothers; Death; Dead, The HIMALAYA First Line: Branches wings: we sheltered in thick fir trees Last Line: Whose loss, whose task, whose darkened nursery? HOUSE First Line: This orphaned house. Its needs, its presences Last Line: We live with loss, a child's repeating absence IN THE WAITING ROOM First Line: In oxford, mississippi, having cruised main Last Line: Writer, they are the same thing INNOCENTS First Line: How far must the fruit fall from the tree? Last Line: Eidolon on a roman consul's staff, %or like the consul, with his cloak and sword JANUARY Poem Text First Line: After days of putting down my poem Subject(s): Heat JANUARY First Line: After days of putting down my poem Last Line: Since I am the one who keeps the fire Subject(s): Heat JUG BROOK First Line: Beyond the stone wall Last Line: In the slate face of the water LANDSCAPE, DENSE WITH TREES Poem Text First Line: When you move away, you see how much depends Subject(s): Nostalgia LANDSCAPE, DENSE WITH TREES First Line: When you move away, you see how much depends Subject(s): Nostalgia LARCH Recitation by Author LARGESSE Poem Text Subject(s): Dreams; Rain; Grief; Nightmares; Sorrow; Sadness LAST CLASS First Line: Put this in your notebooks LAST LETTER Poem Text Recitation by Author First Line: A proper interval, and then Subject(s): Divorce; Remarriage; Grief; Second Marriage; Sorrow; Sadness LETTERS First Line: The drawer is full of letters. They rustle and sigh Last Line: Blue ink, lined white paper: familiar %as the letter waving in my mother's hand LIEBESGEDICHT Poem Text First Line: I love you as my other self, as the other Subject(s): Love LONG MARRIAGE First Line: Forward his numb foot, back Last Line: This far, this far, this far LOTUS FLOWERS First Line: The surface of the pond was mostly green MAESTRO Poem Text Recitation by Author First Line: He smoked like a chimney we used to say unfiltered Subject(s): Music Teachers MAGIC GLASS Poem Text Recitation by Author Subject(s): Thought; Mind, The; Thinking MARRIAGE First Line: Under its angry skin, her grief Last Line: A new wife, wants her to take him in, %produce a pearl Subject(s): Divorce MARRIAGE POEM First Line: Morning: the caged baby NIGHTSHADE Poem Text First Line: The dog lay under the house, having crawled Subject(s): Animals; Dogs NIGHTSHADE First Line: The dog lay under the house, having crawled Subject(s): Animals; Dogs NOCTURNE First Line: Through the clotted street and down Last Line: The city is capricious, releasing brute %want from the body's need where it was housed. ONCE THE WORLD HAD HAD ITS FILL OF WAR First Line: Once the world had had its fill of war, Last Line: And where there'd been the war, an empty sleeve. ORIGINAL WOMAN First Line: It is september %you are somewhere in paris PASTORAL First Line: Crouched in the yard PITTSYLVANIA COUNTY Poem Text First Line: In the front yard, my father and his son Subject(s): Fathers & Sons; Baseball POND First Line: Eight years. Last week Last Line: A runoff pond, shallow, subversive, %where frogs feed on theminnows, snakes on the frogs PRACTICE Poem Text First Line: To weep unbidden, to wake PREPARATION Poem Text First Line: The bone-man lives in a stucco Subject(s): Family Life; Dogs; Death; Relatives; Dead, The PREY Poem Text First Line: Beneath the gathering layers of gauze Subject(s): Winter QUARREL Poem Text First Line: Since morning they have been quareling Subject(s): Quarrels; Family Life; Arguments; Disagreements; Relatives RESCUE First Line: All morning you squat in the weeds Last Line: Braiding the long line that knots and tangles SELF-PORTRAIT AT LAGUARDIA First Line: She completes the generic oval, a feathered Last Line: Into the streets, the park, the train, hungry for faces? %now she lifts it toward me, what we've mad SHORT STORY Poem Text First Line: My grandfather killed a mule with a hammer Subject(s): Farm Life; Agriculture; Farmers SHORT STORY First Line: My grandfather killed a mule with a hammer Last Line: And only a few of us are left %who ever heard that story Subject(s): Farm Life SOFT CLOUD PASSING First Line: Ice goes out of the pond as it came in Last Line: Believes she feels him cooling in her arms SONG AND STORY First Line: The girl strapped in the bare mechanical crib Last Line: Little sister, frantic little sparrow, under the eaves SOOTHSAYER First Line: She looked at my hand as into a bowl of soup Last Line: It was long ago, before I was your mother, %she placed that wrapped package in my palm SPIRE First Line: In the bavarian steeple, on the hour SPRING First Line: Beneath the fabric of leaves Last Line: The last release, the rush, %the blunt completion STONE POND First Line: Driving over the limit Last Line: What should I have done to make it last? STORM First Line: After trimming the split trunk of the maple SUICIDES Poem Text First Line: Ink blot, sperm on a slide, a squirm Subject(s): Environment; Sea Monsters; Environmental Protection; Ecology; Conservation; Sea Serpents SUICIDES First Line: Ink blot, sperm on a slide, a squirm Subject(s): Environment; Sea Monsters SWEET EVERLASTING First Line: Swarming over the damp ground with pocket lenses Last Line: Remembered, that is, %nothing that could save him TEST First Line: The child is hot to her hand, less on his white Last Line: And so she holds him tighter, tighter, %believes she feels him cooling in her arms THE BAT Poem Text First Line: Reading in bed, full of sentiment Subject(s): Bats THE FARMER Poem Text First Line: In the still-blistering late afternoon Subject(s): Farm Life; Agriculture; Farmers THE HIVE Poem Text Recitation by Author First Line: To do something with it: to make something of it Subject(s): Family Life; Human Behavior; Relatives; Conduct Of Life; Human Nature THE LESSON Poem Text First Line: The earnest are the easiest deceived Subject(s): Tadpoles; Family Life; Truth; Relatives THE MARRIAGE Poem Text First Line: Under its angry skin, her grief Subject(s): Divorce THE SPIRE Poem Text First Line: In the bavarian steeple, on the hour, Subject(s): Clocks; Time; Country Life; Nature THE STARVELING Poem Text First Line: Hunger is a stone in her belly Subject(s): Anorexia Nervosa; Hunger THE TRUST Poem Text First Line: Something was killing sheep Subject(s): Animals; Dogs THE VICTIM Poem Text First Line: Who could remember cause? Both Subject(s): Child Molesting; Child Abuse THIS IS THE DOUBLE BED WHERE SHE'D BEEN BORN First Line: This is the double bed where she'd been born, Last Line: And then entered straightway into heaven. THORN-APPLE First Line: They're walking in early evening, still light Last Line: Because the trees, seen from this distance, %seem contiguous but do not touch THORN-APPLE: VARIATIONS First Line: Slender, cylindrical, %without a mmark or seam Last Line: If truth is not a thing apart from me, %then I don't want it TROPICS Poem Text First Line: In the still morning when you move Subject(s): Dreams; Love; Sleep; Tropics; Nightmares TRUST First Line: Something was killing sheep Last Line: Light, %brings him home to his proud husbandry Subject(s): Animals; Dogs VICTIM First Line: Who could remember cause? Both Subject(s): Child Molesting VISITING THE GRAVES First Line: All day we travel from bed to bed, our children Last Line: The sky before us a broken field of cloud WHEN DOES A CHILDHOOD END? MOTHERS First Line: When does a childhood end? Mothers Last Line: Routing evil with their little sticks. WHY SHE SAYS NO Poem Text First Line: Two friends at the close of summer Subject(s): Desire WHY SHE SAYS NO First Line: Two friends at the close of summer Last Line: Blanketing the subtler vegetation WINTER FIELD Poem Text First Line: The winter field is not Subject(s): Winter; Skating & Skaters; Ice WOMAN WHO WEEPS Poem Text First Line: Up from the valley, ten children working the fields Subject(s): Alienation (social Psychology); Dissenters; Exiles; Marginality, Social; Estrangement; Outcasts WOMAN WHO WEEPS First Line: Up from the valley, ten children working the fields Last Line: Village to village and into the smoky huts, %her soul a well, an eye, and open door Subject(s): Alienation (social Psychology); Dissenters; Exiles; Marginality, Social YEAR'S END Poem Text First Line: The fingers lie in the lap Subject(s): Illness; Death - Children; Grief; Fear; Death - Babies; Sorrow; Sadness YEAR'S END First Line: The fingers lie in the lap |
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