"Sunday," by Nikki Giovanni

"September 1, 1939," by W.H. Auden

On the precipice of another September 1, I thought of W.H. Auden's famous poem--one he later disavowed, in a way, by choosing not to include it in collections over which he had editorial control. His argument was that the line "we must love each other or die" was illogical insofar as we will die whether we love each other or not, but of course, few if any readers read the line that literally, and I doubt if Auden meant it that way. He was also a notorious reviser of poems after they had been published (as was Wordsworth): the sort of thing that causes arguments amongst scholars and critics.

One of the best recorded readings of the poem is by "Tom O'Bedlam" on Youtube. It really is terrific:

September 1, 1939

"Neutral Tones," by Thomas Hardy

"o, sweet spontaneous earth," by e.e. cummings

"Felix Randal," by Gerard Manley Hopkins

"The Waterwheel," by Rumi

"Worry About Money," by Kathleen Raine

"I Thought It Was Tangiers I Wanted," by Langston Hughes

"The Rose That Grew From Concrete," by Tupac Shakur

"Carnal Apple, Woman Incarnate," Love Sonnet XII, by Pablo Neruda

"Ode on Ironing," by Pablo Neruda

"Inferno, Canto I: 1-21," Dante

Concerning Failure

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Concerning Failure


All right, if it makes you feel
worse or, somehow, honest,
say it. Say, "I've failed."
There. Surprised by how you feel?
Liberating, isn't it? You may
even go further, go all operatic,
and say, "I'm a failure." Woe
is you, etc. Splendid. Now

you may enter the zone
that transcends success and
failure. It lies beyond
soccer fields, board-rooms,
high-school football stadiums,
televised awards-shows, and
academic journals with a
circulation of 15 and
a readership of 0. Not
that we're keeping score,
or anything.

Guess who else lives in
that zone? Everyone who
ever mattered. In that place,
fame's considered a rash,
and there's even an
ointment available.


Copyright 2010 Hans Ostrom