She Walks in Beauty Read online

  CONTENTS

  Cover

  Title Page

  She walks in beauty GEORGE GORDON, LORD BYRON

  INTRODUCTION

  FALLING IN LOVE

  * * *

  A Very Valentine GERTRUDE STEIN

  Song JOHN KEATS

  I Do Not Love Thee THE HONORABLE CAROLINE ELIZABETH SARAH NORTON

  From Hero and Leander CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE

  Love’s Philosophy PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY

  Having a Coke with You FRANK O’HARA

  Symptom Recital DOROTHY PARKER

  To Aphrodite of the Flowers, at Knossos SAPPHO

  Come to the Orchard in Spring RUMI

  MAKING LOVE

  * * *

  Don’t try to rush things—from Poem 41

  From From June to December

  Wild Nights—Wild Nights! EMILY DICKINSON

  may i feel said he E. E. CUMMINGS

  When He Pressed His Lips

  Corinna’s Going a-Maying ROBERT HERRICK

  The Weather-Cock Points South AMY LOWELL

  To His Mistress Going to Bed JOHN DONNE

  The Song of Solomon 2:1–17, 3:1–5

  Final Soliloquy of the Interior Paramour WALLACE STEVENS

  Variation on the Word Sleep MARGARET ATWOOD

  After Making Love We Hear Footsteps GALWAY KINNELL

  It Is Marvellous . . . ELIZABETH BISHOP

  White Heliotrope ARTHUR SYMONS

  Youth OSIP MANDELSTAM

  BREAKING UP

  * * *

  Lilacs KATHERINE GARRISON CHAPIN

  Unfortunate Coincidence DOROTHY PARKER

  The Philosopher EDNA ST. VINCENT MILLAY

  From Summer with Monika ROGER McGOUGH

  I’m Going to Georgia FOLK SONG

  A Type of Loss INGEBORG BACHMANN

  On Monsieur’s Departure QUEEN ELIZABETH I

  The Eaten Heart—from The Knight of Curtesy

  My life closed twice before its close— EMILY DICKINSON

  When We Two Parted GEORGE GORDON, LORD BYRON

  Well, I Have Lost You EDNA ST. VINCENT MILLAY

  What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why (Sonnet XLIII) EDNA ST. VINCENT MILLAY

  “No, Thank You, John” CHRISTINA ROSSETTI

  when you have forgotten Sunday: the love story GWENDOLYN BROOKS

  The End ELIZABETH ALEXANDER

  MARRIAGE

  * * *

  The Passionate Shepherd to His Love CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE

  Marriage GREGORY CORSO

  From The Countess of Pembroke’s Arcadia SIR PHILIP SIDNEY

  i carry your heart with me(i carry it in E. E. CUMMINGS

  To My Dear and Loving Husband ANNE BRADSTREET

  To Margo GAVIN EWART

  A Word to Husbands OGDEN NASH

  To the Ladies LADY MARY CHUDLEIGH

  The Female of the Species RUDYARD KIPLING

  From Paradise Lost JOHN MILTON

  The Good Wife PROVERBS 31:10–31

  My Last Duchess ROBERT BROWNING

  To Speak of Woe That Is in Marriage ROBERT LOWELL

  From a Survivor ADRIENNE RICH

  Letter from My Wife NAZIM HIKMET

  To Paula in Late Spring W. S. MERWIN

  A Farmer’s Calendar VIETNAMESE FOLK POEM

  LOVE ITSELF

  * * *

  A Birthday CHRISTINA ROSSETTI

  June Light RICHARD WILBUR

  Protocols VIKRAM SETH

  Jamesian THOM GUNN

  From Proverbs and Song Verse ANTONIO MACHADO

  Sonnet XLIII: How Do I Love Thee? ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING

  XLIV: You must know that I do not love and that I love you PABLO NERUDA

  Code Poem for the French Resistance LEO MARKS

  The Smaller Orchid AMY CLAMPITT

  Sonnet 116 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

  Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing RUMI

  The Emperor MATTHEW ROHRER

  Late Fragment RAYMOND CARVER

  From The First Morning of the Second World DELMORE SCHWARTZ

  1 Corinthians 13:1–13

  WORK

  * * *

  weaponed woman GWENDOLYN BROOKS

  Night Waitress LYNDA HULL

  In an Iridescent Time RUTH STONE

  Madam and Her Madam LANGSTON HUGHES

  Letters from Storyville NATASHA TRETHEWEY

  Lineage MARGARET WALKER

  I Want You Women Up North to Know TILLIE OLSEN

  PS Education ELLEN HAGAN

  At the Café PATRICIA KIRKPATRICK

  Worked Late on a Tuesday Night DEBORAH GARRISON

  The Age of Great Vocations ALANE ROLLINGS

  Defining Worlds G. Y. BAXTER

  What’s That Smell in the Kitchen? MARGE PIERCY

  Father Grumble FOLK SONG

  Epitaph ANONYMOUS

  BEAUTY, CLOTHES, AND THINGS OF THIS WORLD

  * * *

  Antony and Cleopatra, II, ii, 191–232 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

  What Do Women Want? KIM ADDONIZIO

  The Catch RICHARD WILBUR

  Cosmetics Do No Good STEVE KOWIT

  Face Lift SYLVIA PLATH

  Fatigue HILAIRE BELLOC

  The Great Lover RUPERT BROOKE

  Patterns AMY LOWELL

  Crocheted Bag ROSEMARY CATACALOS

  Delight in Disorder ROBERT HERRICK

  The Rhodora

  Roses Only MARIANNE MOORE

  Eagle Poem JOY HARJO

  MOTHERHOOD

  * * *

  A Cradle Song W. B. YEATS

  Notes from the Delivery Room LINDA PASTAN

  Socks SHARON OLDS

  High School Senior SHARON OLDS

  Nobody Knows But Mother MARY MORRISON

  From “Clearances,” In Memoriam M.K.H. (1911–1984) SEAMUS HEANEY

  if there are any heavens my mother will(all by herself)have E. E. CUMMINGS

  Somebody’s Mother MARY DOW BRINE

  The Book of Ruth 1:16–17

  The Dream That I Told My Mother-in-Law ELIZABETH ALEXANDER

  Mother’s Closet MAXINE SCATES

  Ode ELIZABETH ALEXANDER

  Vietnam WISLAWA SZYMBORSKA

  A Child MARY LAMB

  blessing the boats LUCILLE CLIFTON

  SILENCE AND SOLITUDE

  * * *

  I’m happiest when most away EMILY BRONTË

  Keeping Things Whole MARK STRAND

  We All Know It MARIANNE MOORE

  As Much As You Can CONSTANTINE P. CAVAFY

  Sense of Something Coming RAINER MARIA RILKE

  Death, Etc. MAXINE KUMIN

  From When One Has Lived a Long Time Alone GALWAY KINNELL

  Zazen on Ching-t’ing Mountain LI PO

  The Poems of Our Climate WALLACE STEVENS

  GROWING UP AND GROWING OLD

  * * *

  You Begin MARGARET ATWOOD

  Grown-up EDNA ST. VINCENT MILLAY

  Puberty—With Capital Letters ELLEN HAGAN

  Bra Shopping PARNESHIA JONES

  The Summer Day MARY OLIVER

  Living DENISE LEVERTOV

  I stepped from plank to plank EMILY DICKINSON

  to my last period LUCILLE CLIFTON

  lumpectomy eve LUCILLE CLIFTON

  Older, Younger, Both JOYCE SUTPHEN

  Survivor ROGER McGOUGH

  You Can’t Have It All BARBARA RAS

  Sign MARGE PIERCY

  The Greatest Love ANNA SWIR

  Time MARY URSULA BETHELL

  Going Blind RAINER MARIA RILKE

  Old Woman ELIZABETH JENNINGS

  Let It Be Forgotten SARA TEASDALE

  Courage ANNE SEXTON

  DEATH AND GRIEF


  * * *

  The Bustle in a House EMILY DICKINSON

  Never More Will the Wind H. D.

  Grief ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING

  The Widow’s Lament in Springtime WILLIAM CARLOS WILLIAMS

  Companion JO McDOUGALL

  Remember CHRISTINA ROSSETTI

  From To W. P. GEORGE SANTAYANA

  To Death OLIVER ST. JOHN GOGARTY

  That it is a road ARIWARA NO NARIHARA

  From In Memoriam A. H. H. ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON

  Reconciliation WALT WHITMAN

  FRIENDSHIP

  * * *

  A Poem of Friendship NIKKI GIOVANNI

  Letter to N.Y. ELIZABETH BISHOP

  On Gifts for Grace BERNADETTE MAYER

  Love ROY CROFT

  To Hayley WILLIAM BLAKE

  A Poison Tree WILLIAM BLAKE

  August LOUISE GLÜCK

  Summer at the Beach LOUISE GLÜCK

  Girlfriends ELLEN DORÉ WATSON

  My Friend’s Divorce NAOMI SHIHAB NYE

  Chocolate RITA DOVE

  Magnificat MICHÈLE ROBERTS

  Secret Lives BARBARA RAS

  To Flush, My Dog ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING

  HOW TO LIVE

  * * *

  May 2 DAVID LEHMAN

  From a Letter to His Daughter RALPH WALDO EMERSON

  To be of use MARGE PIERCY

  Leap Before You Look W. H. AUDEN

  Try to Praise the Mutilated World ADAM ZAGAJEWSKI

  Leisure W. H. DAVIES

  The Waking THEODORE ROETHKE

  September, 1918 AMY LOWELL

  6 A.M. Thoughts DICK DAVIS

  A Minor Bird ROBERT FROST

  May today there be peace within ST. TERESA OF AVILA

  The Bacchae Chorus EURIPIDES

  The Dawn W. B. YEATS

  Don’t Quit UNKNOWN

  All Things Pass LAO-TZU

  Simple Gifts ANONYMOUS (SHAKER HYMN)

  24th September 1945 NAZIM HIKMET

  The Journey MARY OLIVER

  Ithaka CONSTANTINE P. CAVAFY

  The Colder the Air ELIZABETH BISHOP

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  CREDITS

  About the Author

  Also by Caroline Kennedy

  Copyright

  She walks in beauty

  GEORGE GORDON, LORD BYRON

  She walks in beauty, like the night

  Of cloudless climes and starry skies;

  And all that’s best of dark and bright

  Meet in her aspect and her eyes:

  Thus mellow’d to that tender light

  Which heaven to gaudy day denies.

  One shade the more, one ray the less,

  Had half impair’d the nameless grace

  Which waves in every raven tress,

  Or softly lightens o’er her face;

  Where thoughts serenely sweet express

  How pure, how dear their dwelling-place.

  And on that cheek, and o’er that brow,

  So soft, so calm, yet eloquent,

  The smiles that win, the tints that glow,

  But tell of days in goodness spent,

  A mind at peace with all below,

  A heart whose love is innocent!

  INTRODUCTION

  THIS BOOK BEGAN around the time I turned fifty. Like my friends who had been there before me, I dreaded it for months, and was relieved when it was over and life seemed much the same as before. One of the nicest things that happened was that three friends sent me poems to mark the occasion. One poem was about love, one helped me cope with loss, and the third spoke to ways of being. I kept them and passed them on to others when the time seemed right. To me, that’s the gift of poetry—it shapes an endless conversation about the most important things in life.

  Creating an anthology of poems centered around the stages of a woman’s life still seems like an unlikely project to me. I have shied away from the personal genre of literature, and never thought that growing old would be something I would do. Perhaps that’s because, in my family, my cousins and I still refer to our parents’ generation as “the grown-ups,” although most of us are in our fifties. But there seemed to be something profoundly different about hitting the middle-age mark—a sense of accomplishment, an emotional reckoning, and a feeling of renewed possibility about the future. All that, and a tiny terror of sliding down the hill into a crumpled heap of old age. Working on this book reminded me that the personal is universal, being a woman is a profound part of who I am, and sharing experiences and emotions is the best way we can help ourselves and others.

  Approaching middle age made me appreciate my deep connection to the women I have grown up with, worked with, and whose children have grown up with mine. We have learned what is important, we can look back as well as forward, and we have the chance to weave the choices we have already made into the changes we want to bring to our lives. Reading poems can help bring clarity and insight to emotions that can be confusing or contradictory.

  Women have always been at the center of poetry—throughout history we have been its inspiration, and more recently, women are the authors of the most profound poetry of our time. One of the oldest known poets in the world is a woman—Sappho—and her fragments of verse are as emotionally piercing today as the work of many modern writers. The love poetry of medieval troubadours, Renaissance playwrights, and Romantic poets (almost exclusively men) celebrated female beauty and mystery; conquest, heartbreak, and desire. In the twentieth century, women poets gave voice to the pain and joy, relationships and loneliness, the work and the life of women. In today’s world, as women struggle to balance work and family, to be good mothers and friends, to care for our children and our parents, poetry can help us accept our limitations, and inspire us to overcome them. In a world where language is too often used to manipulate, poems can help us find our authentic voice.

  The book is divided into sections that seem broad enough to encompass the milestones in a woman’s life—“Falling in Love,” “Breaking Up,” “Marriage,” “Motherhood,” “Death and Grief”—but they are intended as helpful, if arbitrary, dividers. Other sections are about some of the things that make us happy, like “Friendship” or “Beauty.” My favorite section is the one titled “How to Live.” It includes the poems that started this book, and many others, each containing wisdom that has helped me on my own journey.

  Collecting these poems reminded me that when I was younger, I thought my task was to forge ahead and succeed as an individual. But growing older has helped me realize that our success lies in our relationships—with the family we are born into, the friends we make, the people we fall in love with, and the children we have. Sometimes we struggle, sometimes we adapt, and at other times we set a course for others to follow. We are all leaders and followers in our lives. We are constantly learning from and teaching one another. We learn, too, that the most important work is not done by those who seem the most important, but by those who care the most.

  Women have always been the weavers of the world, literally and figuratively. We weave people together, we weave the experiences of life into patterns, and we weave our stories into words. Poetry has been one of the ways we do this. Poems distill our deepest emotions into a very few words—words that we can remember, carry with us, and share with others as we talk and weave the cloth of life.

  FALLING IN LOVE

  THERE ARE SO MANY WAYS TO FALL IN LOVE—and so many people to fall in love with. When I was young, I went to a convent school, read historical romances, and dreamed of the day a modern Scarlet Pimpernel would sweep me off my feet, but really, I was only in love with my pony. As a result, in high school, I was way behind the girls who had already figured out the basics of human-to-human love and despaired of ever having a boyfriend. One of the reassuring things my mother said to me was that if you love someone, that person will love you back. Although there is not much evidence to support that theory, I decided to believe it, and eventually, lik
e all mothers, she turned out to be right.

  Now, as I watch my children fall in love, it brings back the memories of excitement, uncertainty, adventure, and the joy of belonging to someone. Falling in love means you aren’t a child anymore and, as Rumi writes in “Come to the Orchard in Spring,” nothing else matters. In these poems, John Keats captures the essence of desire, Percy Bysshe Shelley expresses the delights of kissing, and Christopher Marlowe rules out anything but love at first sight.

  Throughout the ages, one of poetry’s challenges has been to express mystical experiences in language. Falling in love is a series of moments in which the ordinary becomes extraordinary. Those moments are not continuous, but the sense of union with another person is just about the best thing there is. Perhaps that is why Dorothy Parker celebrates our need to do it over and over again.

  A Very Valentine

  GERTRUDE STEIN

  Very fine is my valentine.

  Very fine and very mine.

  Very mine is my valentine very mine and very fine.

  Very fine is my valentine and mine, very fine very mine and

  mine is my valentine.

  Song

  JOHN KEATS

  O blush not so! O blush not so!

  Or I shall think you knowing;

  And if you smile the blushing while,