April is Poetry Month: Day 27

J.Doolittle, March 2016

 April

A bird chirped at my window this morning, 

And over the sky is drawn a light network of clouds.

Come,

Let us go out into the open,

For my heart leaps like a fish that is ready to spawn.

I will lie under the beech-trees,

Under the grey branches of the beech-trees,

In a blueness of little squills and crocuses,

I will lie among the little squills

And be discharged of this overcharge of beauty,

And that which is born shall be a joy to you

Who love me.

                            Amy Lowell (1874-1925)

From: A Nature Poem for Every Night of the Year, Edited by Jane McMorland Hunter, Batsford, 2020.

     Amy Lowell, from a rich, distinguished New England family, a spinster, an overweight, suspected lesbian, an admirer of Ezra Pound, outspoken and opinionated, recipient of a posthumous Pulitzer Prize for Poetry after her early death at age 51, was a prolific poet and a proponent of the Imagist school, which promoted a return to classical values.

    Sometimes the little side trips I take into the poets' lives are as fascinating as anything they put on paper.  Who was she writing this poem to?  Was it the same person who inspired this short and lovely poem?  

Decades

When you came, you were like red wine and honey,

And the taste of you burnt my mouth with its sweetness.

Now you are like morning bread,

Smooth and pleasant.

I hardly taste you at all for I know your savour

But I am completely nourished.

Below is a 3 minute video about her life.