#stephen spender

[petaltexturedskies]

She was at once so resolute and so dreamy, so sensual and so intelligent. She also was intensely private. What she knew best was how it felt to be alone, unique, isolated. She was lacking in the sense of a solid communal life; what bound people together escaped her. What separated them was an object of wonder, delight and despair. She seemed as detached from herself as from everyone else.

Stephen Spender, describing Virginia Woolf

[carloskaplan]

W.H. Auden, Stephen Spender e Christopher Isherwood de vacacións no Mar do Norte (1931)

[geopsych]

In one section of the canal path you walk with trees on both sides and with sunlight pouring between and through the leaves it made me think of the beginning of a favorite poem by Stephen Spender:

“I think continually of those who were truly great, / Who from the womb remembered the soul’s history / Through corridors of light where the hours are suns / Endless and singing.”

I felt like I was walking through a corridor of light, in time away from the world. I wish you could walk there.

[davidhudson]

T. S. Eliot, September 26, 1888 – January 4, 1965.

Mark Gerson, The Faber Poets, 1960: Louis MacNeice, Ted Hughes, T. S. Eliot, W. H. Auden, and Stephen Spender.

[llovelymoonn]

favourite poems of october

alfred starr a dark dreambox of another kind: the poems of alfred starr: "didn't you ever search for another star?

stephen spender new collected poems: "auden's funeral"

marianne boruch keats is coughing

noa micaela fields zoeglossia: poem of the week, may 17, 2021: "echolalia"

kevin young diptych

richard siken real estate

crisosto apache kúghą/home

mikko harvey for m

nathan hoks nests in air: "the barbed wire nest"

john a. holmes noon waking

crisosto apache 37 common characterisi(x)s of a displaced indian with a learning disability

oliver de la paz requiem for the orchard: "at the time of my birth"

zhang xun jiangnan song (tr. bijaan noormohamed)

paul violi fracas: "extenuating circumstances"

tianru wang after "yellow crane tower"

lloyd schwartz cairo traffic: "nostalgia (the lake at night)"

kamiko han the narrow road to the interior: "the orient"

rigoberto gonzalez unpeopled eden: "unpeopled eden"

adelaide crapsey verse: "to the dead in the graveyard underneath my window"

chester kallman night music

alan shapiro covenant: "covenant"

tom clark light and shade: new and selected poems: "radio"

tc tolbert my melissa,

charlie smith in praise of regret

carolyn kizer cool, calm, and collected: poems 1960-2000: "fanny"

julie sheehan orient point: "hate poem"

arthur sze the redshifting web: poems 1970-1998: "streamers"

joumana altallal everything here...in the voice of tara fares

abid b al-abras last simile

w.s. merwin to lingering regrets

george scarbrough music

shout me a coffee

[eyeoftheheart]

Remember that you are born of the Sun and feel the fire in your heart’s centre.

The Truly Great BY STEPHEN SPENDER

I think continually of those who were truly great. Who, from the womb, remembered the soul’s history Through corridors of light, where the hours are suns, Endless and singing. Whose lovely ambition Was that their lips, still touched with fire, Should tell of the Spirit, clothed from head to foot in song. And who hoarded from the Spring branches The desires falling across their bodies like blossoms.

What is precious, is never to forget The essential delight of the blood drawn from ageless springs Breaking through rocks in worlds before our earth. Never to deny its pleasure in the morning simple light Nor its grave evening demand for love. Never to allow gradually the traffic to smother With noise and fog, the flowering of the spirit.

Near the snow, near the sun, in the highest fields, See how these names are fêted by the waving grass And by the streamers of white cloud And whispers of wind in the listening sky. The names of those who in their lives fought for life, Who wore at their hearts the fire’s centre. Born of the sun, they travelled a short while toward the sun And left the vivid air signed with their honour.

Stephen Spender, “The Truly Great” from Collected Poems 1928-1953

[crosstheveil]

I think continually of those who were truly great - The names of those who in their lives fought for life, Who wore at their hearts the fire's center.

'Born of the sun they traveled a short while towards the sun, And left the vivid air signed with their honor.

― Stephen Spender

[gustaving]

By Stephen Spender

[angele-midnight]

Nobody else has talked about the possibility of the rest of the Jang joining the Cousinhood, or at least Garcia’s mini version he’s probably gonna start (Hunting Club ie. Monster Hunting Club)

Like they know Johnny’s acting weird and won’t say anything about it so they get involved with the Cousinhood when Shred rolls into town trying to save their boy but Garcia quickly intervenes and starts teaching them in a safe environment that isn’t weird about it like the Cousinhood

I personally would love to see monster hunters RJ, Stephen, and Ollie

[fuck-i-like-too-much-stuff]

Poets and Pancakes: A chapter about neither poets, nor pancakes... or about anything at all. Absolutely no plot, no sense of character or even a semblance of informative gain. The ideal educational standard from Lord CBSE themselves.

[nerds-yearbook]

In 1989, a group of High School seniors went to celebrate their graduation in Column National Forest in Northwest Oregon. Some believed they had an alien visitation. What was known for sure was they were deeply affected, especially Billy Miles who went into a coma, Ray Soams who was admitted to a mental hospital for schizophrenia and claimed to kill some of his classmates, and Peggy O’Dell who became paralyzed. Over the next several years, it was noticed that there were strange marks on their bodies and one by one they died mysteriously until by 1992 only Billy Miles was left, who mysteriously came out of his coma and no longer had the strange marks on his body. ("Pilot", X-Files, TV)

[theimportanceofbeingaloof]

first and last time in aux pres

___________________

_______

The poem is from Poesía masculina (La Bella Varsovia 2021). Support the poet & buy a copy.

My translation was commended in the 2024 Stephen Spender prize. Thank you to the judges Jennifer Wong & Taher Adeland.

Thank you also to Luna Miguel for permission to publish my translation, & for the deep well of inspiration that her interplay of genders brings to poetry.

[geopsych]

I Think Continually

I think continually of those who were truly great.

Who, from the womb remembered the soul's history

Through corridors of light where the hours are suns

Endless and singing. Whose lovely ambition

Was that their lips, still touched with fire,

Should tell of the Spirit clothed from head to foot in song.

And who hoarded from the Spring branches

The desires falling across their bodies like blossoms.

What is precious is never to forget

The essential delight of the blood drawn from ageless springs

Breaking through rocks in worlds before our earth.

Never to deny its pleasure in the morning simple light

Nor its grave evening demand for love.

Never to allow gradually the traffic to smother

With noise and fog the flowering of the spirit.

Near the snow, near the sun, in the highest fields

See how these names are feted by the waving grass

And by the streamers of white cloud

And whispers of wind in the listening sky.

The names of those who in their lives fought for life

Who wore at their hearts the fire's centre.

Born of the sun they travelled a short while towards the sun,

And left the vivid air signed with their honour.

—Stephen Spender

[martyncrucefix]

Two Poems by the late Jürgen Becker

The sad news that Jürgen Becker (1932-2024) died recently at the age of 92 was particularly poignant as I have been translating his work for the past 3 years. I first read about his poetry in an essay I was translating by Lutz Seiler (published in In Case of Loss (And Other Stories, 2024)). There, Seiler characterises Becker’s work as ‘a process that integrate[s] both immediate and more distant…

[petaltexturedskies]

Stephen Spender, describing Virginia Woolf

[newloverofbeauty]

Herbert List: Stephen Spender and his friend, Berlin (1929)