Holds Upon Happiness

John Ciardi (1916-1986) was born in Boston to Italian immigrant parents. His family saved enough money to send him to college and he graduated from Tufts University. He went on to complete his MA at the University of Michigan. He was awarded the Hopwood Prize for his poetry collection, Homeward to America. Ciardi is particularly known for his translation of Dante’s Divine Comedy and for a book on how to read, write, and teach poetry entitled How Does a Poem Mean? He was also an etymologist. Morning glories, pale as a mist drying,fade from the heat of the day, but alreadyhunchback bees in pirate pants and with peg-leghooks have found…

I have only featured Barbara Hamby once before and, really, that is a crime. I love her conversational style about everyday things. I think that is one of the things I have come to like about poetry. It shines a light on little things that otherwise might be overlooked. Engine like a Singer sewing maching, where have you not carried me—to dance class, grocery shopping, into the heart of darkness and back again? O the fruit you've transported—cherries, peaches, blueberries,watermelons, thousands of Fuji apples—books, and all my dark thoughts, the giddy ones, too,like bottles of champagne popped at the wedding of two people who will pass each other on the…

It took me forever to pick a poem to feature today. Partly because I am ridiculously indecisive at times and partly because I have featured almost 300 poems and I can’t remember what I have used and what I haven’t. After a quick search, I found that Langston Hughes only appears once in this series. That is a bit of a crime. Let’s remedy that immediately. Well, son, I'll tell you:Life for me ain't been no crystal stair.It's had tacks in it,And splinters,And boards torn up,And places with no carpet on the floor—Bare.But all the timeI'se been a-climbin' on,And reachin' landin's,And turnin' corners,And sometimes goin' in the darkWhere there ain't…