From Patti Smith to Jean-Michel Basquiat, we suggest the most memorable pieces of work from a diverse group of artists to read for National Poetry Day

Text Hannah Rose Ewens

National Poetry Day was founded in 1994 by William Sieghart, a bloke who said, “There are millions of talented poets out there and it’s about time they got some recognition for their work. They shouldn’t be embarrassed about reading their work out aloud. I want people to read poetry on the bus on their way to work, in the street, in school and in the pub.” It sort of worked pretty well as a way of promoting the art form, both through spoken word and the written page - although, unfortunately we’re not spitting verses on our daily commute. Give it another 21 years. If you haven’t read these already, enjoy. If you have, enjoy again.

Adrienne Rich via Wiki Commons

TRANSLATIONS BY ADRIENNE RICH You show me the poems of some woman

my age, or younger

translated from your language Certain words occur: enemy, oven, sorrow

enough to let me know

she's a woman of my time obsessed with Love, our subject:

we've trained it like ivy to our walls

baked it like bread in our ovens

worn it like lead on our ankles

watched it through binoculars as if

it were a helicopter

bringing food to our famine

or the satellite

of a hostile power I begin to see that woman

doing things: stirring rice

ironing a skirt

typing a manuscript till dawn trying to make a call

from a phonebooth The phone rings endlessly

in a man's bedroom

she hears him telling someone else

Never mind. She'll get tired.

hears him telling her story to her sister who becomes her enemy

and will in her own way

light her own way to sorrow ignorant of the fact this way of grief

is shared, unnecessary

and political

Patti Smith via thenewwavehippie.tumblr.com

JANUARY 26 BY PATTI SMITH gerard de nerval

death by hanging

fear of sun snow

wear dark glasses



thought about a rabbit today

wearing dark glasses

thought about a rabbit today

thought about blind rabbit



it hurts just to think about

singing I try to work it out

dead in winter two calico shirts

they cut the rope that cut him down

hurts just to think about

wonder how he schemed it out

and how I'll do without him



metronome song

how pleasant to swing like a rabbit

how pleasant to slip

from the slip knot string

the kick thump moan

and everything swings

back like a timepiece

tolls back everything

swings back like a rabbit

grey fluff on a string

Harry Burke

SOCIAL BY HARRY BURKE

where will we be when we win the war i bet we'll be

alone i bet we'll be in a laundromat with an old red sign

without any socks with only vests and pimples hair

like the 1950s freud without the wheelchair i bet

there'll be a supermarket with cars outside

with l'oreal products all over the dashboard

there'll be an actress playing now we're in

the newsroom and that's an aeroplane and

everyone's screaming i know we're in a video

because everyone's dancing the hall is vomiting

and alone in the middle of it i bet you're telling me

just how you love me i bet you're holding me

and your arms are shaking you can't say

anything apart from love me look i'm

pregnant sweating screaming imagine

you giving birth the movie's over



let's watch it again hiding behind the sofa

thinking about that time when hand in hurting

hand we held each other in the middle of the

road when we sunk into the tarmac when

mouth full of concrete the truck came with

its eyes like headlights hollering whispering

i want you you’re secret secreting into me i

hurt you you tell me you love me probably

there’s a child in a room in kosovo

somewhere there’s a child next to this child

with a mobile phone there’s sirens playing

a bomb went off it’s beautiful you jump right

off it’s beautiful the waves are crashing yes

someone’s singing i watch these videos every

day it was always supposed to be this way

i bet there’s no one watching us we jump



remember where we were when we won the war

when we walked right down the street there was no

smoke there was no sound no one else even knew

we had our t-shirts on the ones that said we won

we went to that bit in the city where we first made

love i took you i touched you i fucked you you came

we bought popcorn we sat and watched the day go

by you look just like your mother you curdle like milk

you know i’ve got a button i can press and you glow

the building crumbles at the knees it falls like a dancer

it folds we hold it all the other buildings look on

this building’s ours we are so naked and we cradle

it you have a spot below your armpit you have a

scar where no one can see your secret’s safe

with me let’s go the movie’s over now

Rupi Kaur via Instagram @rupikaur_

WOMEN OF COLOUR BY RUPI KAUR our backs tell stories no books have the spine to carry

Charles Theonia via Facebook

TUNDRA STUDIES BY CHARLES THEONIA The day after a blizzard.

Among the uncollected trash bags

there’s a mop planted by the curb,

proud flag staking claim to its grey peak.

We stay inside and talk fathers.

Chrístopher says dealing

requires the patient willingness

to be deficient.

It’s how I say

Please, Charlie, they,

and mine says

Police, fascist, grammar,

until we’re screaming

in the still snow of the street,

not yet waiting for patience. *

In my dream David and I travel through Alaska

speeding, unbounded, open to everything

as if on an invisible train.

We come to a glacial crest

and from its height suddenly see

the gleaming mountains

we’ve passed through unnoticing.



It’s been our way,

in our continuous parting,

grasping each other loosely,

yet we still hold over

and over, so I’m reminded

knowing isn’t done once. *

#vulnerability2014

means telling your father

if this continues

he may never know you

and letting him

make his decision;

letting your throat go soft

beneath its scarves;

turning to leave; it means

holding yourself,

the swan lying

on the frozen pond

tucking its neck over its back

like an arm over someone

else’s shoulder; it means

waiting to see.

T. S. Eliot via Wiki Commons

PRELUDES BY T. S. ELIOT I The winter evening settles down With smell of steaks in passageways. Six o’clock. The burnt-out ends of smoky days. And now a gusty shower wraps The grimy scraps Of withered leaves about your feet And newspapers from vacant lots; The showers beat On broken blinds and chimney-pots, And at the corner of the street A lonely cab-horse steams and stamps. And then the lighting of the lamps. II The morning comes to consciousness Of faint stale smells of beer From the sawdust-trampled street With all its muddy feet that press To early coffee-stands. With the other masquerades That time resumes, One thinks of all the hands That are raising dingy shades In a thousand furnished rooms. III You tossed a blanket from the bed, You lay upon your back, and waited; You dozed, and watched the night revealing The thousand sordid images Of which your soul was constituted; They flickered against the ceiling. And when all the world came back And the light crept up between the shutters And you heard the sparrows in the gutters, You had such a vision of the street As the street hardly understands; Sitting along the bed’s edge, where You curled the papers from your hair, Or clasped the yellow soles of feet In the palms of both soiled hands. IV His soul stretched tight across the skies That fade behind a city block, Or trampled by insistent feet At four and five and six o’clock; And short square fingers stuffing pipes, And evening newspapers, and eyes Assured of certain certainties, The conscience of a blackened street Impatient to assume the world. I am moved by fancies that are curled Around these images, and cling: The notion of some infinitely gentle Infinitely suffering thing. Wipe your hand across your mouth, and laugh; The worlds revolve like ancient women Gathering fuel in vacant lots.

Mira Gonzalez via Instagram

LAST NIGHT I CRIED FOR NO DISCERNABLE REASON BY MIRA GONZALEZ last night i cried for no discernible reason

in an apartment that doesn’t belong to me

in front of a person who also doesn’t belong to me

(because people can’t own other people) i say that i don’t like owning things

but i’m not sure if that’s entirely accurate i used to only cry alone

i have cried more in front of people in the last 6 months

than in the last 5 years of my life combined

probably… crying seems funny, to me i am on a very crowded train

passing grand central station

it is 9:01AM and i am officially late for work i am late for work because i slept 15 minutes past my alarm

then i had sex

then i stopped for coffee i am late to work every day

when you’re an intern nobody cares what you do the main thing I am learning at my internship

is how to look busy when i’m not doing anything

also, i am very good at making photocopies now

and putting labels on things today i got an email from a woman in human resources

she was upset because i haven’t gone to any of the ‘intern events’

because the ‘intern events’ count as your lunch break

and i want to eat lunch alone

i have become very good at avoiding other interns at 5pm i will take a crowded train to my second job

at my second job i have learned how to answer phones

and transfer calls to the appropriate extensions

and smile at people

and bring people coffee

and call the car service

and process fed ex packages today my brother emailed me while having a good drug experience

i want to have fun when i take drugs

but it’s difficult, sometimes also, i want to lose 20 pounds

but i think that is an unrealistic goal

considering i don’t exercise

and my diet is terrible

and i am unmotivated i think i would like to go to mexico and just hang out for a while

my dad says I have 50 cousins in mexico but i have never met them would they let me leave work early

if i got hit by a car but wasn’t seriously injured

Maya Angelou

STILL I RISE BY MAYA ANGELOU You may write me down in history

With your bitter, twisted lies,

You may tread me in the very dirt

But still, like dust, I'll rise.



Does my sassiness upset you?

Why are you beset with gloom?

'Cause I walk like I've got oil wells

Pumping in my living room.



Just like moons and like suns,

With the certainty of tides,

Just like hopes springing high,

Still I'll rise.



Did you want to see me broken?

Bowed head and lowered eyes?

Shoulders falling down like teardrops.

Weakened by my soulful cries.



Does my haughtiness offend you?

Don't you take it awful hard

'Cause I laugh like I've got gold mines

Diggin' in my own back yard.



You may shoot me with your words,

You may cut me with your eyes,

You may kill me with your hatefulness,

But still, like air, I'll rise.



Does my sexiness upset you?

Does it come as a surprise

That I dance like I've got diamonds

At the meeting of my thighs?



Out of the huts of history's shame

I rise

Up from a past that's rooted in pain

I rise

I'm a black ocean, leaping and wide,

Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.

Leaving behind nights of terror and fear

I rise

Into a daybreak that's wondrously clear

I rise

Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,

I am the dream and the hope of the slave.

I rise

I rise

I rise.

Jean-Michel Basquiat via roamingbydesign.com

A PRAYER BY JEAN-MICHEL BASQUIAT

Warsan Shire via YouTube