In Honor of National Poetry Month, April '22: Community Poems & Many More

Poetry has been around for thousands of years. What better way to celebrate its existence than by giving some love to poets, new and old? In this collection, SSU students share poems about Community, and Managing Editor Samantha Flaherty presents a curated list of classic and modern poems. 

Community Student Poetry

Classic + Modern Poetry

Phenomenal Woman
By Maya Angelo

Pretty women wonder where my secret lies.
I'm not cute or built to suit a fashion model's size
But when I start to tell them,
They think I'm telling lies.
I say,
It's in the reach of my arms
The span of my hips,
The stride of my step,
The curl of my lips.
I'm a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That's me.

I walk into a room
Just as cool as you please,
And to a man,
The fellows stand or
Fall down on their knees.
Then they swarm around me,
A hive of honey bees.
I say,
It's the fire in my eyes,
And the flash of my teeth,
The swing in my waist,
And the joy in my feet.
I'm a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That's me.

Men themselves have wondered
What they see in me.
They try so much
But they can't touch
My inner mystery.
When I try to show them
They say they still can't see.
I say,
It's in the arch of my back,
The sun of my smile,
The ride of my breasts,
The grace of my style.
I'm a woman

Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That's me.

Now you understand
Just why my head's not bowed.
I don't shout or jump about
Or have to talk real loud.
When you see me passing
It ought to make you proud.
I say,
It's in the click of my heels,
The bend of my hair,
the palm of my hand,
The need of my care,
'Cause I'm a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That's me.

Errata
By Kevin Young

Baby, give me just
One more hiss

We must lake it fast
Moreover

I want to cold you
In my harms

& never get lo

I live you so much
It perts!

Baby, jive me gust
One more bliss

Whisper your
Neat nothings in my near

Can we hock each other
One tore mime?

All light wrong?

Baby give me just
One more briss

My won & homely

You wake me meek
In the needs

Mill you larry me?

Baby, hive me just
One more guess

With this sing
I’ll thee shed

Ode to my Bitch Face
By Olivia Gatwood

You pink armor lipstick rebel steel
cheek slit mouth head to the ground
mean girl. You headphones in but no
music. You house key turned blade,
you quick step between street lights,
strainer of pricks and chest beaters,
laughter is a foreign language to your
dry ice tongue.

Resting bitch face, they call you, but
there is nothing restful about you, no.
Lips like a flat-lined heartbeat, panic
at the sight of you, scream for their
mothers, throat full of bees, head
spun 360 exorcist bitch.

Just trying to buy a soda. Just trying
to do your laundry. Just trying to
dance at the party and then someone
asks you to smile and the blood
begins to riot. Smile and you chisel
away at your own jaw. Smile and you
unleash the swarm into the mouth of
a man who wants to swallow you
whole.

One theory is that you are born like
this but I don’t believe it. You came
out screaming and alive and look at
you now. Look at how you’ve learned
to hide your teeth. What’s wrong with
your face, bitch? Your face, bitch,
what’s wrong with it? Bitch face, I
don’t blame you for taking the iron
pipe from their hands and branding
yourself with it. For making a flag out
of your body bag.

Another theory is that you put it on
every morning. Screw it tight like a jar
of jelly but I don’t believe that either.
You woke up like this and have been
for years. How can you sleep pretty
when there are four locks on the door
and the fire escape feels like break-in
bait. They will tell you home is safe
zone.

No, bitch face is safe zone. Bitch face
is home. Bitch face is cutting off the
ladder, willing to burn in the
apartment if it means he can’t get in.

Wrap
By Aimee Nezhukumatathil

I don't mean when a movie ends,
as in, it's a! Nor tortillas splitting
with the heavy wet of bean.
And I don't mean what you do

with your lavender robe—all fluff
and socks—to snatch the paper
from the shrubs. Nor the promise
of a gift, the curl and furl of red ribbon

just begging to be tugged. What I mean
is waiting with my grandmama (a pause
in the Monsoon) at the Trivandrum airport
for a jeep. Her small hand wraps

again the emerald green pallu of her sari
tucked in at her hips, across her breast,
and coughs it up over her shoulder—a hush
of paprika and burnt honey across my face.

Dirt
By Kwame Dawes

I got one part of it. Sell them watermelons and get me another part. Get Bernice to sell that piano and I’ll have the third part.
-August Wilson

We who gave, owned nothing,
learned the value of dirt, how
a man or a woman can stand
among the unruly growth,
look far into its limits,
a place of stone and entanglements,
and suddenly understand
the meaning of a name, a deed,
a currency of personhood.
Here, where we have labored
for another man’s gain, if it is fine
to own dirt and stone, it is
fine to have a plot where
a body may be planted to rot.
We who have built only
that which others have owned
learn the ritual of trees,
the rites of fruit picked
and eaten, the pleasures
of ownership. We who
have fled with sword
at our backs know the things
they have stolen from us, and we
will walk naked and filthy
into the open field knowing
only that this piece of dirt,
this expanse of nothing,
is the earnest of our faith
in the idea of tomorrow.
We will sell our bones
for a piece of dirt,
we will build new tribes
and plant new seeds
and bury our bones in our dirt.

The Guest House
By Rumi

This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,
Some momentary awareness comes
As an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they are a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
Empty of its furniture,
Still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
For some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice.
Meet them at the door laughing and
Invite them in.

Be grateful for whatever comes.
Because each has been sent
As a guide from beyond.

Coping
By Audre Lorde

I has rained for five days
Running
The world is a round puddle
Of sunless water
Where small islands
Are only beginning
To cope
A young boy
In my garden
Is bailed out water
From his flower patch
When I ask him why
He tells me
Young seeds that have not seen sun
Forget
And drown easily.

Lines Written in Early Spring
By William Wordsworth

I heard a thousand blended notes,
While in a grove I sate reclined,
In that sweet mood when pleasant thoughts
Bring sad thoughts to the mind.

To her fair works did Nature link
The human soul that through me ran;
And much it grieved my heart to think
What man has made of man.

Through primrose tufts, in that green bower,
The periwinkle trailed its wreaths;
And ’tis my faith that every flower
Enjoys the air it breathes.

The birds around me hopped and played,
Their thoughts I cannot measure:—
But the least motion which they made
It seemed a thrill of pleasure.

The budding twigs spread out their fan,
To catch the breezy air;
And I must think, do all I can,
That there was pleasure there.

If this belief from heaven be sent,
If such be Nature’s holy plan,
Have I not reason to lament
What man has made of man?

Rootless
By Jenny Xie

Between Hanoi and Sapa there are clean slabs of rice fields
and no two brick houses in a row.

I mean, no three—
See, counting’s hard in half-sleep, and the rain pulls a sheet

over the sugar palms and their untroubled leaves.
Hours ago, I crossed a motorbike with a hog strapped to its seat,

the size of a date pit from a distance.
Can this solitude be rootless, unhooked from the ground?

No matter. The mind resides both inside and out.
It can think itself and think itself into existence.

I sponge off the eyes, no worse for wear.
My frugal mouth spends the only foreign words it owns.

At present, on this sleeper train, there’s nowhere to arrive.
Me? I’m just here in my traveler’s clothes, trying on each passing town for size.

Explaining My Depression to My Mother
By Sabrina Benaim

Explaining my depression to my mother: a conversation

Mom, my depression is a shapeshifter
One day it's as small as a firefly in the palm of a bear
The next it's the bear
On those days I play dead until the bear leaves me alone
I call the bad days "the Dark Days"
Mom says, "try lighting candles"
But when I see a candle, I see the flesh of a church
The flicker of a flame
Sparks of a memory younger than noon
I am standing beside her open casket
It is the moment I learn every person I ever come to know will someday die
Besides Mom, I'm not afraid of the dark, perhaps that's part of the problem
Mom says, "I thought the problem was that you can't get out of bed"
I can't, anxiety holds me a hostage inside of my house, inside of my head
Mom says, "Where did anxiety come from?"
Anxiety is the cousin visiting from out of town that depression felt obligated to invite to the party
Mom, I am the party, only I am a party I don't want to be at
Mom says, "Why don't you try going to actual parties, see your friends"
Sure I make plans, I make plans but I don't want to go
I make plans because I know I should want to go; I know sometimes I would have wanted to go
It's just not that fun having fun when you don't want to have fun, Mom
You see, Mom, each night Insomnia sweeps me up in his arms, dips me in the kitchen in the small glow of the stove-light
Insomnia has this romantic way of making the moon feel like perfect company
Mom says, "Try counting sheep"
But my mind can only count reasons to stay awake
So I go for walks, but my stuttering kneecaps clank like silver spoons held in strong arms with loose wrists
They ring in my ears like clumsy church bells, reminding me I am sleepwalking on an ocean of happiness that I cannot baptize myself in
Mom says, "Happy is a decision"
But my happy is as hollow as a pin pricked egg
My happy is a high fever that will break
Mom says, I am so good at making something out of nothing and then flat out asks me if I am afraid of dying
No Mom I am afraid of living
Mom I am lonely
I think I learned that when Dad left how to turn the anger into lonely the lonely into busy
So when I say I've been super busy lately I mean I've been falling asleep watching SportsCenter on the couch
To avoid confronting the empty side of my bed
But my depression always drags me back to my bed
Until my bones are the forgotten fossils of a skeleton sunken city
My mouth a boneyard of teeth broken from biting down on themselves
The hollow auditorium of my chest swoons with echoes of a heartbeat
But I am just a careless tourist here

I will never truly know everywhere I have been
Mom still doesn't understand
Mom, can't you see
That neither can I

Harlem
By Langston Hughes

What happens to a dream deferred?

Does it dry up

like a raisin in the sun?

Or fester like a sore—

And then run?

Does it stink like rotten meat?

Or crust and sugar over—

like a syrupy sweet?

Maybe it just sags

like a heavy load.

Or does it explode?

Sylvia Plath’s Cats
By Richard George

Their breath was clean, or harsh and sour
According to her moods:
And when they sensed a coming storm
They crept into corners.
Today is a remote eminence,
Tall and cold as Alaska:
But the cats understood her
As something young and brittle
Like bamboo
That cuts you when it breaks.
When she died, apart from them
They felt her passing over
As a seismic change of frequency:
They never quite forgot her
And when something reminded them
They purred, nervously.

No one writes their biography.

Panic Button Collector
By Andrea Gibson

I check my Facebook page 36 times a day for the sole purpose of making sure I have not accidentally posted a nude photo of myself

I reread an email 13 times before pressing send to ensure I have not written something in the email that could convict me of a crime

Before taking a stage when asked if I allow flash photography I always want to say “No” because I’m terrified flash photography will give me epilepsy

I know it doesn’t work like that ya’ll
still

I never eat nuts on an airplane out of fear that I will suddenly develop a nut allergy and if I have to asphyxiate, I don’t want it to happen at 30,000 feet

Twice in the last two years, I’ve been aborted from an airplane for running screaming down the aisles as the plane was taking off

I can’t walk through San Francisco without worrying my indigestion is the beginning of an earthquake
I brace for tsunamis beside lakes in Colorado-- I’m not joking

The last time I saw Niagara Falls I couldn’t take it
It was too much much
I had to plug my ears to look at it
I had to close my eyes to listen

Generally I can’t do all of my senses at the same time
they are too much much

Like if you touch me without warning, whoever you are, it will take everything I have to not scream

Imagine your hands are electrical sockets and I am constantly aware that I am 70% water
it’s not that I’ve not tried to build a dam

Ask my therapist who pays her mortgage
My cost of living went up
at five years old when I told my mother I have to stop going to birthday parties because every time I hear a balloon pop I feel like I’m being murdered in the heart

Last year, a balloon popped on the stage where I was performing, I started crying in front of the whole crowd, and kept repeating the word “loud, loud, loud.”
it was super sexy

That’s what I do
I do super sexy

Like when I asked the super cute barista 11 times ‘are you sure this is decaffeinated? Are you sure this is decaffeinated? Are you sure that’- yes I drink decaffeinated and still jitter like a bug running from the bright bright bright
I have spent years of my life wearing a tight rubber band hidden beneath my hair so my brain could have a hug

These days when no one’s looking I wear a fuzzy fitted winter hat that buttons tight beneath the chin and I only ever wear a tie so that when I convince myself I’m choking my senses have something they are certain they can blame

As a kid I was so certain I would die by way of meteor falling on my head
I’d go whole weeks without looking at the sky ‘cause I didn’t want to witness the coming of my own death

I started tapping the kitchen sink seven times to build a shield

My mother started making lists of everything I thought would kill me in hopes that if I saw my fears they would disappear
Bless her heart
but the first time I saw that list I started filling salad bowls with bleach and soaking my shoe laces overnight so in the morning when I ironed them they’d be so bright I would be certain I had control of how much dark could break into my light,
how much jack hammer could break into my heart,
But my spine it has always been a lasso that could never catch my breath

I honestly can’t imagine how it would feel to walk into a room and not feel the roof collapsing on my ‘NO NO NO I am not fine’

Fine
never tells the truth

And more than anything I have ever been afraid of I am terrified of lies
How they war the world
How they sound by our tongues
How they bone dry the marrow

How did we get through high school without being taught Dr. King spent two decades having panic attacks?
Avoided Windows
Jumped at thunder

I think we are all part flight the fight
part run for your life
Part ‘please like like like like like me’
Part Can’t breathe
Part scared to say you’re scared
Part say it anyway
You panic button collector
You clock of beautiful ticks
You can always, always, always
Shake like a leaf on my family tree
And know you belong here.

You absolutely belong here,
and everything you feel
is okay.

More Than Enough
By Marge Piercy

The first lily of June opens its red mouth.
All over the sand road where we walk
multiflora rose climbs trees cascading
white or pink blossoms, simple, intense
the scene drifting like colored mist.

The arrowhead is spreading its creamy
clumps of flower and the blackberries
are blooming in the thickets. Season of
joy for the bee. The green will never
again be so green, so purely and lushly

new, grass lifting its wheaty seedheads
into the wind. Rich fresh wine
of June, we stagger into you smeared
with pollen, overcome as the turtle
laying her eggs in roadside sand.

Ego Tripping (there may be a reason why)
By Nikki Giovanni

I was born in the congo
I walked to the fertile crescent and built
the sphinx
I designed a pyramid so tough that a star
that only glows every one hundred years falls
into the center giving divine perfect light
I am bad

I sat on the throne
drinking nectar with allah
I got hot and sent an ice age to europe
to cool my thirst
My oldest daughter is nefertiti
the tears from my birth pains
created the nile
I am a beautiful woman

I gazed on the forest and burned
out the sahara desert
with a packet of goat's meat
and a change of clothes
I crossed it in two hours
I am a gazelle so swift
so swift you can't catch me

For a birthday present when he was three
I gave my son hannibal an elephant
He gave me rome for mother's day
My strength flows ever on

My son noah built new/ark and
I stood proudly at the helm
as we sailed on a soft summer day
I turned myself into myself and was
jesus
men intone my loving name
All praises All praises
I am the one who would save

I sowed diamonds in my back yard
My bowels deliver uranium
the filings from my fingernails are
semi-precious jewels
On a trip north
I caught a cold and blew
My nose giving oil to the arab world
I am so hip even my errors are correct
I sailed west to reach east and had to round off
the earth as I went
The hair from my head thinned and gold was laid
across three continents

I am so perfect so divine so ethereal so surreal
I cannot be comprehended
except by my permission

I mean . . . I . . . can fly
like a bird in the sky . . .

Dakota Homecoming
By Gwen Nell Westerman

We are so honored that
you are here, they said.
We know that this is
your homeland, they said.
The admission price
is five dollars, they said.
Here is your button
for the event, they said.
It means so much to us that
you are here, they said.
We want to write
an apology letter, they said.
Tell us what to say.

When Love Arrives
By Sarah Kay & Phil Kaye

I knew exactly what Love looked like … in 7th grade.

Even though I hadn’t met Love yet, if Love had wandered into my home room I would have recognized him at first glance – Love wore a hemp necklace.
I would have recognized her at first glance – Love wore a tight French braid.
Love played acoustic guitar, and knew all my favorite Beatles’ songs.
Love wasn’t afraid to ride the bus with me.
And I knew I just must be searching the wrong class room, just must be checking the wrong hallway.
She was there, I was sure of it.
If only I could find him.

But when Love finally showed up – she had a bull cut!
He wore the same clothes everyday for a week.
Love hated the bus.
Love didn’t know anything about the Beatles.

Instead, every time I tried to kiss Love, our teeth got in the way!!!

Love became the reason I lied to my parents. I’m going to Ben’s house.
Love had terrible rhythm on the dance floor but made sure we never miss a slow song.
Love waited by the phone because she knew if her father picked up that’d be “Hello”… “Hh..” “Hello?” “Hh…” “I guess I’d hang up.”

And Love grew.
Stretched like a trampoline.

Love changed.
Love disappeared, slowly, like baby teeth.
Loosing parts of me I thought I needed.

Love vanished.
Like an amateur magician everyone could see the trapdoor but me.
Like a flat tire – there were other places I had planned on going.
But my plan didn’t matter.

Love stayed away for years.
And when Love finally reappeared, I barely recognized him.

Love smells different now, had darker eyes.
A broader back, Love came with freckles that I didn’t recognize.
New birth mark – a softer voice.
Now there were new sleeping patterns.
New favorite books.
Love had songs that reminded him of someone else.
Songs Love didn’t like to listen to, so did I.

But we found a park bench that fit us perfectly.
We found jokes that make us laugh.
And now Love makes me fresh homemade chocolate chip cookies.
(But Love will probably finish most of them for a midnight snack.)

Love looks great in lingerie but still likes to wear her retainer.
Love is a terrible driver, but a great navigator.
Love knows where she’s going, it just might take her two hours longer than she planned.
Love is messier now.
Love is simple.
Love uses the word boobs in front of my parents!
Love chews too loud.
Love leaves the cap off the toothpaste.
Love uses a smiley face in her text messages.
And turns out… Love shits.

But Love also cries;
And Love will tell you “You are beautiful”, and mean it.
Over and over again.

“You are beautiful.”

When you first wake up, “You are beautiful.”
When you’ve just been crying, “You are beautiful.”
When you don’t wanna hear it, “You are beautiful.”
When you don’t believe it, “You are beautiful.”
When nobody else will tell you, “You are beautiful.”
Love still thinks, “You are beautiful.”
But Love is not perfect and will sometimes forget.
When you need to hear it most, “You are beautiful.”

Do not forget this.
Love is not who you were expecting.
Love is not what you can predict.
Maybe Love is in New York City already asleep.
You are in California, Australia, wide awake.
Maybe Love is always in the wrong time-zone.
Maybe Love is not ready for you.
Maybe you are not ready for Love.

Maybe Love just isn’t the marrying type.
Maybe the next time you see Love is 20 years after the divorce.
Love looks older now but just as beautiful as you remember.
Maybe Love is only there for a month.
Maybe Love is there for every firework. Every birthday party. Every hospital visit.
Maybe Love stays. Maybe Love can’t. Maybe Love shouldn’t.

Love arrives exactly when Love is supposed to and Love leaves exactly when Love must.
When Love arrives, say, “Welcome. Make yourself comfortable.”
If Love leaves, ask her to leave the door open behind her.
Turn off the music. Listen to the quiet.
Whisper, “Thank you for stopping by.”

The Delight Song of Tsoai-talee
By N. Scott Momaday

I am a feather on the bright sky
I am the blue horse that runs in the plain
I am the fish that rolls, shining, in the water
I am the shadow that follows a child
I am the evening light, the lustre of meadows
I am an eagle playing with the wind
I am a cluster of bright beads
I am the farthest star
I am the cold of dawn
I am the roaring of the rain
I am the glitter on the crust of the snow
I am the long track of the moon in a lake
I am a flame of four colors
I am a deer standing away in the dusk
I am a field of sumac and the pomme blanche
I am an angle of geese in the winter sky
I am the hunger of a young wolf
I am the whole dream of these things

You see, I am alive, I am alive
I stand in good relation to the earth
I stand in good relation to the gods
I stand in good relation to all that is beautiful
I stand in good relation to the daughter of Tsen-tainte
You see, I am alive, I am alive

I Died for Beauty, but was Scarce
By Emily Dickinson

I died for Beauty – but was scarce
Adjusted in the Tomb
When One who died for Truth was lain
In an adjoining Room –

He questioned softly ‘Why I failed’?
‘For Beauty’, I replied –
‘And I – for Truth – Themself are one –
We Brethren are’, He said –

And so, as Kinsmen, met a Night –
We talked between the Rooms –
Until the Moss had reached our lips –
And covered up – our names –

Fairy-Land
By Edgar Allen Poe

Dim vales—and shadowy floods—
And cloudy-looking woods,
Whose forms we can’t discover
For the tears that drip all over:
Huge moons there wax and wane—
Again—again—again—
Every moment of the night—
Forever changing places—
And they put out the star-light
With the breath from their pale faces.
About twelve by the moon-dial,
One more filmy than the rest
(A kind which, upon trial,
They have found to be the best)
Comes down—still down—and down
With its centre on the crown
Of a mountain’s eminence,
While its wide circumference
In easy drapery falls
Over hamlets, over halls,
Wherever they may be—
O’er the strange woods—o’er the sea—
Over spirits on the wing—
Over every drowsy thing—
And buries them up quite
In a labyrinth of light—
And then, how, deep! —O, deep,
Is the passion of their sleep.
In the morning they arise,
And their moony covering
Is soaring in the skies,
With the tempests as they toss,
Like—almost any thing—
Or a yellow Albatross.
They use that moon no more
For the same end as before,
Videlicet, a tent—
Which I think extravagant:
Its atomies, however,
Into a shower dissever,
Of which those butterflies
Of Earth, who seek the skies,
And so come down again
(Never-contented things!)
Have brought a specimen
Upon their quivering wings.

Student poetry edited by J. G. Bova

Compiled by Samantha Flaherty