Author Archives: Don Yorty

Robert Frost reads Acquainted with the Night (a closer look at the present perfect tense in English)

… Acquainted with the Night I have been one acquainted with the night. I have walked out in rain—and back in rain. I have outwalked the furthest city light. I have looked down the saddest city lane. I have passed … Continue reading →

Five Sonnets

4 May ’12

… I focused on these sonnets, part of Sonnets 1 – 60, this late winter and spring prior to a reading I was going to do in Philly and managed to change most of the things that bothered me about … Continue reading →

Songs

29 Apr ’12

… I wrote the lyrics for the following songs mostly in my 20s. I was doing poetry performances in Philly in the late 70s and began singing with a band, The Sea of Hands, who accompanied me, before doing songs … Continue reading →

The Tuft of Flowers by Robert Frost

28 Apr ’12

… Was Robert Frost chained resolutely to the laws of metrics? “Iamb the iamb,” he said. As strictly as The Tuft of Flowers sticks to form (couplets of iambic pentameter), in the reading Frost changes words: the instead of a … Continue reading →

The Waste Land

21 Apr ’12

….. In 1968 at the age of 19, I was waiting for inspiration’s kiss when I was supposed to be the one doing the kissing, but I didn’t know that until I found The Waste Land on a dusty shelf … Continue reading →

A Few Swimmers Appear

19 Apr ’12

… … Apparent rari nantes in gurgite vasto. A few swimmers appear in a huge whirlpool. —Vergil … sleep vanishes When sleep vanishes then you swim. Awake is no island merely swift stroke and breath. The moon is not the … Continue reading →

Fucking II, part II: Poet Laundromat: I see a Tiajuana donkey leans

14 Apr ’12

… Poet Laundromat was published with the help of Stephen Spera & Philadelphia Eye & Ear Press in 1983. It comes from a long poem I was working on called Fucking, but it took its own form from the larger … Continue reading →

74

5 Apr ’12

… I saw the bluebird first, its beating soft Red breast. Young water snake, I looked for it Next settled near the dock but it hadn’t Risen yet or already’d slithered off. The pond’s cold. I won’t dive in. It … Continue reading →

69

4 Apr ’12

… Happy children hunted for eggs and went bursting through the bushes. I’d hurriedly made them before that unexpectedly fast, put off for so long in a moment fun, boiled, dyed and done. Morning’s over. The afternoon has found a … Continue reading →

68

4 Apr ’12

… Had I left sooner or later it would All have been different, but I didn’t And got into two arguments, one in A store and one on the sidewalk about The neighborhood with two freeloaders who Do nothing, yet … Continue reading →

103

30 Mar ’12

… I woke up from a dream before daylight. I’d dreamt I tried to make a living plant into a work of art. It didn’t work. Trying to make it sculpture-hard it died. I was in a room with other … Continue reading →

67

25 Mar ’12

… I used to clean cat vomit up but now I don’t unless it’s in the path I walk Otherwise it can stay unlike broken glass or garbage with day old fish in it. In less than an hour or … Continue reading →