World Poetry Day, March 21, is a celebration of our “most treasured forms of cultural and linguistic expression and identity. . . poetry speaks to our common humanity and our shared values, transforming the simplest of poems into a powerful catalyst for dialogue and peace.”
GTEC is committed to the inclusion of arts and culture in its publications. Therefore, what better way to celebrate Poetry Day and World Water Day (March 22), then with some water related poems.
Oread
By H.D.
Whirl up, sea –
whirl your pointed pines,
splash your great pines
on our rocks,
hurl your green over us,
cover us with your pools of fir.
Hilda Doolittle, who wrote under the pen name H.D., was born in Pennsylvania in 1886. A poet whose unique work is admired for being innovative and experimental.
Autumn Rain
By D.H. Lawrence
The plane leaves
fall black and wet
on the lawn;
The cloud sheaves
in heaven’s fields set
droop and are drawn
in falling seeds of rain;
the seed of heaven
on my face
falling – I hear again
like echoes even
that softly pace
Heaven’s muffled floor,
the winds that tread
out all the grain
of tears, the store
harvested
in the sheaves of pain
caught up aloft:
the sheaves of dead
men that are slain
now winnowed soft
on the floor of heaven;
manna invisible
of all the pain
here to us given;
finely divisible
falling as rain.
D.H. Lawrence is an English writer whose work reflects upon the dehumanizing effects of modernity and industrialization and confronts issues relating to emotional health and vitality.
If you are interested in reading more poems, please click the links to the following poems that were published in the GTEC Reader:
No Rush by Scott Lawrance
The Sea by Jack Kerouac