Paul Valéry

Translated from the French by Nathaniel Rudavsky-Brody
Hai-Kai
I was waiting for who knows whom? (You? or day—or—)
A thought came.

Another
The mountain seems to be waiting for something;
The living water, to be running after something;
The sun, to be slowly seeking step by step
The point from which It will see something.

Another
Suddenly the moon breaks through
The murkiness of evening
As a curious woman in a crowd
Finds herself in the front row.

Untitled notebook [XIX, 910], 1937
from the book THE IDEA OF PERFECTION / Farrar, Straus and Giroux
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Poetry Foundation Names 2021 Award Winners and Fellows

Patricia Smith, winner of the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize, and Susan Briante, winner of the Pegasus Award for Poetry Criticism, were among those honored. Michelle T. Boone, President of the Poetry Foundation, said, “Every one of these extraordinary writers is a credit to the art form, each bringing their own unique experiences and approaches to enrich the literary landscape."

via POETRY FOUNDATION
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What Sparks Poetry: 
Aaron McCollough on Denise Levertov's The Poet In The World


"We are, as she says, 'living our whole lives in a state of emergency' and therefore have no choice but to resist the petty politics of disenfranchisement peddled by nationalist revanchism and instead to embrace a truly radical form of conservatism—the effort to 'save that earthly life, that miracle of being, which poetry conserves and celebrates.'"
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