No cookie nibbled by a French novelist could send one into the past more suddenly...

My three favorite poems are "The Lanyard" by Billy Collins, "Love Poem" by John Frederick Nims, and "September 1, 1939" by W. H. Auden. There are a handful of other poems and poets I appreciate (let's see... Yeats, um, Yeats... Atwood! Margaret Atwood writes some poetry... Yeats, Atwood... and David Slavitt wrote this one poem about the sinking of the Titanic that I wrote an essay about once...), but these three take the cake.

"The Lanyard" - you must read it, really. Or you must log on to the NPR website and hear Billy Collins read it, in his dry monotone.

Here are thousands of meals, she said,
and here is clothing and a good education.
And here is your lanyard, I replied,
which I made with a little help from a counselor.

Classic.

/ / / / /


Next, Nims' "Love Poem," which addresses its subject as "my clumbsiest dear."
My clumbsiest dear, whose hands shipwreck vases,
At whose quick touch all glasses chip and ring,
Whose palms are bulls in china, burrs in linen,
And have no cunning with any soft thing

Except all ill at ease fidgeting people:
The refugee uncertain at the door
You make at home; deftly you steady
The drunk clambering on his undulant floor.

Unpredictable dear, the taxi drivers' terror,
Shrinking from far headlights pale as a dime
Yet leaping before red apoplectic streetcars-
Misfit in any space. And never on time.

A wrench in clocks and the solar system. Only
With words and people and love you move at ease.
In traffic of wit expertly manoeuver
And keep us, all devotion, at your knees.

Forgeting your coffee spreading on our flannel,
Your lipstick grinning on our coat,
So gayly in love's unbreakable heaven
Our soals on glory of split bourbon float.

Be with me darling early and late. Smash glasses-
I will study wry music for your sake.
For should yor hands drop white and empty
All the toys of the world would break. I love this poem for its unorthodox warmth and honesty. No shooting stars, no pounding hearts, no sweating palms. Only with words and people and love you move at ease. The last lines (For should your hands drop white and empty / All the toys of the world would break) crushes me a little.

/ / / / /

And, lastly, Auden's "September 1, 1939." I love every line from I sit in one of the dives / On Fifty-Second Street / Uncertain and afraid / As the clever hopes expire straight through to the closing words, but especially the closing words, which I will post here and not spoil by saying anything more about them:

Defenseless under the night
Our world in stupor lies;
Yet, dotted everywhere,
Ironic points of light
Flash out wherever the Just
Exchange their messages:
May I, composed like them
Of Eros and dust,
Beleaguered by the same
Negation and despair,
Show an affirming flame.