Purveyors of fine poetry since 2003.
Song sparrow, house sparrow—
do your names ever get mistaken
for sorrow? With your chestnut
brown or your grey cap, you fly
in and out of the eaves, forage
in the dirt. One of you sings,
tireless, through the year. One
of you hops on the ground then
tucks your bill beneath your
feathers. I don't know the meaning
of the sounds you make— a few phrases
ending with a trill, a series of chirrups
— but I don't hear the sound of grief
or wounding until I myself am sad.
Long in bed, and then rose and went along with Sir W. Pen on foot to Stepny to Mrs. Chappell’s (who has the pretty boy to her son), and there met my wife and Sir W. Pen’s children all, and Mrs. Poole and her boy, and there dined and were very merry, and home again by coach and so to the office. In the afternoon and at night to Sir W. Pen’s, there supped and played at cards with them and were merry, the children being to go all away to school again to-morrow. Thence home and to bed.
we long to step
on a pool of ice
in afternoon play
at school again
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Tuesday 7 January 1661/62.
I am scoured clean, Lord.
I don't know what else
to give so someone
else can live.
A personal selection of posts from the Poetry Blogging Network and beyond. Although I tend to quote my favorite bits, please do click through and read the whole posts. You can also browse the blog digest archive at Via Negativa or, if you’d like it in your inbox, subscribe on Substack (where the posts might be truncated by some email providers).
This week: taking stock, a guilty murmur, brand new rhythms, the skins of clementines, and more. Enjoy.
Continue reading “Poetry Blog Digest 2025, Week 1”
(Twelfth day). This morning I sent my lute to the Paynter’s, and there I staid with him all the morning to see him paint the neck of my lute in my picture, which I was not pleased with after it was done. Thence to dinner to Sir W. Pen’s, it being a solemn feast day with him, his wedding day, and we had, besides a good chine of beef and other good cheer, eighteen mince pies in a dish, the number of the years that he hath been married, where Sir W. Batten and his Lady, and daughter was, and Colonel Treswell and Major Holmes, who I perceive would fain get to be free and friends with my wife, but I shall prevent it, and she herself hath also a defyance against him. After dinner they set in to drinking, so that I would stay no longer, but went away home, and Captain Cock, who was quite drunk, comes after me, and there sat awhile and so away, and anon I went again after the company was gone, and sat and played at cards with Sir W. Pen and his children, and so after supper home, and there I hear that my man Gull was gone to bed, and upon enquiry I hear that he did vomit before he went to bed, and complained his head ached, and thereupon though he was asleep I sent for him out of his bed, and he rose and came up to me, and I appeared very angry and did tax him with being drunk, and he told me that he had been with Mr. Southerne and Homewood at the Dolphin, and drank a quart of sack, but that his head did ache before he went out. But I do believe he has drunk too much, and so I did threaten him to bid his uncle dispose of him some other way, and sent him down to bed and do resolve to continue to be angry with him. So to bed to my wife, and told her what had passed.
in the sand all morning
the day is as long
as the way home
I hear a gull vomit
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Monday 6 January 1661/62.
~ after Cecilia Woloch
Surely there is a plain over which
the promised snow will fall tonight,
and in those moments the world will look
unmarked: not edged with blood or war, not
heaving under chalk and rubble. Surely
the child who stumbled on the path finds
signs that point toward flourishing, and
sets her sights anew. Surely there are those
who still believe in the heart of a country,
in a country of the heart; and how one day
no one needs to run away. And if the gods
have turned aside, surely the ancestors
continue to keep watch— brushing the hair
out of our eyes, filling our lungs with
breath; holding our pulsing hearts in their
brown hands so we can see how beautifully
built they are, and not at all of gummy
paste and balled up newsprint.
(Lord’s day). Left my wife in bed not well with her moys and I to church, and so home to dinner, and dined alone upon some marrow bones, and had a fine piece of rost beef, but being alone I eat none. So after dinner comes in my brother Tom, and he tells me how he hath seen the father and mother of the girl which my cozen Joyces would have him to have for a wife, and they are much for it, but we are in a great quandary what to do therein, 200l. being but a little money; and I hope, if he continues as he begins, he may look out for one with more.
To church, and before sermon there was a long psalm, and half another sung out while the Sexton gathered what the church would give him for this last year. I gave him 3s., and have the last week given the Clerk 2s., which I set down that I may know what to do the next year, if it please the Lord that I live so long; but the jest was, the Clerk begins the 25th psalm, which hath a proper tune to it, and then the 116th, which cannot be sung with that tune, which seemed very ridiculous.
After church to Sir W. Batten’s, where on purpose I have not been this fortnight, and I am resolved to keep myself more reserved to avoyd the contempt which otherwise I must fall into, and so home and sat and talked and supped with my wife, and so up to prayers and to bed, having wrote a letter this night to Sir J. Mennes in the Downs for his opinion in the business of striking of flags.
my bones alone tell me
how to wear out
I give what I live on
a tune which cannot be sung
a tune which seemed ridiculous
on a night of flags
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Sunday 5 January 1661/62.
Have we not been here before
in the middle of the wood, churning
like needles torn from the compass
rose? The sky bears down with its rolls
of dark fleece, its frayed ends
and curtain-pulls. We know
there used to be a room just beyond
the twig-entangled screen, washed
in a soft yellow light and rinsed
of thunder. And we've been there
too, so we know it exists. Let's
rest here even as the storm
stirs this world into roughened
points. Let's wait for this fire
to burn itself out but not offer
ourselves to its mouth.
Here's the gilt-edged missal and a rosary
she used to thumb each morning upon waking.
The beads are carved of fragrant wood.
For years, you thought of prayer as a wheel:
repeating phrases as someone cranks a lever.
You'd read from the gilt-edged missal, rosary
at the ready, hoping you remembered the refrain.
The gravity of now and at the hour, world without end.
You came back by touching the beads of fragrant wood.
And perhaps, every prayer endures a kind of cycle—
the votive lit, the wish given words, lofting upwards.
My mother's gilt-edged missal, her rosary, memento
of how she put her faith in things not of the world
even as she did what she could to solve her problems.
What ends do they spell, beads carved of fragrant wood?
Part of you believes in hard work, in the practical;
part of you cries out to something in the night.
You touch these beads carved of fragrant wood,
the rosary she left, and the gilt-edged missal.
At home most of the morning hanging up pictures, and seeing how my pewter sconces that I have bought will become my stayres and entry, and then with my wife by water to Westminster, whither she to her father’s and I to Westminster Hall, and there walked a turn or two with Mr. Chetwin (who had a dog challenged of him by another man that said it was his, but Mr. Chetwin called the dog, and the dog at last would follow him, and not his old master, and so Chetwin got the dog) and W. Symons, and thence to my wife, who met me at my Lord’s lodgings, and she and I and old East to Wilkinson’s to dinner, where we had some rost beef and a mutton pie, and a mince-pie, but none of them pleased me. After dinner by coach my wife and I home, and I to the office, and there till late, and then I and my wife to Sir W. Pen’s to cards and supper, and were merry, and much correspondence there has been between our two families all this Christmas. So home and to bed.
see how we walk
no dog and no master
who met meat
akin to dinner
some beef in the correspondence
between our two lies
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Saturday 4 January 1661/62.