National Poetry Month continues in April

To celebrate National Poetry Month this year, James Blevins, the Gazette’s in-house reporter and poet—who has seen his work previously published in “Salt Hill Journal,” “Pretty Owl Poetry,” “Stoneboat Journal,” “Mud Season Review” and “AZURE,” as well as numerous other outlets both online and in print—has elected to pick five poems for publication, one for each Friday in April, concluding with a poem of his own on April 29.

The Past Is the Present

By Marianne Moore

Revived bitterness

is unnecessary unless

         One is ignorant.

To-morrow will be

Yesterday unless you say the

         Days of the week back-

Ward. Last week’s circus

Overflow frames an old grudge. Thus:

         When you attempt to

Force the doors and come

At the cause of the shouts, you thumb

         A brass nailed echo.

Marianne Moore was born on November 15, 1887, in St. Louis, Missouri. She served as a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets from 1952 to 1964. Her books include “Collected Poems” (Macmillan, 1951), which received the Pulitzer Prize, “The Pangolin and Other Verse” (Brendin Publishing, 1936) and “Poems” (The Egoist Press, 1921), among others. She died in New York City on February 5, 1972.