Tenebræ Readings, 3 of 3

Today’s post is the conclusion of a short series of 3 posts. They began on Tuesday and present all of the poetry read at our recent Tenebræ program. The actual script used by Aaron Gould, the reader in concert, is also posted along-side the program on this page.

Many, many thanks to BCE member Jeremy Innis for organizing the readings and to Sudeep Agarwala and Jason Zahorchak for their help in the final stages of the project. NB hopes you enjoyed these beautiful poems!

Truth
by Gwendolyn Brooks
1949

And if sun comes
How shall we greet him?
Shall we not dread him,
Shall we not fear him
After so lengthy a
Session with shade?

Though we have wept for him,
Though we have prayed
All through the night-years—
What if we wake one shimmering morning to
Hear the fierce hammering
Of his firm knuckles
Hard on the door?

Shall we not shudder?—
Shall we not flee
Into the shelter, the dear thick shelter
Of the familiar
Propitious haze?

Sweet is it, sweet is it
To sleep in the coolness
Of snug unawareness.

The dark hangs heavily
Over the eyes.

Mayakovsky (Part IV)
by Frank O’Hara
Southampton, February 1954

Now I am quietly waiting for
the catastrophe of my personality
to seem beautiful again,
and interesting, and modern.

The country is grey and
brown and white in trees,
snows and skies of laughter
always diminishing, less funny
not just darker, not just grey.

It may be the coldest day of
the year, what does he think of
that? I mean, what do I? And if I do,
perhaps I am myself again.