Various Poets - Fragments Vol. 1 (1928-29)

Forgotten Poems #128: Golding, Dunning, Fuller, et al.

On any given “work” day I might read a few hundred poems, pouring through old publications, cataloguing the poets that catch my eye. Along the way I find a lot of verses that—while not to my taste—have a few lines or ‘fragments’ which leap off the page, capable of sustaining themselves as standalone short poems. Here are a few I’ve collected recently, mostly while looking through the 1928-1929 run of Harriet Monroe’s Poetry magazine;

    
              —: R.E. Hieronymus :—

       Flash, O primordial power unleashed!—
       Shake off the sleep of a million years.
    

    
              —: Louis Golding :—

       He behind the straight plough stands:

       Naught he cares for wars
       and naught
       For the fierce disease
       of thought,

       Only for the winds . . .
       Only for the soil . . .
    

   
              —: Clark Ashton Smith :—

       No shining words
       of stone—

       Shadows and cloud
       alone—

       These shall the poet seek.
   

       
              —: Ralph Cheever Dunning :—

       I'll show you
       as a lover should

       A man who loves
       a woman well

       Can love her as
       a woman would.
   

   
              —: Herbert Gerhard Brunken :—

       The stain of sleepless water falling
       like melted lead . . .
       timeless like subterranean snow:

       “We are not dead
                       but only sleeping”
      

   
              —: Ethel Romig Fuller :—
   
       Mountains talk;
       Their language is a composite
            of all peoples,
            of all lands,
            of all ages,
            of all planets,
            of all seas . . .

       I am studying the language
            of mountains.
    

Been on a bit of hiatus recently. Had some other projects to get done, including a new book of my own poetry, my first full-length book of haiku translations, and a new website. More news soon! Hope everyone is well, and we’ll return to our usual programming next week.

         
              —: Fragment :—
                          by Dick Whyte

       whatever's been forgiven gives
       four gifts, all wrapped in linen—

       an earthen jug—
       a wooden bowl—
       a sack & a map to a river—

       [ . . . ]
       

POETRY PROMPT

Read through the poems above, and take note of any lines or phrases which strike you as interesting. Use these notes to construct a poem, adding as little or as much to the original as you feel is necessary. Post the results in the comments below, I’d love to have a read!

Forgotten Poets Presents:

Forgotten Poems, a living anthology of obscure and out-of-print poetry from the late-1800s and early-1900s. Explore the archives:

More poems about stones . . .

More poems about snow . . .

More poems about mountains . . .