A Theory Of Prosody
by Philip Levine
When Nellie, my old pussy
cat, was still in her prime,
she would sit behind me
as I wrote, and when the line
got too long she’d reach
one sudden black foreleg down
and paw at the moving hand,
the offensive one. The first
time she drew blood I learned
it was poetic to end
a line anywhere to keep her
quiet. After all, many morn-
ings she’d gotten to the chair
long before I was even up.
Those nights I couldn’t sleep
she’d come and sit in my lap
to calm me. So I figured
I owed her the short cat line.
She’s dead now almost nine years,
and before that there was one
during which she faked attention
and I faked obedience.
Isn’t that what it’s about—
pretending there’s an alert cat
who leaves nothing to chance.
End of the poem
15 random poems
- Юнна Мориц – Не вспоминай меня
- Mustard Flowers
- A Silence poem – Amy Clampitt poems | Poems and Poetry
- Don’t fear death poem – Aleksandr Blok poems | Poetry Monster
- Continuing To Live by Philip Larkin
- Анатолий Жигулин – Эпоха
- Ольга Берггольц – На Ивана-пьющего
- Константин Бальмонт – Морское дно
- Федор Сологуб – В моих мечтах такое постоянство
- If You Only Knew by Robert Desnos
- The Dog and the Bear by William Somervile
- The Waist of Time by The Waist of Time
- As I lay with Head in your Lap, Camerado. by Walt Whitman
- Half The People In The World by Yehuda Amichai
- Robert Burns: Address To The Unco Guid, Or The Rigidly Righteous:
Some external links:
Duckduckgo.com – the alternative in the US
Quant.com – a search engine from France, and also an alternative, at least for Europe
Yandex – the Russian search engine (it’s probably the best search engine for image searches).
Philip Levine ( 1928 – 2015) was an American poet best known for his poems about working-class Detroit. He taught for more than thirty years in the English department of California State University, Fresno and held teaching positions at other universities as well. He served on the Board of Chancellors of the Academy of American Poets from 2000 to 2006, and was appointed Poet Laureate of the United States for 2011–2012