Poetry Friday: The Supreme Court and Shakespeare

The man himself

 In honor of the Supreme Court striking down DOMA this week (and in memory of my friend Daryl, and with respect for his loving partner Wayne)  I offer up this sonnet by Shakespeare, who knew a thing of two about love:

Sonnet 116

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come:
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
   If this be error and upon me proved,
   I never writ, nor no man ever loved. 


Here's to striking down unconstitutional impediments. Bravo!!  (Speaking of Bravo, I really should have a poem here honoring Wendy Davis of Texas!  And I should have another poem about how disappointed I am with SCOTUS's Voting Rights decision....my gosh, what a week!)

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Poetry Friday this week is being hosted by Amy Ludwig VanDerwater over at The Poem Farm. Head over there to see what other people have posted.

Poetry Friday: Barley-Corn Thoughts

Walt Whitman - "This is the city and I am one of the citizens...."

Three weeks before an important election, and I have been thinking about participatory democracy, and about how far removed poetry feels from politics. But partly due to a recent trip to New York City (which is a poem  - a multitude of poems - in itself)  I've also been thinking about the most democratic of poets, Walt Whitman - how he embraced life, embraced people, valued them, refused to assign them "high" or "low" status, simply breathed the multitude in. And that man could BREATHE. I wonder what he would think of America in 2012?Would he have been saddened by the devisiveness? Of course, he lived through the Civil War, so he knew a bit about intransigence and combativeness. Just look at the young man in the picture above, and the Walt Whitman of later years. He still seems to have the ability, with that face, to pull you toward him. He still held multitudes. 

If you last read Whitman when you were a student in high school, read "A Song of Myself" again before you vote.

"...for every atom belonging to me, as well belongs to you...''

"In all people I see myself, none more and not one a barley-corn less...

"I am large, I contain multitudes."

I'll be thinking about these words - about our deep connection to all people - "none more and not one a barley-corn less" than me -  when I cast my ballot in a few weeks.

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The Poetry Friday round-up is being hosted by Irene Latham today over at her blog, Live Your Poem. Head over there to see what other people are posting.