Collected Poems by Dove, Rita -- Read -- Imperial Library of Trantor

Index

Cover Title Contents In the Old Neighborhood The Yellow House on the Corner (1980)

This Life The Bird Frau Robert Schumann, Or: Musical Genius Begins with Affliction Happenstance Small Town The Snow King Sightseeing Upon Meeting Don L. Lee, In a Dream “Teach Us to Number Our Days” Nigger Song: An Odyssey

Five Elephants Geometry Champagne Night Watch The Secret Garden A Suite for Augustus

1963 D.C. Planning the Perfect Evening Augustus Observes the Sunset Wake Back

III

Belinda’s Petition The House Slave David Walker (1785–1830) The Abduction The Transport of Slaves from Maryland to Mississippi Pamela Someone’s Blood Cholera The Slave’s Critique of Practical Reason Kentucky, 1833

Adolescence—I Adolescence—II Adolescence—III The Boast The Kadava Kumbis Devise a Way to Marry for Love Spy First Kiss Then Came Flowers Pearls Nexus

Notes from a Tunisian Journal The Sahara Bus Trip For Kazuko Beauty and the Beast His Shirt Great Uncle Beefheart The Son Corduroy Road Ö

Museum (1983)

I. The Hill Has Something to Say

The Fish in the Stone The Ants of Argos Pithos Nestor’s Bathtub The Hill Has Something to Say The Copper Beech Tou Wan Speaks to Her Husband, Liu Sheng Catherine of Alexandria Catherine of Siena Receiving the Stigmata Boccaccio: The Plague Years Fiammetta Breaks Her Peace

II. In the Bulrush

November for Beginners Reading Hölderlin on the Patio with the Aid of a Dictionary Shakespeare Say Three Days of Forest, a River, Free Banneker In the Bulrush Delft Ike Agosta the Winged Man and Rasha the Black Dove At the German Writers Conference in Munich

III. My Father’s Telescope

Grape Sherbet Roses Sunday Night at Grandfather’s Centipede My Father’s Telescope Song. Summer Anti-Father To Bed A Father out Walking on the Lawn

IV. Primer for the Nuclear Age

The Sailor in Africa Early Morning on the Tel Aviv–Haifa Freeway Why I Turned Vegetarian Eastern European Eclogues Flirtation Exeunt the Viols The Left-Handed Cellist Lines Muttered in Sleep Primer for the Nuclear Age Parsley

Thomas and Beulah (1986)

I. Mandolin

The Event Variation on Pain Jiving Straw Hat Courtship Refrain Variation on Guilt Nothing Down The Zeppelin Factory Under the Viaduct, 1932 Lightnin’ Blues Compendium Definition in the Face of Unnamed Fury Aircraft Aurora Borealis Variation on Gaining a Son One Volume Missing The Charm Gospel Roast Possum The Stroke The Satisfaction Coal Company Thomas at the Wheel

II. Canary in Bloom

Taking in Wash Magic Courtship, Diligence Promises Dusting A Hill of Beans Weathering Out Motherhood Anniversary The House on Bishop Street Daystar Obedience The Great Palaces of Versailles Pomade Headdress Sunday Greens Recovery Nightmare Wingfoot Lake Company The Oriental Ballerina

Chronology

Grace Notes (1989)

Summit Beach, 1921 I

Silos Fifth Grade Autobiography The Buckeye Quaker Oats Flash Cards Crab-Boil Hully Gully Fantasy and Science Fiction Sisters Uncle Millet Poem in Which I Refuse Contemplation

Mississippi After Storm Watching Last Year at Marienbad at Roger Haggerty’s House in Auburn, Alabama Dog Days, Jerusalem Ozone Turning Thirty, I Contemplate Students Bicycling Home Particulars Your Death The Wake

III

The Other Side of the House Pastoral Horse and Tree The Breathing, The Endless News After Reading Mickey in the Night Kitchen for the Third Time Before Bed Genetic Expedition Backyard, 6 a.m.

Dedication Ars Poetica Arrow Stitches In the Museum And Counting Dialectical Romance Medusa In a Neutral City

Saints Genie’s Prayer under the Kitchen Sink The Gorge Canary The Island Women of Paris À l’Opéra Obbligato Lint The Royal Workshops On the Road to Damascus Old Folk’s Home, Jerusalem

Mother Love (1995)

An Intact World I

Heroes

Primer Party Dress for a First Born Persephone, Falling The Search Protection The Narcissus Flower Persephone Abducted Statistic: The Witness Grief: The Council Mother Love Breakfast of Champions Golden Oldie

III

Persephone in Hell

Hades’ Pitch Wiederkehr Wiring Home The Bistro Styx

Blue Days Nature’s Itinerary Sonnet in Primary Colors Demeter Mourning Exit Afield Lost Brilliance

Political Demeter, Waiting Lamentations Teotihuacán History Used Rusks Missing Demeter’s Prayer to Hades

VII

Her Island

On the Bus with Rosa Parks (1999)

Cameos

July 1925—Night—Birth—Lake Erie Skyline, 1930—Depression Years—Homework—Graduation, Grammar School—Painting the Town—Easter Sunday, 1940—Nightwatch. The Son.

Freedom: Bird’s-Eye View

Singsong I Cut My Finger Once on Purpose Parlor The First Book Maple Valley Branch Library, 1967 Freedom: Bird’s-Eye View Testimonial Dawn Revisited

Black on a Saturday Night

My Mother Enters the Work Force Black on a Saturday Night The Musician Talks About “Process” Sunday The Camel Comes to Us from the Barbarians The Venus of Willendorf Incarnation in Phoenix

Revenant

Best Western Motor Lodge, AAA Approved Revenant On Veronica There Came a Soul The Peach Orchard Against Repose Against Self-Pity Götterdämmerung Ghost Walk Lady Freedom Among Us For Sophie, Who’ll Be in First Grade in the Year 2000

On the Bus with Rosa Parks

Sit Back, Relax “The situation is intolerable” Freedom Ride Climbing In Claudette Colvin Goes to Work The Enactment Rosa QE2. Transatlantic Crossing. Third Day. In the Lobby of the Warner Theatre, Washington, D.C. The Pond, Porch-View: Six p.m., Early Spring

American Smooth (2004)

Fox Trot Fridays

All Souls’ “I have been a stranger in a strange land” Fox Trot Fridays Ta Ta Cha Cha Quick Brown Fox Heart to Heart Cozy Apología Soprano Two for the Montrose Drive-In Meditation at Fifty Yards, Moving Target American Smooth

Not Welcome Here

The Castle Walk The Passage Noble Sissle’s Horn Alfonzo Prepares to Go Over the Top La Chapelle. 92nd Division. Ted. Variation on Reclamation The Return of Lieutenant James Reese Europe Ripont

Twelve Chairs Blues in Half-Tones, 3/4 Time

Chocolate Bolero Hattie McDaniel Arrives at the Coconut Grove Samba Summer Blues in Half-Tones, 3/4 Time Describe Yourself in Three Words or Less The Seven Veils of Salomé From Your Valentine Rhumba The Sisters: Swansong.

Evening Primrose

Evening Primrose Reverie in Open Air Sic Itur Ad Astra Count to Ten and We’ll Be There Eliza, Age 10, Harlem Lullaby Driving Through Desert Backyard Desk Dreams Now Against Flight Looking Up from the Page, I Am Reminded of This Mortal Coil

Notes Acknowledgments Index of Titles and First Lines Also by Rita Dove Copyright

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