Camille Dungy at The Poetry Foundation

Camille Dungy

"For oh, I fear"

I’ve spent at least eight hours of each of the past four days reading other people’s poems. I am attending to word choice, comma placement, the arrangement of lines on the page. I am remembering, in this process, how vulnerable we poets make ourselves each time we take first the risk of writing poems and then the subsequent risk of sending these poems out into the world. This can be a terrifying prospect, writing and then sharing poetry. What I like to read, now and again, are poems that speak directly to the perils of this art.

I thought of this idea when I ran across this poem:

"Poetry"

Sometimes I tremble like a storm-swept flower,
And seek to hide my tortured soul from thee,
Bowing my head in deep humility
Before the silent thunder of thy power.
Sometimes I flee before thy blazing light,
As from the specter of pursuing death;
Intimidated lest thy mighty breath,
Windways, will sweep me into utter night.
For oh, I fear they will be swallowed up—
The loves which are to me of vital worth,
My passion and my pleasure in the earth—
And lost forever in thy magic cup!
I fear, I fear my truly human heart
Will perish on the altar-stone of art!

Claude McKay, from Harlem Shadows (1922)

Read the entire post here:
http://poetryfoundation.org/harriet/2009/03/for_oh_i_fear.html