To mark National Poetry Month in April 2008, we offered a daily selection of aviation-related verse. The featured poems were taken from the following books:
April 1
The Old Pilot by Donald Hall, is from Old and New Poems,Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, 1990.
April 2
Landscape with the Fall of Icarus, by William Carlos Williams, is from Collected Poems 1939-1962, Volume II, New Directions Publishing Corp., 1962.
April 3
Flying at Night, by Ted Kooser, is from One World at a Time, University of Pittsburgh Press, 1985.
April 4
Dog Asleep, by William Stafford, originally appeared in Creative Review, July 1958.
April 7
Toward the Space Age, by William Stafford, was used by permission of The Estate of William Stafford.
April 8
The Man in the Dead Machine, by Donald Hall, is from Old and New Poems, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, 1990.
April 9
The Lunar Probe, by Maxine Kumin, is from Halfway, Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1961.
April 10
To Beachey, 1912, by Carl Sandburg, is from Chicago Poems, Henry Holt and Company, 1916.
April 11
Heel & Toe to the End, by William Carlos Williams, is from Collected Poems 1938-1962, Volume II, New Directions Publishing Corp., 1953.
April 14
Ode for Orville and Wilbur Wright, by David Moolten, first appeared in The Southern Review (Winter 2001). The poem also appears in David Moolten's book Especially Then, 2005.
April 15
The Black Hole, by Robert Pack, is from Fathering the Map: New and Selected Later Poems, University of Chicago Press, 1993.
April 16
Vacation, by Rita Dove, originally appeared in The New Yorker, December 26, 1994.
April 17
untitled
Translated from Luna Habitabilis by Thomas Gray (1716-71)
April 18
Autobiography at an Air-Station, by Philip Larkin, is from Collected Poems, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2004.
April 21
The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner, by Randall Jarrell, is from The Complete Poems, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1969, 1997.
April 22
Small Plane in Kansas, by Thom Gunn, is from Collected Poems, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1982, 1994.
April 23
Amelia, by Gill Robb Wilson, is from Leaves From An Old Log, American Aviation Associates, 1938.
April 24
Eagle Youth, by Karle Wilson Baker, was originally published in Yale Review, 1918.
April 25
Losses, by Randall Jarrell, is from The Complete Poems, Farrar, Straux and Giroux, 1945, 1969.
April 28
The Boy's First Flight, by Gary Soto,was written for the NASA Art Program in 1997.
April 29
Flying Crooked, by Robert Graves, is from Robert Graves Collected Poems, Carcanet Press, 2000.
April 30
An Airman's Hymn, by Francis M. Miller, is from the June 20, 1940,18th Pursuit Group Songbook.
I fell bereft with no more daily poetry! I enjoyed each and every one of the poems. Who knew there was such a vast collection of aviation poetry! Thank you.
Posted by Marlene on May 1,2008 | 09:15AM