April 26, 2007: from American Names, Stephen Vincent Benet
from American Names
Stephen Vincent Benet
I have fallen in love with American names,
The sharp names that never get fat,
The snakeskin-titles of mining-claims,
The plumed war-bonnet of Medicine Hat,
Tucson and Deadwood and Lost Mule Flat.
Seine and Piave are silver spoons,
But the spoonbowl-metal is thin and worn,
There are English counties like hunting-tunes
Played on the keys of a postboy’s horn,
But I will remember where I was born.
I will remember Carquinez Straits,
Little French Lick and Lundy’s Lane,
The Yankee ships and the Yankee dates
And the bullet-towns of Calamity Jane.
I will remember Skunktown Plain.
I shall not rest quiet in Montparnasse.
I shall not lie easy at Winchelsea.
You may bury my body in Sussex grass,
You may bury my tongue at Champmedy.
I shall not be there. I shall rise and pass.
Bury my heart at Wounded Knee.
[This is an old one (published in 1927), but the rhythm of it is so infectuous — it’s been getting stuck in my head since seventh grade. I think it’s also a great example of a place name poem that works. The full version is here.]
More like this:
Starting from Paumanok, Walt Whitman
Nightmare at Noon, Stephen Vincent Benet
Canedolia - an off-concrete Scotch fantasia, Edwin Morgan
A year ago: since feeling is first, e.e. cummings
Two years ago: The Second Coming, W.B. Yeats
