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The Letter / Free

Every other week: one finding from the canon data, one poem on loan, and the newest tool, with a note on how to use it.

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Poems on Loan

Lines we could not stop rereading, borrowed with thanks from the books and journals that first printed them.

In the desert
I saw a creature, naked, bestial,
Who, squatting upon the ground,
Held his heart in his hands,
And ate of it.

In the desertStephen Crane · The Black Riders and Other Lines (1895)

I heard a Fly buzz – when I died –
The Stillness in the Room
Was like the Stillness in the Air –
Between the Heaves of Storm –

I heard a Fly buzz – when I died –Emily Dickinson · Poems, Third Series (1896)

I caught this morning morning’s minion, king-
dom of daylight’s dauphin, dapple-dawn-drawn Falcon, in his riding
Of the rolling level underneath him steady air, and striding
High there, how he rung upon the rein of a wimpling wing
In his ecstasy!

The WindhoverGerard Manley Hopkins · Poems (1918)