Welcome back to the Daily Poem. I'm David Kern. Today's poem is from Edna St. Vincent Millet, who you've heard from before on this show. She lived from 1892 to 1950 and was known as Richard Wilbur asserted as the writer of some of the best sonnets of the century.

The sonnet that I'm going to read today is

what my lips have kissed and where and why.

And I'll go ahead and read it and then I'm going to offer some comments

from a book that I particularly am fond of

that has something to say about this poem and about sonnets in general.

So I'll get right to the poem, and then we'll think about it.

What lips my lips have kissed and where and why by Edna St. Vincent Milley.

What lips my lips have kissed and where and why I have forgotten, and what arms have lain under my head till morning.

But the rain is full of ghosts tonight, the tap and sigh upon the glass and listen for reply.

And in my heart there stirs a quiet pain for unremembered lads that not again will turn

to me at midnight with a cry.

Thus in the winter stands the lonely tree, nor knows what birds have vanished one by one,

yet knows its bows more silent than before.

I cannot say what loves have come and gone.

I only know that summer sing in me a little while that sings in me no more.

It's a bummer of a poem, right?

Maybe it's a good winter poem.

It's cold here in North Carolina, cold and drizzly and rainy and breezy and all that.

I've been thinking about poetic forms a lot, just in working on some of my own poems and

thinking about this show and which episodes to do, which poems to read for each episode.

And I keep coming back to the sonnet. And I keep thinking about how

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