Stanley Kunitz' "The Round"

The Daily Poem

Goldberry Studios

Education For Kids, Arts, Kids & Family

4.6 • 729 Ratings

🗓️ 7 February 2020

⏱️ 7 minutes

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Summary

Today's poem is Stanley Kunitz' "The Round." Text below. Remember to rate and review the podcast wherever you listen to podcasts.

Light splashed this morning

on the shell-pink anemones

swaying on their tall stems;

down blue-spiked veronica

light flowed in rivulets

over the humps of the honeybees;

this morning I saw light kiss

the silk of the roses

in their second flowering,

my late bloomers

flushed with their brandy.

A curious gladness shook me.

So I have shut the doors of my house,

so I have trudged downstairs to my cell,

so I am sitting in semi-dark

hunched over my desk

with nothing for a view

to tempt me

but a bloated compost heap,

steamy old stinkpile,

under my window;

and I pick my notebook up

and I start to read aloud

the still-wet words I scribbled

on the blotted page:

"Light splashed . . ."

I can scarcely wait till tomorrow

when a new life begins for me,

as it does each day,

as it does each day.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome back to the Daily Poem here on the Close Reeds Podcast Network. I'm David Kern. Today's
0:05.4	February 7th, 2020. And the poem that I'm going to share with you today is by an American poet named
0:12.0	Stanley Kunitz. He lived from 1905 to 2006 and twice was the a poet laureate consultant in poetry
0:19.3	the Library of Congress in 1974 and in 2000.
0:23.7	He also won the National Book Award and the Robert Frost Medal.
0:28.4	The poem that I'm going to read today is called The Round. It goes like this.
0:35.4	Light splashed this morning on the shell pink anemones swaying on their tall stems.
0:42.3	Down blue-spiked Veronica light flowed in rivulets over the humps of the honeybees.
0:48.3	This morning I saw light kiss the silk of the roses in their second flowering.
0:54.4	My late bloomer is flushed with their brandy.
0:58.0	A curious gladness shook me.
1:01.6	So I have shut the doors of my house,
1:04.3	so I have trudged downstairs to my cell,
1:07.0	so I am sitting in semi-dark, hunched over my desk
1:09.5	with nothing for a view to tempt me
1:11.3	but a bloated compost heap, steamy old stink pile under my window. And I pick my notebook up
1:18.8	and I start to read aloud the still wet words I scribbled on the blotted page. Light splashed.
1:26.6	I can scarcely wait till tomorrow when a new life begins for me,
1:31.1	as it does each day, as it does each day.
1:39.2	So there's a few choices that I'm interested in in this poem.
1:43.9	It's a three stanza poem.
1:46.2	The third stanza is only four lines, the last two of which actually repeat.
	...

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