Poem in a Landscape

A poet tracks gender through the Anthropocene, observing the aftermath of forest fires, sunning himself during a gay splash day, and cozying up with the kinky doomstead man of a quietly epic poem.

To a Friend

Dwellers at home, in indolence and ease,
How deep their debt, to those that roam the seas,
Or cross the lands, in quest of every art
That science, knowledge, pity can impart
To help mankind, or guild the lettered page
The bold discoverers of every age.

Invitation to sisters to a walk in the Garden, after a shower

Come, sisters come! the shower’s past,
The garden walks are drying fast,
The Sun’s bright beams are seen again,
And nought within, can now detain.

Here in my native inland sea
From pain and sickness would I flee
And from its shores and island bright
Gather a store of sweet delight.
Lone island of the saltless sea!

Zhingwaak! Zhingwaak! Ingii-ikid, 
Weshki waabamag zhingwaak 
Dagoshinaan neyab, endanakiiyaan. 
Zhingwaak, zhingwaak nos sa! 
Azhigwa gidatisaanan 
Gaagige wezhaawashkozid.

 With pen in hand, I shall contrast, 
The present moments with the past
And mark difference, not by grains, 
But weighed by feelings, joys and pains. 
Calm, tranquil—far from fashion’s gaze, 
Passed all my earliest, happy days 
Sweetly flew the golden hours, 
In St. Mary’s woodland bowers 
Or my father’s simple hall, 
Oped to whomsoe’er might call

The creative psyche of the Romantic poets of the nineteenth-century United States was shaped by the idea of the American continent as a far-­reaching wilderness now within perceived possession, with identifiable and reachable frontiers. The blossoming of U. S. literature is often seen as a landscape composed of such well-known poets as Emerson, Longfellow, Bryant, Whittier, Dickinson, and Whitman. But a host of other writers, some with very different perspectives on the physical landscape, were also contributing to the cultural and literary landscape of the United States during this time.