Amendment by Christina Davis

View this email on a browser Forward to a friend September 22, 2014   Amendment   Christina Davis

The love of each of us for some of us,                         of some of us for all of us—                         and what would come if it were                         welcome, if learning were                         to prepare “a self with which to welcome”             the in- admissible,        stranger whose very being gives evidence of a discrepancy. School of our just beginning to think about this,        I believe the seats will be peopled.              Copyright © 2014 by Christina Davis. Used with permission of the author. About This Poem   “The idea that emerged through the poem was that each generation enlarges what we as a people are capable of receiving, that the amendments to the Constitution recognize an increase in what we constitute. Though each generation confronts a new concept of what is strange, the task remains the same: when I look back on the progress of America (and other nations and peoples) it takes the form of this incremental admission, and when I consider future progress it is likewise this reception of the heretofore strange.   The original version of the poem had the word ‘education,’ but I changed it to ‘learning’ because learning is continuous throughout our lifetime and I did not want to limit this progress to the young.   I’d also been thinking of poetry itself, both the struggle of poems to integrate and include and also the way in which poetry is often called ‘inaccessible.’ Whereas I would suggest that the limitation has to do with its reception: it is treated as the ‘inadmissible,’ not what won’t let us in, but what we refuse to allow too near. Imagine what would come if it were welcome?” —Christina Davis   Christina Davis is the author of An Ethic (Nightboat Books, 2013). She is the Curator of the Woodberry Poetry Room at Harvard University and lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Most Recent Book by Davis   An Ethic (Nightboat Books, 2013) "Anxieties" by Donna Masini "The Translator's Dilemma" by Ann Lauterbach "Time Study" by Marvin Bell Poem-a-Day   Launched during National Poetry Month in 2006, Poem-a-Day features new and previously unpublished poems by contemporary poets on weekdays and classic poems on weekends. Thanks for being a part of the Academy of American Poets community. To learn about other programs, including National Poetry Month, Poem in Your Pocket Day, the annual Poets Forum, and more, visit Poets.org.   You are receiving this e-mail because you elected to subscribe to our mailing list. If you would like to unsubscribe, please click here.   © Academy of American Poets 75 Maiden Lane, Suite 901, New York, NY 10038