William Blake

Poems » william blake

William Blake
William Blake (November 28, 1757 – August 12, 1827) was an English poet, painter, and printmaker. Largely unrecognised during his lifetime, Blake's work is today considered seminal and significant in the history of both poetry and the visual arts. He was voted 38th in a poll of the 100 Greatest Britons organised by the BBC in 2002. According to Northrop Frye, who undertook a study of Blake's entire poetic corpus, his prophetic poems form "what is in proportion to its merits the least read body of poetry in the English language." Others have praised Blake's visual artistry, at least one modern critic proclaiming Blake "far and away the greatest artist Britain has ever produced." Once considered mad for his idiosyncratic views, Blake is highly regarded today for his expressiveness and creativity, and the philosophical vision that underlies his work. He himself once indicated, "The imagination is not a State: it is the Human existence itself." While his visual art and written poetry are usually considered separately, Blake often employed them in concert to create a product that at once defied and superseded convention. Though he believed himself able to converse aloud with Old Testament prophets, and despite his work in illustrating the Book of Job, Blake's affection for the Bible was accompanied by hostility for the established Church, his beliefs modified by a fascination with Mysticism and the unfolding of the Romantic Movement around him. Ultimately, the difficulty of placing William Blake in any one chronological stage of art history is perhaps the distinction that best defines him.

ah! sun-flower
Ah Sun-flower! weary of time,
Who countest the steps of the Sun:
Seeking after that sweet ... [read poem]
attack of the squash people
And thus the people every year
in the valley of humid July
did sacrifice themselves
t... [read poem]
belly good
A heap of wheat, says the Song of Songs
but I've never seen wheat in a pile.
Apples, potat... [read poem]
the cat's song
Mine, says the cat, putting out his paw of darkness.
My lover, my friend, my slave, my toy, say... [read poem]
colors passing through us
Purple as tulips in May, mauve
into lush velvet, purple
as the stain blackberries leave... [read poem]
for the young who want to
Talent is what they say
you have after the novel
is published and favorably
reviewed.... [read poem]
the friend
We sat across the table.
he said, cut off your hands.
they are always poking at things.... [read poem]
implications of one plus one
Sometimes we collide, tectonic plates merging,
continents shoving, crumpling down into the molt... [read poem]
my mother's body
The dark socket of the year
the pit, the cave where the sun lies down
and threatens never ... [read poem]
the neighbor
Man stomping over my bed in boots
carrying a large bronze church bell
which you occasional... [read poem]
toad dreams
The dream of toads: we rarely
credit what we consider lesser
life with emotions big as our... [read poem]
traveling dream
I am packing to go to the airport
but somehow I am never packed.
I keep remembering more t... [read poem]
visiting a dead man on a summer day
In flat America, in Chicago,
Graceland cemetery on the German North Side.
Forty feet of Co... [read poem]
what are big girls made of?
The construction of a woman:
a woman is not made of flesh
of bone and sinew
belly and... [read poem]
winter promises
Tomatoes rosy as perfect baby's buttocks,
eggplants glossy as waxed fenders,
purple neon f... [read poem]
a poison tree
I was angry with my friend:
I told my wrath, my wrath did end.
I was angry with my foe:... [read poem]
come-by-chance
As I pondered very weary o'er a volume long and dreary —
For the plot was void of interest — 't... [read poem]
clancy of the overflow
I had written him a letter which I had, for want of better
Knowledge, sent to where I met him d... [read poem]
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