Henri Cole

Feb 8, 2024 | newrepublic.com | Henri Cole

Stop playing catch-upwith the new generation. Spend less money. Say: I love you, too. Transcribe events without distortion. Tell the lifeguard to teach me the flip-turn. Question not, Where, when, how? Bake bread,put on an album, turn off the cable news. Cherish those who choose honesty over flattery. Ignore plate-lickers, sycophants, and opportunists—nobody there. Eat salmon, mushrooms, greens. Do not surf the net. Do not be a herd of one,like the cardinal slain in the falseazure of the window pane.

Dec 12, 2023 | theparisreview.org | Henri Cole

By Henri Cole December 12, 2023 In remembrance of Louise Glück, we wanted to take the special step of sharing the beginning of her Writers at Work interview from the new Winter issue, conducted by Henri Cole, on the Daily. We hope you’ll read it, along with her poems in our archive and the reflections on her life and work that we published after her death this fall.

Dec 4, 2023 | newyorker.com | Henri Cole

I hope you won’t mind a fern on your grave. Standing on the shovel to dig a deep hole,I’m a year younger than you are now. I’ve written a will and reread the Old Masters. Swimming out to the breakwater, maybea part of me is you touching buoy 328before turning back to the borough beach. Maybe my hairy body is like a drone’s:eating pollen grains from a thousand flowers,spreading nectar across the comb in darkness,then flapping my wings to dry up the waterand hasten the creation of viscous honey.

Sep 1, 2023 | poetryfoundation.org | Henri Cole

All the sailboats in the harbor face North. I can see twenty-four from your study window. Overhead, large white birds fly around in the September glow. The sky is baby blue without a single cloud. The house at 25 Main Street finally sold. Isn’t that where Venture Smith lived? He was the son of a prince, who purchased his freedom. History cannot be unlived.

Jun 26, 2023 | poetryfoundation.org | Thom Gunn |Henri Cole |T. S. Eliot |W. H. Auden

Reading a selected poems is a little like taking part in one of those guided walking tours that my in-laws often enjoyed. If you already know the location well, there’s interest in seeing which parts the guide will highlight. If the terrain is new, then you get curated memories, a certain signposted path through other people’s lives and glimpses of a more panoramic history. You’ll feel more confident in going off and exploring on your own another time.