Poem of the Day: ‘Two Sewing’

Paralyzed as a child, the underappreciated Oregon poet Hazel Hall (1886–1924) educated herself at home, where in her extensive reading she encountered such influential poetic voices as Edna St. Vincent Millay. In the course of her relatively short life and poetic career, she gained a reputation as “Oregon’s Emily Dickinson.” Today Hall shares (with WIlliam Stafford) the name for the Oregon Book Award for poetry. This poem, “Two Sewing,” takes the severity of spring weather as its overt subject, though its real concern is its own music. In lines of varying tetrameter and trimeter, which dwindle to dimeter, and with a loosely patterned but insistent chime of internal and end-rhymes, the poem’s sounds become as mesmerizing as those of the wind and rain it describes. Two Sewing by Hazel Hall The Wind is sewing with needles of rain. With shining needles of rain It stitches into the thin Cloth of earth. In, In, in, in. Oh, the wind has often sewed with me. One, two, three. Spring must have fine things To wear like other springs. Of silken green the grass must be Embroidered. One and two and three. Then every crocus must be made So subtly as to seem afraid Of lifting colour from the ground; And after crocuses the round Heads of tulips, and all the fair Intricate garb that Spring will wear. The wind must sew with needles of rain, With shining needles of rain, Stitching into the thin Cloth of earth, in, In, in, in, For all the springs of futurity. One, two, three. ___________________________________________With “Poem of the Day,” The New York Sun offers a daily portion of verse selected by the Sun’s poetry editor, Joseph Bottum of Dakota State University, with the help of the North Carolina poet, Sally Thomas. Tied to the day, or the season, or just individual taste, the poems will be typically drawn from the lesser-known portion of the history of English verse. In the coming months we will be reaching out to contemporary poets for examples of current, primarily formalist work, to show that poetry can still serve as a delight to the ear, an instruction to the mind, and a tonic for the soul.

Poem of the Day: ‘Two Sewing’

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