A Month of Verse

April is Poetry Month! If you haven't already, you might want to sign on to Knopf's Poem-a-Day for the remaining weeks. You'll find delights like this one below in your email box--a nice way to start your day, or accompaniment for the lunch break, or a companion to your afternoon or evening tea... or "tea." Enjoy.

We asked Edward Hirsch, whose collection Special Orders is now out in paperback, to comment on the title of the poem below. He writes, "The French novelist Henry de Montherlant coined the maxim, 'Happiness writes white,' which suggests that happiness is a blank that can't be described. It simply doesn't show up on the page. My poem playfully but urgently responds to this idea, a common romantic prejudice, by showing that happiness, too, can be written ('I am a piece of chalk,' 'I am a banner of smoke'). Joy, too, is part of life and can be precisely described."

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Happiness Writes White

I am a piece of chalk

scrawling words on an empty blackboard.

I am a banner of smoke

that crosses the blue air and doesn't dissolve.

I don't believe that only sorrow

and misery can be written.

Happiness, too, can be precise:

Doctor, there's a keen throbbing

on the left side of my chest

where my ribs are wrenched by joy.

Wings flutter in my shoulders

and blood courses through my body

like waves cresting on a choppy sea.

Look: the eyes blur with tears

and the tears clear.

My head is like skylight.

My heart is like dawn.

~Edward Hirsch