Poem-a-Day - "The Bluebird" by Alexander Posey

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November 12, 2023

The Bluebird

Alexander Posey

A winged bit of Indian sky
Strayed hither from its home on high.

This poem is in the public domain. Published in Poem-a-Day on November 12, 2023, by the Academy of American Poets.

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“The Bluebird” first appeared in Song of the Oktahutche: Collected Poems (University of Nebraska Press, 2008), a comprehensive anthology of the poetry of Alexander Posey. Unpublished at the time of Posey’s death, the poem was discovered in a manuscript collection of his work housed at the Thomas Gilcrease Institute of American History and Art in Tulsa, Oklahoma. In the introduction to the anthology, Matthew Wynn Sivils, Dean’s Professor in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at Iowa State University, writes, “[Alexander Posey’s] nature poems―especially those devoted to birds and the ubiquitous Oktahutche―repeatedly manage to call forth inventive lines and singing language that collectively represent a love letter written to the natural world as one would find it within the Muscogee nation. For example, Posey’s very brief poem ‘The Bluebird’ works precisely because of its brevity: its straightforward yet striking image and simple delivery portray an Indian Territory sky found only in Posey’s literary world. [. . .] The best of Posey’s nature poetry becomes a sort of Indian Territory pastoral that ranks with the best verse of that time.”

Alexander Lawrence Posey, born on August 3, 1873, in what is now Eufaula, Oklahoma, was a Muscogee Creek poet, journalist, and humorist. He was known for his poems and “Fus Fixico Letters,” a series of satirical letters written from his fictional persona, Fus Fixico, that commented on local and national politics and Indigenous issues of the time. He died on May 27, 1908.”

Song of the Oktahutche
(University of Nebraska Press, 2008)

“June Sunset” by Sarojini Naidu
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“from Stray Birds [233—237]” by Rabindranath Tagore
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Thanks to Steve Bellin-Oka, author of Instructions for Seeing a Ghost (University of North Texas Press, 2020), who curated Poem-a-Day for this month’s weekdays. Read or listen to a Q&A about Bellin-Oka’s curatorial approach and find out more about our guest editors for the year.

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