Donald Revell

Olney Hymn
February 10, 2014 Revell Donald

Olney Hymn

 

not my li-

fe this and

that is a

death I can-

not die

O’Neill

doesn’t even

know me

any old lady

on a porch

with a pill

shows me the

rain begin-

ning its godly

amble up

the green al-

ley my life

rain rain

on the chain-

link fences

on the ragged

red leaves

and green in-

visible flowers

my three

children em-

bracing me

brush the hand-

print of God

from my shirt

this and that

and that is

a death I can-

not die

Donald Revell is the author of sixteen collections of poetry, most recently of White Campion (2021) and The English Boat (2018), both from Alice James Books. Revell has also published six volumes of translations from the French, including Apollinaire’s Alcools, Rimbaud’s A Season in Hell, Laforgue’s Last Verses, and Verlaine’s Songs without Words. His critical writings have been collected as: Sudden Eden: EssaysEssay: A Critical Memoir; The Art of Attention; and Invisible Green: Selected Prose. Winner of the PEN USA Translation Award and two-time winner of the PEN USA Award for Poetry, he has also won the Academy of American Poets’ Lenore Marshall Prize and is a former Fellow of the Ingram Merrill and Guggenheim Foundations. Additionally, he has twice been awarded Fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts.  Having previously taught at the Universities of Alabama, Denver, Iowa, Missouri, Tennessee, and Utah, Donald Revell is currently a Professor of English at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.