Philip Appleman

Philip Appleman Poems

Philip Appleman Biography

Philip D. Appleman (born February 8, 1926) is an American poet. He is Professor Emeritus in the Department of English at Indiana University, Bloomington. He has published seven volumes of poetry, the first of which was Summer Love and Surf and the latest of which is Perfidious Proverbs (Humanity Books, 2011); three novels, including Apes and Angels (Putnam, 1989); and half a dozen nonfiction books, including the widely used Norton Critical Edition, Darwin and the Norton Critical Edition of Malthus' Essay on Population. His poetry and fiction have won many awards, including a fellowship in poetry from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Castagnola Award from the Poetry Society of America, the Friend of Darwin Award from the National Center for Science Education, and the Humanist Arts Award of the American Humanist Association, and have appeared in scores of publications, including Harper's Magazine, The Nation, New Republic, New York Times, Paris Review, Partisan Review, Poetry, Sewanee Review, and Yale Review. He has given readings of his poetry at the Library of Congress, the Guggenheim Museum, the Huntington Library, and many universities. He read several of his poems on the July 6, 2012, episode of Moyers & Company. He is a founding member of the Poets Advisory Committee of Poets House, New York, a former member of the governing board of the Poetry Society of America, and a member of the Academy of American Poets, PEN American Center, Friends of Poets & Writers, Inc., and the Authors Guild of America. Appleman has written many poems drawing on the work of Charles Darwin. In 2003 he signed the Humanist Manifesto.)

The Best Poem Of Philip Appleman

Leaving Things Unfinished

As the black wings close in on you,
their circling shadows blighting the sand,
and your limp legs buckle, far
from that shimmering oasis
on the horizon,

as you face the implacable,
hoping for one more lucky reprieve
which you feel in your quivering heart
will arrive a moment too late,

still,
even after the first white pill,
you will not surrender,
for back there somewhere,
safe from the hovering vultures,
is that sketchy
grand design, that revolution
on the drawing board—no,

all these years you've resisted
that sleek seducer, Completion—and now,
as the mask snugs over your face, you feel
your legs go young again, heading out
for the shimmering palm trees
they will never reach,
and you suck in great welcome gulps
of the endlessly possible.

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