Reuel Denney

Reuel Denney Poems

Reuel Denney Biography

Reuel Denney (April 13, 1913 New York City – May 1, 1995 Honolulu) was an American poet and academic. Denney grew up in Buffalo, New York. He graduated from Dartmouth College in 1932. He taught at the University of Chicago. He was professor emeritus, at University of Hawaii, retiring in 1977. His papers are at the Rauner Special Collections Library at Dartmouth College.)

The Best Poem Of Reuel Denney

Fixer of Midnight

He went to fix the awning,
Fix the roping,
In the middle of the night,
On the porch;
He went to fix the awning,
In pajamas went to fix it,
Fix the awning,
In the middle of the moonlight,
On the porch;
He went to fix it yawning;
The yawing of his awning
In the moonlight
Was his problem of the night;
It was knocking,
And he went to fix its flight.
He went to meet the moonlight
In the porch-night
Where the awning was up dreaming
Dark and light;
It was shadowy and seeming;
In the night, the unfixed awning,
In his nightmare,
Had been knocking dark and bright.
It seemed late
To stop it in its dark careening.
The yawner went to meet it,
Meet the awning,
By the moon of middle night,
On his porch;
And he went to fix it right.

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