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Robert Bly

Robert Bly
Photo by Ann Arbor

Robert Bly

Born: 23 December 1926 • Died: 21 November 2021

Robert Bly was born on December 23, 1926, in Madison, Minnesota. He attended Harvard University and received his MA from the University of Iowa in 1956. As a poet, editor, and translator, Bly has had a profound impact on the shape of American poetry. Bly is the author of more than thirty books of poetry, including Stealing Sugar from the Castle: Selected Poems (W. W. Norton, 2013); Talking into the Ear of a Donkey: Poems (W. W. Norton, 2011); Reaching Out to the World: New and Selected Prose Poems (White Pine Press, 2009); My Sentence Was a Thousand Years of Joy (HarperCollins, 2005); The Night Abraham Called to the Stars (HarperCollins, 2001); Loving a Woman in Two Worlds (Dial Press, 1985); This Body is Made of Camphor and Gopherwood (Harper & Row, 1977); and The Light Around the Body (Harper & Row, 1967), which won the National Book Award. (Source)

Poems by Robert Bly

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Indigo Bunting by Robert Bly

February 7, 2026
“I love a firmness in you / that disdains the trivial / and regains the difficult.” — Robert Bly
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A Home in Dark Grass by Robert Bly

May 1, 2016
"The world cleanses itself this way." – Robert Bly
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Oceans by Juan Ramón Jiménez

April 3, 2016
"The world cleanses itself this way." – Robert Bly
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Guard Duty by Tomas Tranströmer

December 31, 2014
"The world cleanses itself this way." – Robert Bly
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Kyrie by Tomas Tranströmer

February 27, 2013
"The world cleanses itself this way." – Robert Bly
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Taking the Hands by Robert Bly

January 18, 2013
"The world cleanses itself this way." – Robert Bly
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The Resemblance Between Your Life and a Dog by Robert Bly

July 17, 2012
"The world cleanses itself this way." – Robert Bly
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Things to Think by Robert Bly

July 16, 2012
"The world cleanses itself this way." – Robert Bly
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People Like Us by Robert Bly

August 28, 2011
"The world cleanses itself this way." – Robert Bly

Poems translated by Robert Bly

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The temple bell stop by Matsuo Basho

March 12, 2026
“but the sound keeps coming / out of the flowers.” — Matsuo Basho
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[You darkness, that I come from,] by Rainer Maria Rilke

August 1, 2025
“But the darkness pulls in everything: / shapes and fires, animals and myself, / how easily it gathers them! — ” — Rainer Maria Rilke
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Black Stone Lying On A White Stone by César Vallejo

January 8, 2006
"I will die in Paris, on a rainy day, / on some day I can already remember." — César Vallejo