The Alphabet

Karl Shapiro

1954

The letters of the Jews as strict as flames
Or little terrible flowers lean
Stubbornly upwards through the perfect ages,
Singing through solid stone the sacred names.
The letters of the Jews are black and clean
And lie in chain-line over Christian pages.
The chosen letters bristle like barbed wire
That hedge the flesh of man,
Twisting and…
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Creator Bio

Karl Shapiro

1913–2000

The poet Karl Shapiro was born in Baltimore and attended the University of Virginia. During World War II, he was stationed in the Pacific, writing his anthology V-Letter and Other Poems while serving in New Guinea; the book was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1945. After the war, Shapiro edited the magazine Poetry, and taught at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln and later at the University of California at Davis. Shapiro received the 1969 Bollingen Prize for Poetry and was the poetry consultant at the Library of Congress (forerunner of the title U.S. poet laureate). He died in New York City.

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