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Poetry Moment: 'Go Gentle', by Richard Pierce

poet Richard Pierce
poet Richard Pierce

This is poetry moment on WPSU – a weekly program featuring the work of contemporary Pennsylvania poets. Your host is poet and author Marjorie Maddox, a 2023 Monson Arts Fellow, author of more than 20 books, and Professor Emerita of English and Creative Writing at the Lock Haven campus of Commonwealth University.

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Welcome to Poetry Moment.

In his famous villanelle “Do Not Go Gentle into that Good Night,” the Welsh poet Dylan Thomas urges his dying father to “rage, rage, against the dying of the light.” In contrast, poet Richard Pierce questions fighting the inevitable. For his father, he desires instead a gentle death.

Originally from western New York, Richard Pierce lives in southwestern Pennsylvania with his wife, Blenda. His poems have appeared in Image, Ninth Letter, Poet Lore, Saint Katherine Review, and other journals. His chapbook, The Book of Mankey, was published by Cooper Dillon. He graduated college from the University of Pittsburgh-Bradford, and he holds a Ph.D. in creative writing and literature from Texas Tech.

In the villanelle form, the first and third lines are repeated in an alternating pattern, then reappear in the final stanza, creating a type of chant or urgent plea.

About today’s poem, Richard Pierce explains, “I got the idea. . . the night my dad was on his deathbed, dying from cancer. It was terribly sad to see him fighting death so hard. I thought of Dylan Thomas. . . and responded. . . with a villanelle of my own.”

Here’s a gift of a poem, “Go Gentle,” by Richard Pierce.

What good is fighting now? You’re dying. Light
will greet you wherever you go. Or it
will not. Go gentle into that good night.

Why rage against your sleep another night
with fists that won’t unclench the twisted sheet?
What good is fighting now? Your dying light

shines its blossom of sharpened bones. Your plight,
that silent starving moan of your flickering mouth,
will not go. Gentle into the good night

the moth wings beat the window glass. This sight—
your fear, your fight—destroys us, though none can say it.
What good is fighting now your dying light?

And yet we’ve gathered as we should. These nights
of final hours. For you, the family, the last.
We’ll not go gentle into that good night.

Who knows what the heart will say from that sad height?
Childish, perhaps, I pray, I pray I might:
What good is fighting? Now you’re dying. Light
will not. Go gentle into that. Goodnight.


Originally published in IMAGE.

That was “Go Gentle,” by Richard Pierce. Thanks for listening.

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Listen for Poetry Moment with Marjorie Maddox Mondays during Morning Edition and All Things Considered on WPSU. You can more episodes at wpsu.org/poetrymoment.

Our theme music is by Eric Ian Farmer.

Marjorie Maddox is the host of WPSU's Poetry Moment for the 2024-25 season. She is Professor Emerita of English and creative writing at the Lock Haven campus of Commonwealth University. Maddox has published 17 collections of poetry.