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Helen Hunt Jackson’s “September” · The Daily Poem

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  [music]
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  SPEAKER_00: Welcome back to The Daily Poem, a podcast from Goldberry Studios.
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  SPEAKER_00: I'm Sean Johnson and today is Wednesday, September 30th, 2026.
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  SPEAKER_00: Today's poem is by Helen Hunt Jackson and it's called September.
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  SPEAKER_00: It was the absolute last day we could get this one in so I had to make sure we did.
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  SPEAKER_00: Jackson is almost an exact contemporary of Emily Dickinson's.
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  SPEAKER_00: She was born the same year and the two women died just one year apart.
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  SPEAKER_00: While Jackson has not garnered or maintained the same kind of notoriety
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  SPEAKER_00: as Dickinson, her writing took many forms and she was prolific in her own right.
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  SPEAKER_00: One of her works was a calendar of sonnets in which she composed a sonnet
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  SPEAKER_00: for every month of the year and included original illustrations to accompany each.
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  SPEAKER_00: But for September, she opted not to write a sonnet.
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  SPEAKER_00: Judging by what she says about September in her poem,
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  SPEAKER_00: I imagine the reason is 14 lines just didn't feel like enough space
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  SPEAKER_00: to praise this month, which she finds so lovely.
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  SPEAKER_00: So she opts for seven quatrains,
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  SPEAKER_00: and it definitely adds an extra element of balance and symmetry.
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  SPEAKER_00: It allows the reader or listener to exist inside this golden month
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  SPEAKER_00: a little bit longer than the rest.
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  SPEAKER_00: Here's the poem, September.
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  SPEAKER_00: The golden rod is yellow,
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  SPEAKER_00: the corn is turning brown,
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  SPEAKER_00: The trees in apple orchards with fruit are bending down,
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  SPEAKER_00: The gentian's bluest fringes are curling in the sun,
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  SPEAKER_00: In dusty pods the milkweed its hidden silk has spun,
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  SPEAKER_00: The sedges flaunt their harvest in every meadow nook,
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  SPEAKER_00: And asters by the brookside make asters in the brook.
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  SPEAKER_00: From dewy lanes at morning the grapes' sweet odors rise,
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  SPEAKER_00: At noon the roads all flutter with yellow butterflies.
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  SPEAKER_00: By all these lovely tokens September days are here,
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  SPEAKER_00: With summer's best of weather and autumn's best of cheer.
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  SPEAKER_00: But none of all this beauty which floods the earth and air Is unto me the secret
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  SPEAKER_00: which makes September fair.
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  SPEAKER_00: Tis a thing which I remember,
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  SPEAKER_00: to name it thrills me yet, One day of one September I never can forget.
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  SPEAKER_00: This has been The Daily Poem.
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  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for listening.
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  SPEAKER_00: We'll be back tomorrow with another subscriber episode and here on the main channel on Friday.
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  SPEAKER_00: In the meantime,
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  SPEAKER_00: find us at dailypoempod.substack.com to become a subscriber and supporter of
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_00: The Daily Poem or to satisfy your longing for poetry by listening to any number
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_00: of our previous episodes.
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  SPEAKER_00: For all of us at Goldberry Studios,
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  SPEAKER_00: I'm Sean Johnson wishing you a happy last day of September and happy reading.