Bandaríska póstþjónustan ætlar að heiðra tíu ljóðskáld með því að setja þau á frímerki sem eiga að koma út snemma á næsta ári.

Skáldin sem um ræðir eru voru öll uppi á tuttugustu öld, á miklum blómatíma bandarískra bókmennta.

Þetta eru Silvia Plath, William Carlos Williams,  Joseph Brodsky, e.e. cummings, Theodore Roethke, Robert Hayden, Wallace Stevens, Denise Levertov, Elisabeth Bishop,  Gwendolyn Brooks og Joseph Brodsky.

Þetta eru meira og minna stórskáld, fæst þeirra hafa verið þýdd á íslensku að ráði – og þó eitthvað er til eftir Plath, Williams, Brodsky og cummings.

Hér er á frummálinu magnað kvæði eftir Elizabeth Bishop sem nefnist One Art:

The art of losing isn't hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster.

Lose something every day. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

Then practice losing farther, losing faster:
places, and names, and where it was you meant
to travel. None of these will bring disaster.

I lost my mother's watch. And look! my last, or
next-to-last, of three loved houses went.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.
I miss them, but it wasn't a disaster.

--Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan't have lied.  It's evident
the art of losing's not too hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.