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Recent Posts
- Is Anybody Listening? Voter Apathy on Climate Change
- Setting an Example: Berkeley Outlaws Natural Gas
- Ithaca, NY: A Best City
- And a Child Shall Lead Them
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- Scrubbing George Washington from History: Who’s Next?
- A weekend Romp with Georgia O’Keeffe
- Oliver Sacks’ Ambivalence on Living in the Digital Age
- My Book Draw-List for 2019
- An Upstart Poet I Like a Lot
- And a Child Shall Lead Them: Healing What Ails Us
- The Plight of Native Americans in a White America
- Why We Name Our Children as We do.
- Thoughts on a remarkable book I’ve just re-read
- Trophy Hunting Looms for Grizzly Bears
- Amy Lowell’s “A Fixed Idea”: An Exploration in Paradox
- Artificial Intelligence: Will It Take Your Job?
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- Love for All Seasons
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- The Left’s War on Free Speech
- Reflections on the 2017 Philip Larkin Exhibition at Hull
- Perhaps Someday We Will Learn How to Live
- America’s Unofficial Poet Laureate: Mary Oliver
- On First Looking Into Milford’s Savage Beauty: The Life of Edna St. Vincent Millay
Category Archives: Poetry
An Upstart Poet I Like a Lot
I’ve had this love affair with poetry since my earliest days, relishing metaphors that translate life from prose to camera, the sheer musicality of it, the crossword deliberation it compels, the tension of its paradoxes capturing life’s myriad, inherent subtleties; … Continue reading
The Plight of Native Americans in a White America
The White Man’s misdeeds in America towards its indigenous peoples are incalculable in number and cruelty. I was reminded of this last week when Karen and I visited the Grand Canyon and learned from the Visitor Center that Yavapai and … Continue reading
Posted in Poetry, Politics, Reflections
Tagged Native Americans, Sioux, Sitting Bull, Standing Rock Protests, Wounded Knee massacre
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Amy Lowell’s “A Fixed Idea”: An Exploration in Paradox
A Fixed Idea What torture lurks within a single thought When grown too constant; and however kind, However welcome still, the weary mind Aches with its presence. Dull remembrance taught Remembers on unceasingly; unsought The old delight is with us … Continue reading
Posted in Poetry
Tagged Amy Lowell, Ezra Pound, Hilda Doolittle, imagism, imagist poets, Italian Sonnet, modernism, nostalgia, Obsessiveness, Paradox
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Love for All Seasons
“I hope that I will be the last victim in China’s long record of treating words as crime.” Liu Xiaobo (1955-2017) China isn’t usually a quotidian staple of the Westerner’s mindset. Let’s face it: our culture operates in Eurocentric … Continue reading
Posted in People, Poetry
Tagged "Morning", "Road to Darkness:, Liu Xiaobo, Liu Zia, People's Republic of China, Poetry
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Reflections on the 2017 Philip Larkin Exhibition at Hull
The Guardian (July 4, 2017) features a review of a favorite poet of mine, Philip Larkin, in connection with a current exhibit of Larkin artifacts at Hull’s Brynmore Jones Library, where he was a librarian for many years. It notes … Continue reading
Posted in Poetry
Tagged Hull, literary criticism, Philip Larkin, Poetry, poets, Terry Eagleton
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America’s Unofficial Poet Laureate: Mary Oliver
Judging by her phenomenal sales, Mary Oliver surely rates as America’s unofficial poet laureate, and yet the anomaly that she’s never held the office since its inception in 1937. I have to confess that I hadn’t heard of her, despite … Continue reading
Posted in Poetry
Tagged MARY OLIVER, modern poetry, National Book Award, POET LAUREATE, Poetry, POETRY FOUNDATION, PULITZER PRIZE
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On First Looking Into Milford’s Savage Beauty: The Life of Edna St. Vincent Millay
Down, down, down into the darkness of the grave Gently they go, the beautiful, the tender, the kind; Quietly they go, the intelligent, the witty, the brave. I know. But I do not approve. And I am not resigned. –Edna … Continue reading
Sarah Teasdale: “There Will Come Soft Rains”
Am in a poetry mood again, which just shows you how subversive reading a poet’s biography can be (Nancy Milford’s Savage Beauty: The Life of Edna St. Vincent Millay). In doing so, I came across Sara Teasdale, a once in-vogue … Continue reading
Solace for the Hard Places: Jeffers, “Shine, Perishing Republic”
I suppose every generation thinks it’s in crisis and, you know, they’re probably right, given the volatility of history; our time, no less so, as we make the transition to a new Washington regime that appears menacing to many of … Continue reading
Posted in Poetry
Tagged modern American poetry, Perishing Republic, Poetry, Robinson Jeffers, Shine
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A favorite poem: William Carlos Williams’ “Spring and All”
By the road to the contagious hospital under the surge of the blue mottled clouds driven from the northeast–a cold wind. Beyond, the waste of broad, muddy fields brown with dried weeds, standing and fallen. patches of standing water the … Continue reading
Posted in Books, Poetry
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