March 2025
-
Jo-Anne had started pouring the coffee when the doorbell rang. After four in the morning, it would be either the milkman or cops. I was not betting on Louis Pasteur’s boy. We all deserted the kitchen for the front door. “Police Medical Examiner,” the stocky man with rimless glasses and a doctor’s satchel told us. Read more
-
We read poetry for many reasons. Chief of these should be pleasure. Too often however, it is not. One of the differences between the way we think of music and the way we think of poetry is rooted in this idea of pleasure. Music is often presented as something to be appreciated and enjoyed. Where as Poetry is Read more
-
The tradition of the Nature Poem in American Literature is as old as American poetry itself. In a land of vast distances and grand landscapes, nature imprints itself “naturally” into the American psyche and self-understanding. It would not be an exaggeration to declare that there are really only two subjects for a truly “American” poet: Read more
-
On April 28, 2024, the last Opening Day game for the Oakland Athletics took place between the then Oakland A’s and the Cleveland Guardians . I have been lucky enough to be in person for a few moments of Baseball History. All of them have been joyful occasions with the exception of this one, the Read more
-
Finally, the long dark night of the soul is over. Tomorrow there will be boxscores that matter again and game summaries worth reading closely. It is Opening Day! My local nine, The Minnesota Twins, are in St. Louis to play the Cardinals today. While the Mets are in Houston and the Pirates in Miami. Baseball Read more
-
James Wright spent a great deal of time in the North Country. He knew the want of hard-winters as well as the bountiful beauty of easy springs: physically, spiritually, and emotionally. (Wright, like so many poets – all poets? – suffered from depression.) Many of his best poems are about the beauty of nature, at Read more
-
Today’s poem, “The Question,” has long been one of my favorite Shelley poems. It embodies for me the very essence of the Romantic. Indeed, if I were to teach a class on the Romantic poets, I think I might begin with “The Question.” Simply for the fact that it so perfectly brings together all the elements Read more
-
Just like that he laughed. “You’re a cocky little punk.” “You’re the first guy who ever called me little, friend.” He laughed again. “Come on inside and have some coffee and keep your language where it belongs. I got all kinds of visitors today.” (cf. Spillane, Mickey. The Mike Hammer Collection, Volume II.) Read more
-
In 1978 when this song first came out, I was a 18-year-old kid already wrestling with how to reconcile the teachings of Jesus with the churchy people I knew and the way our whole society was structured. 47 years later… nothing has changed. Listening to this today, in the shadow of Christian Nationalism and MAGA, Read more
-
The state of the country, considering how poets go to Nature, how they use her for their images and their contrasts even when they do not describe her directly, is a matter of some importance. Her cultivation or her savagery influences the poet far more profoundly than for the prose writer. (cf. Virginia Woolf. The Read more
ClimbingSky 