DAILY BLOG
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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“Throwback Thursdays” at ClimbingSky feature posts I wrote over 15 years for various blogs. This was first posted on June 24, 2011. As a literary and film art form, the Western’s time has passed. And yet… there remains a small number of dedicated western fans who remain loyal to this most American of all art… Read more
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This past winter besides reading short stories and mysteries, I re-read Thoreau with an eye to arriving this spring in a different place: poetically, philosophically, and ontologically. Ontology is a word I hear seldom in my work-a-day world (read that never), where once it was such a prevalent word in all my worlds: work, academic, and reading.… Read more
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As a very amateur bird watcher living in the North Country, the surest sign of spring for me is the return of Red Wing blackbirds. Their trill-trilling from marshy areas is a song without compare. Here is a poem by Wordsworth about spring and birds and so much more. Enjoy! Lines Written in Early… Read more
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There they were, everyone with a coffee cup, lined up at the urn. Because I took my time with the smoke I had to join the end of the line, and it was a good thing I did. It gave me time enough to get the pitch. Everybody had been watching me covertly anyway, saying… Read more
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Spring has made its way to the North Country and the baseball season starts in less than 2 weeks. Everything is right with the world. Each morning I open the sports page of the StarTribune hoping to read about spring training. Inevitably there is more coverage of the Minnesota Vikings and the NFL. Don’t get… Read more
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