ClimbingSky

Why Baseball, Books, and the Grateful Dead matter

POETRY REVIEWS

  • A Thaw and Re-Reading

    Here in the North Country, we had a few days of 50-degree weather, but yesterday it snowed again. Those few days of warmth, though, were a foretaste of the feast to come. We are told that ICE is drawing down its numbers here in Minnesota, but reports on the ground remain unclear as to whether… Read more

  • UTTERANCES OF THE HEART

    In the rabbinical tradition, at times of calamity and great suffering, Jews are advised to read three books:  Jeremiah Lamentations Job The fact that the most important passages of these books were written in poetry is no accident. For it is poetry, and poetry alone, that can truly give voice to the utterances of our hearts. “How… Read more

  • FOOD FOR THOUGHT FRIDAY: Carl Sandburg on Poetry

    Poetry is the journal of a sea animal living on land, wanting to fly in the air. – Carl Sandburg Read more

  • THROWBACK THURSDAY: Winter Trees” by William Carlos Williams

    Throwback Thursdays” at ClimbingSky feature posts I wrote over a 15 year period for various blogs. This was first posted on January 22, 2011. William Carlos Williams said he modeled his original form and style of poetry on the language that he heard ordinary people using in his day to day life as a doctor. One of… Read more

  • POETRY BOOK REVIEW: 1855 Edition of Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman

    If I were ever to teach a class to aspiring American poets, I would have one required text: the 1855 edition of Leaves of Grass. Hemingway famously wrote in The Green Hills of Africa that all modern American fiction comes from one book, Huckleberry Finn. A similar thing can be said for Walt Whitman and the 1855 edition of Leaves… Read more

  • POETRY REVIEW: “Eagle Poem” by Joy Harjo

    Joy Harjo (b. 1951) was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma. She was the 23rd United States Poet Laureate from 2019 to 2022, the first Native American to hold that honor. Her poetry is generally characterized by: Harjo’s poems frequently use repetition (anaphora) and parallelism, which gives them a chant-like or prayer-like quality. This isn’t just a stylistic choice; it… Read more

  • FOOD FOR THOUGHT FRIDAY: Umberto Eco on Poetry

    Poetry is not a matter of feelings, it is a matter of language. It is language which creates feelings. -Umberto Eco Read more

  • THROWBACK THURSDAY: “A Walk” by Ranier Maria Rilke

    Throwback Thursdays” at ClimbingSky feature posts I wrote over a 15 year period for various blogs. This was first posted on January 1, 2011. On another snowy Minnesota morning, this poem by Rilke comes to mind as we “walk” into another new year. In my early 20s, Rilke was a favorite poet. In the many moves I… Read more

  • POETRY BOOK REVIEW: Chief Joseph of the Nez Pearce by Robert Penn Warren

    “A strange land we wandered to eastern horizonsWhere blueness of mountains swam in their blue–In blue beyond name.” Robert Penn Warren is probably remembered more today as a novelist than as a poet. While it is true that he did win the Pulitzer Prize in 1946 for his famous novel All the King’s Men, he actually… Read more

  • POETRY REVIEW: “Little Exercise” by Elizabeth Bishop

    Elizabeth Bishop (1911–1979) was born in Massachusetts but raised in Nova Scotia by her maternal grandmother. While she originally attended Vassar College with the intention of studying music to become a composer, she was reportedly terrified of performing and subsequently switched her major to English. Bishop is frequently described as a “poet’s poet.” Her work is characterized by… Read more