ClimbingSky

Why Baseball, Books, and the Grateful Dead matter

POETRY REVIEWS

  • POETRY REVIEW: “Song to a Fair Young Lady” by John Dryden

    “…the expressions of a poem designed purely for instruction ought to be plain and natural, yet majestic… The florid, elevated and figurative way is for the passions; for (these) are begotten in the soul by showing the objects out of their true proportion…. A man is to be cheated into passion, but to be reasoned Read more

  • THROWBACK THURSDAY: “The Victor Dog” by James Merrill

    “Throwback Thursdays” at ClimbingSky feature posts I wrote over 15 years for various blogs. This was first posted on February 2, 2011. I do not go to a lot of poetry readings. Seeing poets in person and hearing them read has just never struck me as a way I want to spend a free evening. Read more

  • THROWBACK THURSDAY: “Peace” by Patrick Kavanaugh

    “Throwback Thursdays” at ClimbingSky feature posts I wrote over 15 years for various blogs. This was first posted on November 27, 2010. Irish poet Patrick Kavanaugh did not write many poems but what he did write was a great deal of very, very good ones… and a few great ones. He also wrote one of Read more

  • On Poetry and Pleasure

    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

  • POETRY REVIEW: “Little Summer Poem Touching the Subject of Faith” by Mary Oliver

    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

  • POETRY REVIEW: “Depressed by a Bad Book of Poetry” by James Wright

    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

  • POETRY REVIEW: “The Question” by Percy Bysshe Shelley

    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

  • POETRY REVIEW: “Lines Written in Early Spring” by William Wordsworth

    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

  • THROWBACK THURSDAY: “Making Certain It Goes On” by Richard Hugo

    Here in the North Country Richard Hugo’s name does not come up in many discussions. He is a Western poet after all, not a Midwestern one. There is a difference: in tone, subject, and in edginess. Hugo’s volume of collected poetry takes its title from this poem. “Making Certain It Goes On” is one of his Read more

  • POETRY REVIEW: “How to Be a Poet” by Wendell Berry

      Wendell Berry is a writer and an activist. He has written novels, short-stories, essays, and books of non-fiction on subjects as varied as farming, economics, politics, and Christianity. Yet in the end, he is a lyric poet. I have certainly not read all of his prose work, but enough to suggest that it is Read more