ClimbingSky

Why Baseball, Books, and the Grateful Dead matter

  • Short-Story Review: “Roman Fever” by Edith Wharton

    Edith Wharton (1862-1937) wrote 15 novels, 7 novellas, and 85 short stories. She is best known for her novels, especially: I have spent some time with each of these three novels. I say “have spent some time” because I have started all three at various times and never managed to get to the end of… Read more

  • 2025: The Year of the Short Story

    For the past two months, I have been reading a lot of short stories and thinking even more about the Art of the Short Story. It really began with a conversation I had with Sue. She pointed out to me that my habit of regularly abandoning novels amounted essentially to creating my own short stories… Read more

  • Poetic Fragments and Drafts

    Getting up early every day to write for decades means that I have filled analog notebooks and computer files with what I have come to think of as Poetic Fragments or Poetic Drafts. They are too brief and small to be complete poems but at the same time, I can often find no way of… Read more

  • Poetry Review: Matsuo Basho

    Matsuo Basho was the most famous poet of his day (1644-1694). He is considered the greatest master of the haiku form. His haikus may be the most well-known and most-translated. For those of us who do not read Japanese, we can only read him in translation. The subtle differences in translating his small poems from… Read more

  • A New Day & A New Year

    Growth is about letting go and forgiveness, forgiving others and especially ourselves. May your days and the year ahead be one of letting go and forgiveness. Happy New Year! “Some of us think holding on makes us strong, but sometimes it is letting go.”– Herman Hesse “Finish each day and be done with it. You… Read more

  • Gertrude Stein on Coffee

    “Coffee gives you time to think. It’s a lot more than just a drink; it’s something happening. Not as in hip, but like an event, a place to be, but not like a location, but like somewhere within yourself. It gives you time, but not actual hours or minutes, but a chance to be, like… Read more

  • Rickey

    Last week, a text from my friend Bob alerted me to the sad and surprising news that Rickey Henderson, “The Man of Steal,” was dead just a few days short of his 66th birthday. Here is my post from earlier this year occasioned by the death of another G.O.A.T. Read more

  • Poetry Review: “Consolation” by Wislawa Szymborska

    Wislawa Szymborska won the Noble Prize for literature in 1996 “for poetry that with ironic precision allows the historical and biological context to come to light in fragments of human reality.” The irony of such an academic description of Szmborska’s poetry, that is anything but academic and imprecise is, I am guessing, completely lost on the… Read more

  • Friday’s Food For Thought: Auden on Poetry

    [Those who complain about the ambiguity or obscurity of modern poetry] “should first examine their consciences and ask themselves with how many people and on how many occasions they have genuinely and profoundly shared some experience with another.” ~ W. H. Auden Read more

  • Christmas Card

    I wish you all the peace and joy of the season. Merry Christmas! Artist:El GrecoYear:1603-1605Medium:oil on canvasDimensions:128 cm diameter (50 in)Location: Santuario de Nuestra Señora de la Caridad, Illescas Read more