A short story of excellence, dedication and perseverance & of the joy and importance of meaning-making: Ted Kooser (1939) was the 13th Poet Laureate of the United States and received the Pulitzer Prize for poetry in 2005.
Tag: poem
Sunday Poem on a Tuesday
Oasis Beth Bachmann We want what God wants: to be pure. Take the water. We’ll pay for it in glass. Poseidon, now there’s a god, a real king of water. We want what a god wants: to own it, all. Water baron, barren woman, what do you know of the sea? The sea never ceases…
This fear we call stress
Following the Road by Larry Smith from A River Remains. © Word Tech Editions, 2006. I have left my wife at the airport, flying out to help our daughter whose baby will not eat. And I am driving on to Kent to hear some poets read tonight. I don’t know what to do with…
Sunday Poem (the air smelling like salamanders)
Wet Autumn by Tom Hennen Early morning, everything damp all through. Cars go by. A ripping sound of tires through water. For two days the air Has smelled like salamanders. The little lake on the edge of town hidden in fog, Its cattails and island gone. All through the gloom of the dark week Bright…
The Questions Poems Ask
The Questions Poems Ask — Lawrence Raab Watching a couple of crows playing around in the woods, swooping in low after each other, I wonder if they ever slam into the trees. There’s an answer here, unlike most questions in poems, which are left up in the air. Was it a vision or a waking dream? You decide,…
If it gets cold—and it will
LAST PICNIC by Charles Simic … Before the fall rains come, Let’s have one more picnic, Now that the leaves are turning color And the grass is still green in places. Bread, cheese and some black grapes Ought to be enough, And a bottle of red wine to toast the crows Puzzled to find us…
A sentence is a living thing …
I love my Sunday mornings with The Gwarlingo Sunday Poem. The Sunday Poem introduces me to new poets, Michelle’s posts are like windows into new worlds, new words … and new revelations. Today I learned about Ed Skoog, who says tremendous things – like: A sentence is a living thing and that’s the medium that…
I want to listen to the enormous waterfalls of the sun
Today I read “Dogfish” by Mary Oliver in the light of my own ongoing preoccupation with meaninglessness, fear & creative excess. Here is a short excerpt from the original poem: (…) I wanted the past to go away, I wanted to leave it, like another country; I wanted my life to close, and open like a…
With Kit, Age Seven, at the Beach
We would climb the highest dune, from there to gaze and come down: the ocean was performing; we contributed our climb. Waves leapfrogged and came straight out of the storm. What should our gaze mean? Kit waited for me to decide. Standing on such a hill, what would you tell your child? That…
White matter … (s)
I’m reading Kim Addonizio’s book Ordinary genius, a guide for the poet within (2009). In the beginning I didn’t really like her workbook-ish style, but gradually my impression changed, and now, a quarter into the book, I’m indeed starting to enjoy it. In between writing challenges & exercise there are some very interesting and important…
sub rosa 