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Walking home from work earlier in the week, I had an idea. Inspired by Malcom Guite’s collection of poems that we’ve used as part of our Advent meditations, I gave myself the goal to write a series of Japanese Tankas as short reflections in preparation for Christmas Day.…
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Thanksgiving may have passed, but may the life found around the kitchen table never end! To my delight, I came across this Joy Harjo poem today and knew immediately that I needed to share this deepening place. There’s good earth here and Harjo’s profound realism and imagery invites…
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Years ago, I earned some extra cash by working in the periodical section of the campus library while attending Grove City College. One quiet afternoon, I read an article in one of the newspapers we carried about Hurricane Marilyn that “wreaked havoc in the U.S. Virgin Islands and…
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I just couldn’t sit on this one, even if Walt Whitman Wednesdays sounds catchy. I’ve known this poem since I first heard it years ago in the movie Dead Poets Society starring Robin Williams. A fellow AP English teacher I’ve followed for the past two years shared it…
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Fall and Mary Oliver today. From a wonderful collection of poetry titled Why I Wake Early. Admittedly, waking early isn’t in my vocabulary, save for the demand my job puts upon me as a high school English teacher. But for sights such as these, I would race the…
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Tonight we celebrated the end of my son’s first year of varsity soccer. In honor of that achievement, allow me to share with you a sonnet I wrote three years ago when I spoke at the girls soccer banquet where I teach. Believe it or not, soccer is…
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I dedicate tonight’s Blackout Poem to my mother-in-law, Bonnie, who is the queen of garlic. She cuts up and eats raw garlic with nearly every dinner, including (BRACE YOURSELF!) pancakes. I still remember my initiation into the Stitt family upon first meeting my wife’s older brothers. You like…
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Wendell Berry never ceases to amaze me. Here, I am reminded of the hours my father spent behind one of those old clunky VHS camcorders of the late 1980s. Rather than taking part in our family vacations, he served as video historian and ended up watching us and…
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Autumn has always been my favorite season. Perhaps my birthday coming shortly after the autumnal equinox has biased me in favor of this rich time of harvest and change, but as I meditated on turning forty-six and my desire to live to be one hundred years old, the…
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This poem needs no introduction. As the temperatures dropped to the high fifties on Friday and I slipped into one of my favorite hoodies, I knew Autumn had arrived. No better way to celebrate the changing of the seasons than to read “To Autumn” by John Keats. Grab…
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the deepening ground 