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My daughter has turned eighteen. As John Lennon once wrote, “Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans” (“Beautiful Boy”). He understood, as a father, how quickly time escapes us. For all of us who have become parents, this truth is painfully real. It…
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In general, I hate greeting card holidays. However, making a regular habit of honoring our fathers and mothers finds its roots in something far deeper and comes with the promise of a long and full life. I don’t celebrate Mother’s Day or Father’s Day because it’s printed on…
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It’s not Wolf Creek, but it will have to do. If I could have had a decent camera with me a few Sundays ago as I floated down the creek that borders our property, staring up into the cerulean sky with only a few cumulus clouds floating by,…
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I found my creative voice again last week! Despite the busyness of wrapping up a school year, I carved out the time to parody Smashmouth’s “All Star,” Billy Joel’s “Piano Man,” and The Proclaimer’s “I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles)” as parting gifts to my students. That evening, I…
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Looking at the small shelf of books beside my bed last night, I noticed my copy of David Whyte’s The Bell and the Blackbird. My wife purchased the collection for me a few years ago when I expressed an interest in the book after a colleague introduced me…
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The academic year winds down, and all the responsibilities and tasks that come with it come crashing in like a tsunami. At the same time, gigs are picking up and I’m readying myself to serve as an AP reader in early June. In the midst of this, I…
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The purple polka-dotted Fender is what got me. I’ve never been to New Orleans; the closest I ever got was Gulf Shores, Alabama back in the late 90’s when my wife and I were living in Florida. I’ve never heard Buddy Guy in concert; my closest New Orleans…
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As I sat in bed last night, debating between Marilynne Robinson’s Home, Andrew Klavan’s The Truth and Beauty, or Mary Oliver’s Devotions, I eventually settled on Oliver’s collection of poems. Sleep would be coming quick, so a poem or two felt like a safe bet, especially when Robinson’s…
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For one final celebration of National Poetry Month, I’ll dip back into my collection of Photo of the Day poems drawn from The Guardian website back in 2019. Three years ago, in the final week of April, the following two images appeared and inspired these poetic responses. The…
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Today in British Literature, I reintroduced the “Life is Full of Adventure and Struggle” unit as we began our journey with Frodo Baggins in Tolkien’s The Fellowship of the Ring. As part of the teaser, I shared Vernon Scannell’s “Nettles” with my students, emphasizing that this poem actually…
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the deepening ground 