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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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A week away from the normal routines of life is refreshing, even if it comes with other, pressing responsibilities. We have just returned from New Jersey where my son and daughter competed in a regional speech tournament. While there, I spent most of my time either judging rounds…
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Having missed International Haiku Poetry Day, let me leave you with this three haiku sampler from David M. Bader’s book Haiku U: From Aristotle to Zola, 100 Great Books in 17 Syllables as today’s selection for National Poetry Month. As Bader himself notes in his humorous foreword, “Deciding…
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Having not actually written anything new recently, a quiet hour to write (or blackout) tonight was a gift. Flipping through the same book that I have been using for nearly six years, I gratefully unearthed the following poem just in time for Resurrection Day, known to many as…
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If you’ve followed my blog for the past two years, you will be familiar with Wendell Berry. His Mad Farmer poems have brought such life to my soul (these two years especially). So it’s somewhat surprising that I haven’t posted one of his poems until today during National…
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Originally posted on Malcolm Guite: image courtesy of Lancia Smith We come now, on Palm Sunday, to the beginning of Holy Week: a strange Palm Sunday, a strange Holy Week, in which we cannot make the outward and visible journeys and gestures, exchanges and gatherings that have always…
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the deepening ground 