v. anastasi
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This Father’s Day I had planned to post a poem I wrote in honor of my Italian father and grandfather a few years back, but this morning I heard the phrase “fathers-forth” in my heart. Deep within me the voice of Gerard Manley Hopkins echoed and I knew that today was a day for Pied…
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As the calendar year rolled into June, so began the long awaited restoration and expansion of our home. For years we’ve been planning, and after the shutdown delay, the foundations are being laid and a dream is becoming a reality. My part in the deal (along with my three youngest children, especially) has been demolition…
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Sometimes, Middle-earth and Perelandra don’t seem so far away! Over the weekend, my friend Kyle mentioned returning to Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings and McCullough’s John Adams for inspiration. They spoke to him of enduring hardship to build a better future. At the same time, I’ve been revisiting The Lord of the Rings films…
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Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Letter from the Birmingham Jail As a teacher, I’ve heard my share of commencement speakers. I wish I could…
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I am a Flyers fan. I know, I know; I’ve lost many of you already. And if I were to predict a playoff series victory against our cross-state rivals, the Pittsburgh Penguins, I can only imagine the comments this post would receive. I might even hit a record high since starting this site. But you…
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Rest. Despite the unrest that fills the atmosphere, this is where I landed Wednesday night. After toiling for an hour or so with two different ideas, the stillness of an early-June twilight on my good friend’s porch demanded my attention and found its way onto the page. A few drafts later, and with my wife’s…
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This final installment of last year’s The Guardian photograph of the day poems leaves me with a hopeful note. Poetry is essential because it reminds us that we are all human and what we’ve struggled with or felt for generations still rings true today. It’s why we still read Shakespeare, Tennyson, Whitman, Dickinson, etc. And…
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Coming down to the final two weeks of last year’s The Guardian photograph of the day poems, I’m finding it harder to limit my offering to three poems. Two poems from this collection will draw upon that infamous weed that terrorizes the perfect lawns of the gated communities: the dandelion (as photographed in Turkey and…
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From the wonders of a steam engine crossing a trestled bridge to the twenty-nine cellphones that showcase mankind’s insatiable desire for distractions, and ultimately to the serene beauty and innocence of a young girl among a garden full of allium flowers, these poems capture the sometimes awe-inspiring wonder of our world, though not always with…
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Rather than rush out my three photo inspired poems tonight, I felt we required a journey to the deepening ground of Denise Levertov. I fell in love with this poem when I first read it in the AP English Literature textbook I use by Edgar Roberts. In a time when how we move forward as…
the deepening ground 