other deepening places
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Tennyson remains one of my favorite British poets. As this year winds down and the new year dawns, Tennyson’s bells ring loudly from the past into our present, ringing out hope for the future in something bigger than we can touch or see. Rather than waste your time with my preface, I’d rather you slow
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I came across this poem searching for Christmas stories by Wendell Berry. Last year, I listened to his novella Andy Catlett: Early Travels, set during Christmas of 1943, as I painted a home we were renovating. Honestly, I wanted something a bit shorter to share with my students, more along the lines of Truman Capote’s
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“I don’t think poetry lives on the flat page…any more than music lives in the notation. I think a poem has to be breathed into the air – it has to kind of shimmer into being as sound exchanged in the one atmosphere between people.” Malcolm Guite, from “A Spell in the Studio with Phil
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“Denounce the government and embracethe flag. Hope to live in that freerepublic for which it stands.” Wendell Berry, “Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front” Though I’ve referenced this poem multiple times on my site, I don’t believe I’ve ever posted it in full. With election day upon us in America, the poem feels fitting. So
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You absolutely must listen to Malcolm Guite discuss the poem and read it to fully enjoy this autumnal experience. Life has been too full to write, but the three minutes you spend on this post will be well worth your time as we celebrate my favorite season of the year!
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Many poets speak of the challenge of being a poet, but few have captured the sense of being out of place and misunderstood like Richard Wilbur in his translation of Charles Baudelaire’s stunning poem from “The Flowers of Evil.” My wife shared it with me tonight, having heard it herself for the first time on
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On the eve of beginning my twenty-fifth year as a teacher, I am reminded of Billy Collins, looking back on a long career in the following poem. I haven’t taken the time to total all the students I’ve taught over the years, but I’m sure they would populate a small rural town at the least.
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Saturday afternoon, my youngest son and I were preparing to powerwash our porch furniture before dressing them in a fresh coat of Hunter Green paint. As I struggled to remove the nozzle from the hose, two moles popped out of the ground at the top of the stone steps, squeaking and tussling for a brief
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There’s something that draws me to hawks. And yet, this morning a hawk was drawn to our side porch! Admittedly, I know exactly why the hawk chose to hang out on the corner post overlooking my neighbor’s lawn: baby rabbits. We’d been watching their furtive movements around the rhododendron bush from the dining room table
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For Father’s Day, my daughter went hunting for hawks among the poetry of Mary Oliver. (She knows my affinity for those majestic birds of prey.) Instead, she found the wonder of the spoken word in the poem below. Somehow I read past this piece in my collection of Oliver’s poems without marking it with a
the deepening ground 