poems
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Life is full of transitions. For me, the end of summer comes a month early with a return to the classroom. Those days of school starting after Labor Day are long forgotten. Just before my summer vacation came to a close, I intentionally spent one last Sunday seated in my camping chair in the middle
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Early into Sunday morning I stood staring at my refrigerator door dueling with words. In the absence of other inspiration, the magnetic poetry drew my attention away from the latest disc golf round and fixed me to the puzzle in front of me. I had played around with a few of the lines a week
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Fathers, like children, are one of those common treasures often overlooked. Though the poem that follows has no direct relation to Father’s Day proper, I share it as a reminder (mostly to myself) to slow down and savor the common treasures of life like time with your children wading in the waters of the creek,
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Am I having a midlife crisis? After over two decades of teaching, I am spent. Over the past few months, I have begun to seriously question my role as an educator. The kind words of Wendell Berry, reminding me that “as a high school English teacher you are necessary, and I’m guessing with some confidence
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“It is no more possible to live in the future than it is to live in the past. If life is not now, it is never.” Wendell Berry, The Long-Legged House Meditations on Modernity By Vincent H. Anastasi 2023 IV. The Life Let this be the day well done: not the timely completion of all
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“If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world.” J. R. R. Tolkien, The Hobbit Meditations on Modernity By Vincent H. Anastasi 2023 III. The Medicine If I could take the creek to work, I would – hitch a ride with the swans who swam
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“But in Huxley’s vision, no Big Brother is required to deprive people of their autonomy, maturity and history. As he saw it, people will come to love their oppression, to adore the technologies that undo their capacities to think.” Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death Meditations on Modernity By Vincent H. Anastasi 2023 II. The
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“If we had a keen vision of all ordinary human life, it would be like hearing the grass grow or the squirrel’s heart beat, and we should die of the roar which lies on the other side of silence. As it is, the quickest of us walk about well-wadded with stupidity.” George Eliot Meditations on
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For over a month I’ve been waiting to publish this poem. (I’ve also been in a writing drought…hence my lack of posts.) Earlier in the year, my art teacher colleague at Grove City High School invited me out to his property to experience firsthand the mystery of wood fired pottery. He hoped I could capture
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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 like a sonnet. Both require hard work.
the deepening ground 