I’m an English teacher, so of course there will be poetry. Some days, it rains and snows poetry around here. (But don’t worry, no tests.)
Every year, when National Poetry Month comes around in April, I get excited about the encouragement to read and re-read poetry. It makes me happy to know there are others out there like me who look to poetry for solace. I think poems are the parents of all other writing, and they comfort me, [...]
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(National Poetry Month! Ding, ding, ding.) You just have to read this poem by Marie Howe. Few things are more beautiful. What the Living Do Johnny, the kitchen sink has been clogged for days, some utensil probably fell down there. And the Drano won’t work but smells dangerous, and the crusty dishes have piled up [...]
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It’s that time of year again. No, not Easter or Passover. (Those too.) It’s National Poetry Month! And that’s just as well, because poetry and spirituality, I think, are inextricably connected. This means I will try to, as in years past, present you with wonderful, celebrated poems. But I will also write a few myself. [...]
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Second Birthday Two is the age of my first memory. My mother’s green robe around her like a coat as I lifted stubby fingers into the air. I taught that to you– how to use your thumb like a wing, closed. Two fingers, a butterfly. You, more than anyone, have shown me what [...]
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People don’t read poetry. Maybe they stopped when TV was invented. And yet, like poet Wislawa Szymborska, I “clutch on to it, / as to a saving bannister.” When I hear a great poem, a poem that takes my breath away, I am filled with so many emotions. Calm, for the moment I stopped and [...]
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I have a thing for D.H. Lawrence. (No, I won’t make you read a book by him. At least not this year.) I can’t help it—I like a man who pushes buttons, who knows how to brood and uses his initials in place of his name. A man who isn’t alive anymore to disappoint. All [...]
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I fight against my inclination to fit myself into one of two rigid, fixed categories. Introvert/Extrovert. Liberal/Conservative. City girl/Country girl. I do it anyway. I believe I’m a City Girl. The thought of being too far from a city fills me with a sense of dread, of floundering. Wide open spaces, while beautiful, would eventually [...]
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Early this morning, I was in the midst of a dream where I sat on a European hilltop, ruffling through large posters imprinted with poetry. I looked for just the right one, lamenting loudly that people should memorize poems, that we need to sit across tables and take turns reciting poems animatedly, relishing the rhythm [...]
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