Category: poetry

“The sky gathered again, and the sun grew round that very day.”

A review of “Fern Hill” in 100 words by Catherine Stover

This quote is from the poem “Fern Hill,” written by Dylan Thomas, one of the greatest Welsh poets of all time. My Welsh Airbnb host included it in his description of the changeable weather, which is one indication of … Read More

“Empty silos, barren barns, fields in need of the cultivator will keep someone else awake all night.”

A review of “Poems from the Winter House” in 100 words by Catherine Stover

Daniel Smith’s poetry readings draw people who have never been to a poetry reading before. They come to hear him describe farming and his decision to finally sell his ancestral home and discontinue the way of … Read More

“There are those who believe they know – and those who hope they may yet know.”

Seven pages into the preface of his huge collection of poems, Carl Sandburg  tells us that he will not pontificate on the art of poetry, which is what famous writers often do in that section. Instead, he says “A poet explains for us what for him is poetry by what … Read More

Ten Years of Writing about Poetry Has Taught Me This

Poetry is the most textured form of writing. It attracts artists who weave sounds and images with mystery. They may be cranky (T. S. Eliot) or homesick (Heaney) or humorous (Billy Collins). They may believe that poetry is an instrument of investigation (Jane … Read More

“We get the Dialectic fairly well.”

Why would a poem written in 1940 be included in The Best American Poetry 2023?  W. H. Auden’s brilliant poem about contradictions wasn’t published during his lifetime because he questioned its value. Auden was a great poet who doubted his greatness. Even when he won awards, such as the … Read More

“…I see in the flashlight beam, a world of dust . . . massing, revolving back, splitting into twos and threes and lonely ones—”

The poet Rasma Haidri continues, “and I know I orchestrated this fugue of spheres.” I love the way hope infuses this poem – and many of the poems – in this collection. We see stories about people who are looking for greater happiness, and who are finally able to change … Read More

“I live on the boundary of the outside and the inside.”

I’ve always believed that the best way to take the pulse of a bookstore is to check out the display on the front table. Instead of best-sellers, this bookstore featured Czech poets – a treat for someone like me who knows virtually nothing about the literary traditions of this country. … Read More

“Even as I write these words I am planning to rise from the chair as soon as I finish this sentence.”

We all know the feeling of being torn between wanting to take the time to think deeply and needing to get up to get something done. The tension between lofty ideas and everyday practicalities is a theme that runs through many of the works in this collection. In the poem … Read More

“One day you finally knew what you had to do, and began, though the voices around you kept shouting their bad advice –”

Mary Oliver’s poem “The Journey” continues, “though the whole house / began to tremble / and you felt the old tug / at your ankles . . .” The journey she describes didn’t stop, even though it was “a wild night.” The stars began “to burn / through the … Read More

“Go north a dozen years on a road overgrown with vines to find the days after you were born.”

This remarkable first line of the poem “Sight” by Faith Shearin does three things: it provides a way to visualize a journey back in time along “a road overgrown with vines.” It includes an interesting slant rhyme with “vines” and “find.” And, it’s written as a command, in what English … Read More

“Lately I’ve found myself reaching for the books of certain familiar writers, whose own zest and energy offer some kindly remedy to my condition.”

Perhaps you can relate to this: while I enjoy the holidays, I also am running low on the “zest and energy” that Mary Oliver describes in this essay. Her solution to this problem is to reconnect with familiar writers. Her book, which has been in my hands for thirty years, … Read More

“And you O my soul, where you stand, surrounded, detached, in measureless oceans of space . . .until the bridge you will need be form’d…”

And you, O my reader, where you sit, reading from a screen that holds more words than the mind can store, what do you do after reading Whitman’s poetry?  Some respond by “Whitmanizing” in bold statements or expressive art. The poet Czeslaw Milosz says that after reading Whitman, he experiences … Read More

“Any radical change in poetic form is likely to be the symptom of some very much deeper change in society and in the individual.”

What a crank T. S. Eliot must have been! He is the champion of contradiction. Consider this: his difficult and complex poem “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” revolutionized poetry, and many consider it to be a prime example of social criticism. And yet, he wrote “To me … Read More

“I became a fine singer . . .in later years I was to be of great help to my husband with his song writing.”

As a fan of the Scottish poet Robert Burns, I was unaware of the role that Burns’ wife played with the development of his songs until I toured the home that he lived in at the time of his death in 1796. Jean, who by all accounts had a beautiful … Read More

“The man o’ independent mind / He looks an’ laughs at a’ that.”

Picture this: in the 1700s, a poet from Scotland united his fellow countrymen by showing them how to respond to the rich and powerful. He recommended laughter. Meet Robert Burns – known as the “ploughman poet” – who grew up doing backbreaking field work during the day and learning French … Read More