Of all of the divisive people in history, T. S. Eliot ranks at the top of the list in the literary world. Some find “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” incomprehensible, fragmented, and boring. Some consider it an inspired masterpiece. In a letter to his brother, the poet wrote … Read More
Category: poetry
“”Understand, I am always trying to figure out what the soul is, and where hidden, and what shape…”
I have always felt more at home with questions than with answers, and I gravitate toward poets who explore rather than explain. Mary Oliver, one of my favorites, writes in this poem, “I believe I will never quite know. Though I play at the edge of knowing, truly I … Read More
“O, my luve’s like a red, red rose, that’s newly sprung in June; my luve’s like the melodie, that’s sweetly play’d in tune.”
It’s hard to over-state how highly Robert Burns is revered by people from Scotland. In 2009, this 18th century poet was voted “the greatest Scot” by viewers of a Scottish television station. Every year on January 25th, Scots from around the world meet to recite the poem Tam o’Shanter even … Read More
“If trees could speak they wouldn’t. . .
The poem continues: “. . . only hum some low green note, roll their pinecones down the empty streets and blame it, with a shrug, on the cold wind. During the day they sleep inside their furry bark, clouds shredding like ancient lace above their crowns.” These wonderful sentences, which … Read More
“Tonight the windows hold all light inside: they fold it back on walls…
. . . and spill gold over things that tell us who we are.” This is from “Learning the Language” by Henry Taylor. It’s a beautifully constructed poem that follows strict rules of rhyme and meter. When he won the Pulitzer Prize in 1986, his love of form was … Read More
“Give the buried flower a dream.”
“Danger” might not be the first word that comes to mind when thinking of Robert Frost. And yet, look at what he says in this article: “If poetry isn’t understanding all, the whole word, then it isn’t worth anything. Young poets forget that poetry must include the mind as … Read More
“Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside, you must know sorrow as the other deep thing.”
Are poems tools? The 90 contributors to this book think so. They describe how specific poems have helped them. For example, our line this week, from the poem “Kindness” by Naomi Shihab Nye, was submitted by a teacher who has those words tattooed on her leg. She writes, “It … Read More
“What is the difference between a self and a soul?”
Why read poetry? If you read novels because you like to find out what happens, and if you read non-fiction because you like to learn something, why read poetry? I read it because I like to think about questions that no one has “the” answer to. I like unsolvable problems. … Read More
“There was a sunlit absence.”
“I am a part of all that I have met.”
This passage from Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s “Ulysses,” based on the character in Homer’s Odyssey, continues: “Yet all experience is an arch wherethrough gleams that untraveled world whose margin fades forever and ever when I move. How dull it is to pause.” Indeed! How dull the world would be without fine … Read More
“Some part of art is the art of waiting”
The poet Ted Kooser — who won the Pulitzer Prize after he retired — knows something about art and waiting. However, that doesn’t mean he’s a calm poet. His poem “Memory” starts like this: “Spinning up dust and cornhusks as it crossed the chalky, exhausted fields, it sucked up into … Read More
“The name of the author is the first to go, followed obediently by the title, the plot…”
The poem “Forgetfulness” by Billy Collins continues: “the heartbreaking conclusion, the entire novel which suddenly becomes one you have never read, never even heard of, as if, one by one, the memories you used to harbor decided to retire to the southern hemisphere of the brain, to a … Read More
“There’s a certain Slant of light, Winter Afternoons — that oppresses, like the Heft of Cathedral Tunes –“
Where would we be, during difficult winters like this one, without the help of Emily Dickinson? This poem ends with these lines:
“When it comes, the Landscape listens —
Shadows — hold their breath —
When it goes, ’tis like the Distance
On the look of Death — ”… Read More
“Maybe imagination is just a form of memory, locked deep in . . . eternity.”
The poet Ron Wallace can be described as “part Emily Dickinson and part Harpo Marx” because of his dark wit, which you can see in the opening of this sonnet:
The Bad Sonnet
It stayed up late, refused to go to bed,
and when it did it sang loud songs … Read More
“Whoever you are come travel with me. Traveling with me you find what never tires.”
The poem continues: “The earth never tires. The earth is rude, silent incomprehensible at first. . . be not discouraged, keep on. . . there are divine things more beautiful than words can tell.” I once wrote these words on my kitchen wall so that my kids would grow up … Read More