Reader Shellity has made good on her promise to pinch my verse form. Even better, her wonderful poem has shown added flexibility–three verses, instead of my usual one or two, showing me that my form has greater potential than I ever suspected! This is how it begins, and before you know it my verse form …
Category Archive: Poetry
Aug 06 2012
John Donne On The Temple Shooting
Perhaps the most frustrating aspect (at my privileged distance) of the Sikh Temple shooting, is the obsession with the differences between Sikhs and Muslims. Intentional or not, the implication is clear; it would be understandable if someone shot up a Muslim mosque. No. A guest post today from John Donne. The context was different, and …
Jun 26 2012
Poetry Parnassus
Part of the Olympic Games festivities in London began today, with the first day of a week-long “Poetry Parnassus”–a gathering of some 204 poets, one from each country entering the games. Take a look here, at an interactive map of poems. I have sampled a dozen or so, and have come to a very familiar …
Jun 09 2012
Click and Clack, Redux
While looking for yesterday’s verse–the one I wanted to send to Car Talk, but did not–I came across another car-related poem (part of the same assignment, actually) which I had thoroughly forgotten about. It is a villanelle (most famously exemplified by Dylan Thomas’s “Do not go gentle into that good night”), and in this case, …
Apr 21 2012
I. Love. This.
From 1797, A Burlesque Translation of Homer. Two volumes, 360 and 432 pages respectively, of bawdy humor. No more dactylic hexameter, this one is in the far friendlier iambic tetrameter. It’s like I have a twin.
Apr 17 2012
Poems For Sale
I love this story (on NPR) Zach Houston runs his Poem Store (on any given sidewalk) with these items: a manual typewriter, a wooden folding chair, scraps of paper, and a white poster board that reads: “POEMS — Your Topic, Your Price.” For five years now, this has been his main source of income. Not …
Apr 01 2012
April Is National Poetry Month
Well, in the US, at least. Poets.org lists 30 ways to celebrate, including:
Mar 30 2012
Poetry Out Loud
So I walk the Cuttledogs, return home, turn on the idiot-box, and am transformed. By stroke of luck, it just so happens to be Maine’s 2012 Competition Finals of Poetry Out Loud. My goodness, what a wonderful thing. When I write my piddling little verses, I hope that the best of them are, above all, …
Feb 28 2012
A Question For Stephen Fry
Like pretty much all of us, I just love Stephen Fry. And no, I am not going to attempt to laud him in verse or song—that’s been done, and wonderfully, and in person—but rather, am hoping to use his expertise. You see, he wrote the book. And some day soon, I am going to have …
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