If I break my leg, I’ll go to a doctor, If I break my heart or of the world breaks my spirit, I will go to a poet. Jeanette Winterson, The Times, January 2007 It has an attention grabber title: Poems That Make Grown Men Cry. And happily for readers the title lives up […]
Monthly Archives: April 2014
A God Who Eats Words – Devotional Poems of Adelia Prado
April 21, 2014 – 4:43 pm
On this Easter Monday it seems right to consider devotional poetry – poetry, whether or not explicitly religious, that reaches out to a presence, something transcendent, something that speaks to the eternal. A poetry where the “holy”, the “unspeakable” enters in. I realize this is a huge topic and I don’t want to get […]
Learning To Drown Above Water – The Poetry of Patrick Rosal
April 18, 2014 – 4:53 pm
One great feature at the annual Palm Beach Poetry Festival held in Delray beach, Florida every January is the craft talks given by each participating poet. The one delivered this year by American poet Tim Siebles was a stand out. Two reasons. First, because he introduced me to the Filipino American poet Patrick Rosal. […]
Eyes Open, Uncovered To The Bone – Part Two – A Poem by Brigit Pegeen Kelly
April 17, 2014 – 12:46 pm
What a delight it has been to discover the poet Brigit Pegeen Kelly, author of three collections of poems and winner of the prestigious Yale Series of Younger Poets Prize in 1987. Her third collection The Orchard was nominated for both the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Circle Critics Award. Grateful thanks to the […]
Eyes Open, Uncovered to the Bone – Part One – A Poem by Linda Gregg
April 17, 2014 – 12:16 pm
Confession. I am afraid to go on-line these days for fear of falling down the rabbit hole of April – Poetry Month. And the blogs pouring forth their bounty of poems. Overwhelming. Yet, here I am adding to the cataract of poetry. My problem is that I have my own closer-to-home welter of words. Piles […]
Happiness in a Broken World – Two Poems
April 12, 2014 – 2:57 pm
The fertility of the poetic mind! As my good friend and poet Liz commented to me today it is so surprising and wonderful the places a poet can be taken by an image. I had Liz’s comment […]
The Sound You Make When You Die – Poets on Poetry
April 11, 2014 – 3:47 pm
Big thanks to Barry Dempster, poet and editor, who posted this cartoon on Facebook today. Another remarkable cartoon rendering of poetry by cartoonist Grant Snider! In 2013 his cartoon Day Jobs of the Poets also zoomed around the net! ( I have included this cartoon at the end of the post.) And this guy, last […]
Poetry of Remembrance – Rwanda, April 6th, 1994
April 6, 2014 – 6:34 pm
Dedication You whom I could not save Listen to me. Try to understand this simple speech as I would be ashamed of another. I swear, there is in me no wizardry of words. I speak to you with silence like a cloud or a tree. What strengthened me, for you was lethal. You mixed […]