Monthly Archives: February 2017

A Few Spaces left – 10 day Poetry Retreat in Umbria, Italy – June 23rd to July 3rd

February 26, 2017 – 3:35 pm

I am so happy to announce that the desired minimum number of registrants for this retreat has been reached! The retreat is now an official GO! I am looking forward to going back to La Romita School of Art for a second time to adventure into the heart of Umbria and to turn these adventures […]

By Richard Osler | Posted in General | Comments (0)

Singing in Dark Times – #6 in a Series – Good and Bad Times for Poetry

February 26, 2017 – 3:00 pm

Joy. The other taste in sorrow’s cup Guy Gavriel Kay from The Last Light of the Sun, Penguin Canada, 2004 Motto* In the dark times Will there also be singing? Yes, there will be singing About the dark times. Bertolt Brecht(1898-1956): Poems 1913-1956, edited by John Willett and Ralph Manheim, Eyre Methuen, 1976 *Brecht titled […]

By Richard Osler | Posted in Poetry | Tagged , , Comments (0)

( Part 3 of 3) Gone to Soon – Tribute to Tom Lux – Have You Found It Now – the Unbroken World?

February 24, 2017 – 3:17 pm

I love mystery, strangeness, nuttiness, wildness, leaps across chasms, irreverence, all the crazy stuff we love about poetry. We don’t usually love poems because they are well made, or smart, or deep. We love them for their crazy hearts. Thomas Lux, from The Atlantic, 2004 Crazy hearts. The poems of  American poet Thomas Lux (1946-2017) […]

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(Part 2 of 3) Gone too Soon – Tribute to Tom Lux – Out of the Waiting List to Zero

February 19, 2017 – 7:47 pm

THE BEFORELIFE for Thomas Lux Meanwhile, I visit the word world. In between feeding my friends, the alert preternaturally unafraid birds of Purgatory Cove. Wright, Franz from The Beforelife, Alfred A. Knopf, 2001 Is it a coincidence I wonder that Franz Wright (1953 – 2015), Pulitzer prize winning poet dedicated a poem to recovering addict […]

By Richard Osler | Posted in Poetry | Tagged Comments (0)

(Part 1 of 3) Gone Too Soon – Tribute to Tom Lux – Renderer of Life – Low and Lower – into Poetry!

February 19, 2017 – 7:37 pm

Render, Render Boil it down: feet, skin, gristle, bones, vertebrae, heart muscle, boil it down, skim, and boil again, dreams, history, add them and boil again, boil and skim in closed cauldrons, boil your horse, his hooves, the runned-over dog you loved, the girl by the pencil sharpener who looked at you, looked away, boil […]

By Richard Osler | Posted in Poetry | Tagged Comments (0)

Singing in Dark Times – #5 in a Series – Why not Sing – Kevin Young

February 12, 2017 – 2:58 pm

Epigraph from Motto In the dark times Will there also be singing? Yes, there will be singing About the dark times. Bertolt Brecht: Poems 1913-1956, edited by John Willett and Ralph Manheim, Eyre Methuen, 1976 I think, okay, no more poems to post in this series for now and then a poem changes my mind. […]

By Richard Osler | Posted in Poetry | Tagged Comments (5)

Singing in Dark Times – # 4 in a Series – Today, a Voice That Might Have Been Banished – Emi Mahmoud

February 10, 2017 – 9:58 pm

Epigraph from Motto In the dark times Will there also be singing? Yes, there will be singing About the dark times. Bertolt Brecht: Poems 1913-1956, edited by John Willett and Ralph Manheim, Eyre Methuen, 1976 In November 2015 a young Sudanese/American woman, Emitithal (Emi) Mahmoud, rocked audiences at the individual world slam poetry championships, which […]

By Richard Osler | Posted in Poetry | Tagged Comments (0)

Singing in Dark Times – # 3 in a Series – What Do Poets Do? We Praise

February 8, 2017 – 8:56 pm

Epigraph from Motto In the dark times Will there also be singing? Yes, there will be singing About the dark times. Bertolt Brecht: Poems 1913-1956, edited by John Willett and Ralph Manheim, Eyre Methuen, 1976 This gorgeous, difficult, heart-breaking world. What do we poets do with it? Brecht says we must sing about it. His […]

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Singing in Dark Times – #2 in a Series – Aharon Shabtai – The Poet Sings

February 5, 2017 – 1:08 pm

Epigraph from Motto  In the dark times Will there also be singing? Yes, there will be singing About the dark times. Bertolt Brecht: Poems 1913-1956, edited by John Willett and Ralph Manheim, Eyre Methuen, 1976 In the second blog post in my occasional series Singing in Dark Times I feature an Israeli poet, Aharon Shabtai. […]

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Singing in Dark Times – #1 in a Series – Bertolt Brecht and Warsan Shire

February 4, 2017 – 7:49 pm

Epigraph from Motto  In the dark times Will there also be singing? Yes, there will be singing About the dark times. Bertolt Brecht: Poems 1913-1956, edited by John Willett and Ralph Manheim, Eyre Methuen, 1976 Potent words. Words, I see quoted a lot these days. So, a danger of over use. But considering that Brecht […]

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