Yearly Archives: 2021

Remembering Robert Bly – Part Two

KEEPING OUR SMALL BOAT AFLOAT So many blessings have been given to us During the first distribution of light, that we are Admired in a thousand galaxies for our grief. […]

“Where Will We Find Another Like Him? “ – Robert Bly (December 23rd, 1926 – November 21st, 2021)

Where will we find another like him? Tony Hoagland from The Village Troublemaker: Robert Bly and American Poetry in The American Poetry Review, September/October, 2011 The Pistachio Nut God crouches […]

Moved By The Shape of Scars – A Poem and a Chapbook by Ghanaian Writer and Poet Tryphena Yeboah

MY BODY, HAVING LEARNED RESURRECTION The day ripens on my face. The opening of my eyes is the plucking of stars and I want to keep the glistening thing forever […]

“The Dark Came Down” – R.I.P. Sophie Alexandra Musgrave Reid (1989-2021) – And Poems of Response by Her Mother, Canadian Poet, Susan Musgrave

THE SOUL IS A TINY THING for Sophie The day you were born the sun thawed the tears on your father’s face. We needed you, a flirt of grace, your […]

A Ten-Day Generative Poetry Writing Retreat in Umbria Italy – May 16th to May 26th, 2022

Poet as Diviner – Hunting the Pluck of Poetry An Invitation to a Ten-Day Generative Poetry Writing Retreat with poet Richard Osler and Paper-Arts Facilitator Terry-Ann Carter at La Romita […]

In Spite of 9/11 and Other Catastrophes We Must Still Sing – A Reflection on Patrick Lane’s Poem – Small Elegy for New York

Small Elegy for New York A small bird sings in the apple tree today where the fruit hangs heavy in the heat. The harvest is still weeks away. He sings […]

The Itinerant Sea-Sight Seeker Xiao Yue Shan – Two Ocean Shores (Japanese and Canadian) in Twenty Days – and now the Winner (Announced Today) of Tupelo Press’s 2021 Berkshire Prize

I write poems…to say grace. Xiao Yue Shan from Minutes, Sea-Sight Journal Day Nineteen, June 29th, 2021 from her website shellyshan.com the ocean is a gateway, a gentleness that contains and […]

Short-Listed for Canadian Griffin Prize Shortlist 2021 – Yusef Saadi – Words are His Pleasure

Pleasuring Shahrazad In rosewater I rinse my final words, dip them into your body. Your slow, saline drip on my tongue. You eclipse Medinan dates soaked in honey, saffron rice […]

What Will Not Let Me Forget – A Personal Story of a Poem and Synchronicity (Meaningful Coincidence)

In a series of synchronistic events a poem I wrote has come back to me more than thirty years after I wrote it and almost twenty years since I had […]

My Story – Transforming Anger into Action Close to Home – What To Do About “Unsustainable Logging”? How To Turn “Things or Objects” into Nouns We Care For?

“If I choose not to become attached to nouns – a person, place or thing – then when I refuse a intimate’s love or hoard my spirit, when a known […]