The Cucumbers of Praxilla of Sicyon What is the best we leave behind? Certainly love and form and ourselves. Surely those. But it is the mornings that are hard to relinquish, and music and cucumbers. Rain on trees, empty piazzas in small towns flooded with sun. What we are busy with doesn’t make us groan […]
Category Archives: General
The Bigness of Small Poems – #33 in a Series – The Ah! Ha! Genius of Jack Gilbert
September 2, 2017 – 10:49 pm
Daily Miracles – Virginia Woolf and Robert Cording
August 10, 2017 – 10:24 pm
What is the meaning of life? That was all – a simple question; one that tended to close in on one with the years. The great revelation had never come. The great revelation perhaps never did come. Instead there were little daily miracles, illuminations, matches struck unexpectedly in the dark. Virginia Woolf from To the […]
Poetry La Romita, 2017 – We Discovered a Wider (Wilder) Eye
August 4, 2017 – 4:44 pm
Oh, the world, the world, What eye is wide enough? What pupil sufficiently diligent. — Greg Orr ………………………I want to go howl in the city, or smash windows, or make my life sheer shine in this miracle ache of the world. — Dennis Lee Painting is silent poetry, and poetry is painting that speaks. — […]
In Great Company – Heidi Garnett’s Poem in Your Pocket
April 28, 2017 – 9:36 pm
Wish List I want to meet a blue parakeet that reads the future pulling Tarot cards with one delicate outstretched foot, the hanged man uncovered. I want to own a Corvette, a 1960 red and white convertible hardtop and drive around town with my dog Bud. I want to write love poems as if world […]
The Bigness of Small Poems – # 28 in a Series – The Delicacy and Ferocity of Franz Wright
April 1, 2017 – 11:33 pm
I’m trembling with fear. Just as well that what I’m about to write is already somehow written within me. What I have to do is copy myself out with the delicacy of a white butterfly. Clarice Lispector from The Hour of the Star, New Directions, 2011 I am addicted to great quotes on writing, especially […]
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 […]
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 […]
Announcing a 10 Day Retreat in Umbria, Italy – June 23rd to July 3rd, 2017
January 6, 2017 – 6:13 pm
Recovering Words Writing Retreats with Richard Osler The focus of these retreats is to create the opportunity for participants to create substantial new poems through comprehensive writing adventures (assignments) UPCOMING RETREAT 2017 La Romita School of Art Terni, Umbria, Italy 10 Days June 23rd to July 3rd, 2017 To Discover a Wider Eye Oh, the […]
Gone So Quietly, Unexpectedly – But Listen! Her Poems Still Sing! Brigit Pegeen Kelly (1951-2016)
October 24, 2016 – 12:19 pm
The Leaving My father said I could not do it, but all night I picked the peaches. The orchard was still, the canals ran steadily. I was a girl then, my chest its own walled garden. How many ladders to gather an orchard? I had only one and a long patience with lit hands and […]
The Bigness of Small Poems – #20 in a Series – Hyaena Season Launches!
September 29, 2016 – 2:19 pm
Cherish This World The daughter, for a time, who wouldn’t talk or look at him, that daughter, tells of her days and nights on Mandarte Island, barely more than a rock in the Salish Sea. He touches his tongue to the sound Man-dart-eh makes in the mouth. Says it again and again. Something cracks open […]