Tag Archives: Christian Wiman

With Death Looming, Two Astonishing Poems of Presence – Mandelstam and Stafford

September 1, 2018 – 6:13 pm

AND I WAS ALIVE And I was alive in the blizzard of the blossoming pear, Myself I stood in the storm of the bird-cherry tree. It was all leaflife and starshower, unerring, self-shattering power, And it was all aimed at me. What is this dire delight flowering fleeing always earth? What is being? What is […]

By Richard Osler | Posted in Poetry | Also tagged | Comments (2)

The Bigness of Small Poems – #30 in a Series – Christian Wiman’s Heart Cry

July 16, 2017 – 8:58 pm

Writing poetry is a much more powerful and destabilizing experience for me than is writing prose. The former plays hell and havoc with my life and mind. The latter is an exercise in sanity. That said, there are certainly areas of experience to which prose gives me access that poetry does not. I can plan […]

By Richard Osler | Posted in Poetry | Comments (6)

Poets on Poetry – WIth a Big Thanks to The Calgary Public Library

December 31, 2015 – 3:30 pm

  Calgary-based poet Rosemary Griebel The poem I want to write is impossible. A stone that floats. Charles Simic (1938 – ) from The Monster Loves His Labyrinth: Notebooks, Ausable Press, 2008 Short poem: Be brief and tell us everything. Charles Simic, ibid On this the last day of 2015 I wanted to share the […]

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Christian Wiman and Greg Orr — How To Lighten Grief’s Gravity

October 26, 2014 – 5:41 pm

I sometimes think art is useless in the face of extreme suffering, but then I remember Miklos Radnoti, Paul Celan, Anna Akhmatova, or Mandelstam—and I bow my head (to them) in awe. I suppose I do believe that the greatest art consoles a wound that it creates, that art can give you the capacity to […]

By Richard Osler | Posted in Poetry | Also tagged , , | Comments (4)