Tag: poem
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Yeats, “Two Trees,” and a Piano
In my last post when I talked a bit about live music and local performances I mentioned that on Sunday Brian would be playing piano at the Joseph Priestly Memorial Chapel for their First Sunday program of music and the spoken word. I have some more video editing to do and if the volume is…
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Friday Flashback, Funeral Blues by W. H. Auden
It’s been a busy week in my part of Penn’s Woods–busy, snowy, icy. And while I’ve had a lot to catch up on I thought it would be a shame to miss the chance at a Friday Flashback on W. H. Auden’s birthday. Auden was a technician, my old mentor would say, a master of…
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“Ask Me,” William Stafford, River Ice and Aunt Cathy
Brian and I drove an hour south to Harrisburg on Friday for a memorial service to celebrate the life of his beloved Aunt Cathy. Let me tell you that lady lived like she was living her life, present and all in. In a beautiful eulogy her sister recalled how she was not afraid to reinvent…
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Reading “The Snow Man,” by Wallace Stevens
The phenomenon of Pennsylvania-born Wallace Stevens gives a guy like me hope. There was a day when great writers had post-university careers outside of the literary and academic fields. William Carlos Williams was a pediatrician, T.S. Eliot, a banker, and even more hopeful for me, Philip Larkin was a Librarian! In this current literary climate where the…
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A Thursday Love Poem (or Two) with E.E. Cummings
My dear friend and champion of peace, Ann Keeler Evans has been reminding me lately about the importance of being present, and in-the-moment. But after starting the new year with a bad cold, followed by a knock-out horrible bout of the flu virus, I found myself needing a little bit of hope. And she’s right, as…
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A Thursday Love Poem, “Killing Mark,” by Richard Blanco
We are overdue for another Thursday Love Poem, and as I’ve said before, “a Thursday Love Poem isn’t your grandmother’s love poem, baby.” It’s an unconventional love poem at least, and sometimes it’s a downright anti-love poem, as in the flagship poem of this feature, Edna Saint Vincent Millay’s “Thursday.” If you aren’t familiar with…
