Tagged

poetry

A collection of 183 posts

poetry

Andrea Cohen, "Night"

Andrea Cohen's "Night" sketches the mystery of night so well that I find myself lost in it.

poetry

Kobayashi Issa, "Mosquito at my ear"

Issa laments one of the more miserable summer experiences. A literal bloodsucker, not content with biting and stealing, makes its presence felt loudly.

poetry

Jane Hirshfield, "Sonoma Fire"

The world is burning.

poetry

Yehuda Amichai, "Forgetting Someone"

Yehuda Amichai takes an everyday error—leaving a light on too long—and finds it apt for describing one of our hardest pains, that of having to forget someone.

poetry

Emily Dickinson, "The difference between Despair / and Fear" (305)

The outstanding question of Dickinson's "The difference between Despair / and Fear" is why the difference has to be known.

poetry

Kay Ryan, "Chop"

I've watched too many videos from those who follow waddling ducks.

poetry

"Things Fall Apart," or Auden's Animals & Ryan Boyd's "Wolves"

Ryan Boyd's poem "Wolves" elegantly testifies to our present madness.

poetry

Rae Armantrout, "Anti-Short Story"

In recent days, the problem of tone has asserted itself rather forcefully. Those subject to second-class citizenship meet a litany of demands about their tone.

poetry

Victoria Chang, "Watchers"

Your truest thoughts, developed in the intimacy of your mind by means of dialogue with the world, deserve better than to be ripped from your possession.

poetry

Emily Dickinson, "If I can stop one heart from breaking" (919)

Dickinson is practical, not obsessed with sounding practical.

poetry

Jane Hirshfield, "Everything Has Two Endings"

Grief and pain are tied to a loss of communication. There's a numbness in knowing you can't be heard.

poetry

Matsuo Bashō, "Seek on high bare trails..."

Can wisdom be summed up? Made into a brief but elegant legacy?

poetry

Wendell Berry, "Be Still in Haste"

"Be Still in Haste"—strictly, an imperative, but as it regards "Haste," an invitation to meditation.

poetry

Jane Mead, "The Geese"

So much of my being is wrapped up in places I am comfortable. I'm not always clear on how to achieve those places.

poetry

Yosa Buson, "New Year's Day"

When I first wrote on this poem, I thought it expressed how the newness of Spring, the promise of renewal, was nothing but a murky, wintery swamp...

poetry

Humberto Ak'abal, "If Birds"

Truth be told, in a world where noise-cancelling headphones are needed, the "mic drop" appears profoundly countercultural.

poetry

William Stafford, "At the Un-National Monument Along the Canadian Border"

To hear there is not only the possibility, but the reality of a greater peace, that a place can be "hallowed by neglect and an air so tame"—I mean, I can't imagine how that isn't moving.

poetry

Kyla Houbolt, "Be That As it May"

For me, "you are your own worst enemy" ties to a deeper process of self-knowing, so deep I thought the advice useless once upon a time.

poetry

Emily Dickinson, "A South Wind — has a pathos" (J 719)

When you create something entirely your own, something no one else attends to, you could forget who you were.

poetry

Arakida Moritake, "The fallen blossom"

Since the result of growth matters so much, maybe growth should be treated as no less than a miracle.

poetry

Naomi Shihab Nye, "Come with Me"

I spent Valentine's Day thinking about Transformers branded Valentine's cards from grade school.

poetry

Matsuo Bashō, "Winter solitude"

I believe Bashō and Stevens have something to say about writers who are too comic.

poetry

Jane Hirshfield, "All the Difficult Hours and Minutes"

Hirshfield's poem brings us to a number of pains and frustrations. They are "difficult hours and minutes," "like salted plums in a jar."

poetry

Louise Glück, "On Realism"

What exactly do I get out of what I read? How can my reading be of value to others?

poetry

Emily Dickinson and Political Philosophy: On "My Reward for Being," J343

I am so, so jealous of Dickinson's confidence in this poem.