Looking at Distant Water and Thinking About What Kids Do
The kids may act along with their better angels, but inexperience leads the astray. Thankfully I lived in a more forgiving time.
Author: Ben Sears
May I Have A Word?
I can’t say that I hate searching for the right word or playing around with the sound of a sentence. Often it works itself out.
POETS Day! Richard Wilbur
It is Friday. You have slithered out of your commitments. Enjoy the nachos at the bar. Today’s poet is Richard Wilbur.
It’s Willamette, Dammit
I pronounced Willamette as “will-a-met” rather than as “will-ah-met”. She told me “Nope.” “It’s Willamette, Dammit.” Emphasizing the rhyme.
POETS Day! Ogden Nash
It’s a silly bit of nothing, I’m not blown away, but my name is not emblazoned in the Ogden Nash tier of wordsmiths, so take his word(s) over mine.
POETS Day! Robert Conquest
You’d think someone immersed in the horrors of the 20th century would hold a lesser opinion of man and beauty and hope. But then Robert Conquest does this
POETS Day! Kingsley Amis
Kingsley Amis became a known member of a literary movement known, fittingly, as The Movement. Theirs was a rejection of the modern movements
POETS Day: Ezra Pound
X may be a bigger marker of character than Y, so we’ll decide based on X w/a dismissal of Y. Meet Ezra Pound, & good luck with that formula
POETS Day!: Langston Hughes
Jazz was a huge influence on Langston Hughes, and I think this work is an excellent example of that influence.
Midafternoon Nighthawks at the Waffle House
I just took my kids to a Waffle House for the first time and it was amazing. But the food was so secondary to the company.
Wine Tasting Through
I used to work as a sommelier, even though I still need autocorrect to spell the word properly. You know, wine tasting
POETS Day!: Algernon Swinburne and the Ties that Bind
If you look into the history of the actual man you’d find that he was a devote of the Marquis de Sade and a raging alcoholic.
Wouldn’t Be Great If We Could Somehow Drag Gene Stallings Into This?
If college football is anything like it is assumed by so many, the Sicilians need to take note, because Omerta ain’t got nothing on this.
POETS Day!: Walt Whitman and Baseball
Here’s something that Walt Whitman definitely wrote, but note, when he’s not singing to his electric body he’s a bit…You’ll see.
POETS Day! One for the Kids: Shel Silverstein
Today’s escape poem is remarkably tailored to such an occasion. Shel Silverstein’s “Sick” is a tribute to getting out of school.
POETS Day! Send in the Cavafy
This guy Cavarfy was born in Alexandria and should have been, by modern standards, called an Egyptian, but he avoided that by moving at a young age to Liverpool
Let’s Let T-Shirts Be Just What They Are
I’ll not be conscribed. I’m not the only one with dissenting t-shirts in the back of a drawer or a laissez faire pizza dough recipe.
Return to Normalcy?
Empathy is a binder. So is suffering. We’ve been told over two years that “We’re all in this together,” as we are told to stay apart.
POETS Day! Alfred, Lord Tennyson
Alfred, Lord Tennyson was also possibly the most popular of the Victorian poets and his Byronesque fame may have gone to his head.
POETS Day! Mrs. Browning’s Husband
Hopkins was referring to the energy of the Victorian poets. They certainly had that. Robert Browning certainly had that.
