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A Poem for a Thursday #219
Howard Nemerov served as the Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 1963 to 1964 and again from 1988 to 1990. He also won the National Book Award for Poetry, The Pulitzer Prize for Poetry, and the Bollingen Prize. Joyce Carol Oates said of him, “Romantic, realist, comedian, satirist, relentless and indefatigable brooder upon the most ancient mysteries—Nemerov is not to be classified.” Before you can learn the trees, you have to learn The language of the trees. That's done indoors, Out of a book, which now you think of it Is one of the transformations of a tree. The words themselves are a delight to…
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Spring
Monday was the first day of astronomical spring. That means it is time to shed winter coats, open the windows, and read The Secret Garden. What? You don’t read The Secret Garden every spring? That is one of the unwritten laws of my life along with “always buy the books” and “there is no such thing as too much tea.” I thought I would share a few spring-themed quotes today. I haven’t done a quote post in a very long time. I’ll start with a quote from The Secret Garden. “Is the spring coming?” he said. “What is it like?” “It is the sun falling on the rain and the…
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A Poem for a Thursday #218
Roger Mitchell has written eleven books of poetry and won many awards. For a number of years, he was the director of the creative writing program at Indiana University. Mitchell’s poetry is described as written: “in the conversational English of today, quiet poems that create a world on a page and pack a punch in the larger world of our common experience.” Before we can properly excuse ourselves, I am sitting in the shade under the oak tree talking about farming with the old man, and my wife is out among the flowers with his wife. I know nothing about farming, but the words fall effortlessly from my mouth. My…
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Book Review//The Mysterious Mr. Badman: A Yorkshire Bibliomystery by W. F. Harvey
When at two o’clock on a sultry July afternoon Athelstan Digby undertook to keep an eye on the contents of the old bookshop in Keldstone High Street, he deliberately forgot to mind his own business. Isn’t that an irresistible opening paragraph? Mr. Digby is on holiday and is waiting for his nephew, Jim, to join him. His landlord and the landlord’s wife must attend a funeral and Mr. Digby agrees to mind the shop. While he is in charge three separate individuals, a vicar, a chauffeur, and an out-of-town visitor, all ask for a copy of The Life and Death of Mr. Badman by John Bunyan. Mr. Digby is unable…
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A Poem for a Thursday #217
C. G. Hanzlicek is an American poet. He is the author of nine books of poetry. Hanzlicek spent thirty-five years teaching at California State University. He says of teaching “what could be better than spending your life in a classroom talking about necessary things.” I'm scrambing an egg for my daughter. "Why are you always whistling?" she asks. "Because I am happy." And it's true, Though it stuns me to say it aloud; There was a time when I wouldn't Have seen it as my future. It's partly a matter Of who is there to eat the egg: The self fallen out of love with itself Through the tedium of…
