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A Poem for a Thursday #255
Seamus Heaney was an Irish poet and playwright. He wrote over 20 volumes of poetry and criticism. In 1995 he won the Nobel Prize for Literature for “works of lyrical beauty and ethical depth, which exalt everyday miracles and the living past.” At one time, his books made up two-thirds of the sales of living poets in the U.K. After his death playwright Tom Stoppard said of him “Seamus never had a sour moment, neither in person nor on paper.” And some time make the time to drive out west Into County Clare, along the Flaggy Shore, In September or October, when the wind And the light are working off…
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A Trio of Cookbooks for Your Delectation
As of this writing, I have not made a single recipe out of any of these cookbooks. That does not prevent me from highly recommending them. All three of these are more than cookbooks in their separate ways. The first one is The Little House Cookbook: Frontier Foods from Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Classic Stories by Barbara Walker. If, like me, you grew up totally obsessed with the Little House then this is the cookbook you need in your life. The Little House books are full of food references. Who can forget the huge meals Almanzo eats as a child on a farm in New York? The pies, the donuts, the…
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A Poem for a Thursday #254
Some weeks I like to discover a poet I have never read before. Some weeks I love the joy of something new and the jolt of recognition when you read words that resonate. Then there are some weeks when I just want to read something by one of the poets I have discovered in the five years I have been featuring poetry. This is a week when I felt like reading the tried and true. Therefore, please enjoy a poem by Billy Collins. I have yet to find a poem of his that I don’t like. Also, I am very aware that this blog has been heavy on poetry posts…
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A Poem for a Thursday #253
It has been a while since I have shared a Mary Oliver poem. I always enjoy her descriptions of the nature surrounding her. Her words provide such clear mental images and evoke feelings of peace even when the poems are not happy. I like the line “This is how it has been, and this is how it is”. It seems to combine the cyclical seasons with the cyclical nature of our lives. August of another summer, and once again I am drinking the sun and the lilies again are spread across the water. I know now what they want is to touch each other. I have not been here for…
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A Poem for a Thursday #252
Joyce Sutphen grew up on a farm in Minnesota. She served as Minnesota’s poet laureate from 2011-2021. Sutphen worked as a professor at Gustavus Adolphus College. Her poetry has won several awards and has been featured on Garrison Keillor’s A Prairie Home Companion. My father's farm is an apple blossomer. He keeps his hills in dandelion carpet and weaves a lane of lilacs between the rose and the jack-in-the-pulpits. His sleek cows ripple in the pastures. The dog and purple iris keep watch at the garden's end. His farm is rolling thunder, a lightning bolt on the horizon. His crops suck rain from the sky and swallow the smoldering sun.…
