Poets and Poems: Paul Willis and "Orvieto"

Travel writer Rick Steves says Orvieto in central Italy is precisely what an Italian hill town should be. Poet Paul Willis agrees.  

A walled medieval city. A funicular that transports you from the train station to the old town. Churches. Monuments. Museums. Wine tours. Stone archways bridging across streets. Views of the plains  And only 90 minutes from Rome by train. 

 

Willis visited Orvieto, and he’s composed a chapbook of 26 poems about the city, where “the cobblestone alleys / barely keep the walls apart.” 

To continue reading, please see my post today at Tweetspeak Poetry.

Some Thursday Readings

 

“Autumn Song,” poem by Dante Gabriel Rossetti – Sally Thomas at Poems Ancient and Modern.

 

Two Great Lights – poem by Cody Ilardo at Power & Glory.

 

We Can Remember – poem by Maureen Doallas at Writing Without Paper.

 

“The Island,” poem by A.A. Milne – Poems Ancient and Modern.

Poets and Poems: Paul Willis and "Losing Streak"

Free verse has reigned supreme in poetry for more than a century. It’s difficult for my contemporary mind to experience a formal, more traditional poem (the kind written for at least 3,000 years) as either “that’s how they used to write poems” or “this is going to be a humorous poem.” Rhyming poems seem to lend themselves to humor (think limericks), irony, or even popular songs. 

Yet I know full well that contemporary formalist poetry lives and flourishes; it’s even considered something of a movement. Simply read Dana Gioia, Mark Jarman, Brad Leithauser, or Mary Jo Salter, to mention only a few formalist poets. And Losing Streak, the new poetry collection by Paul Willis, falls comfortably into that category of formalism.

To continue reading, please see my post today at Tweetspeak Poetry.

Some Tuesday Readings

 

Emily Dickinson was no recluse – Claire Lowdon at The Spectator.

 

Robert Frost’s accidental late start – Henry Oliver at The Common Reader.

 

Watching My Children Play in a Graveyard – poem by Shaun Duncan at Society of Classical Poets.

 

Rain on Us (A Sunday Psalm) – Jerry Barret at Gerald the Writer.

 

Three Poets Painting with Agnes Martin’s Brush – Heidi Seaborn at The Adroit Journal.

 

At Six Months – poem by Pia Purpura at Every Day Poems.

Poets and Poems: Paul Willis and “Somewhere to Follow”

Poet Paul Willis sees life’s everyday, usually-passed-over-without-a-second-thought events, and he finds the sacred. It might be that scouting jamboree where you sit around a campfire singing “On Top of Old Smokey.” Or a football playing helping a tackled opponent to stand. Or young boys digging a hole in an empty lot because, well, they need to dig a hole. Or trimming back a tree grown too close to a building. Or hitchhiking a ride back to college, and only years later realizing that you spent a short time with a man who barely survived the Battle of the Bulge. 

The sacred can surprise you, and it usually does. And it often surprises you years later, because sometimes you see the sacred only years after you actually experienced it.

 

Somewhere to Follow is Willis’s new poetry collection. It’s filled with poems that tell stories of youth, of young adulthood, of family, of professional life, and of walking and hiking in Yosemite National Park. He writes with awareness of his own limitations and a wry sense of humor.

 

To continue reading, please see my post today at Tweetspeak Poetry.