Poets and Poems: Sally Nacker and "My Wild Yard"

Poet Sally Nacker lives in a house in or near a woods. That means her home is surrounded by nature. To experience nature, all she has to do is open her door and inhale. It was perhaps inevitable that she would find poetic inspiration here. All she had to do was walk in her yard. 

Find it she did.

 

My Wild Yard is a small taste of living in a natural setting. The 16 poems of this chapbook are simple and direct, inspired by the landscape around her. The poems are short; the longest is four stanzas of four lines each.

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

Some Tuesday Readings

 

How a Luna Moth Grows Up – poem by Adam Whipple at New Verse Review.

 

The Weight of Time – poem by Padraig O Tuama at Poetry Unbound.

 

“On Vacation,” poem by Sally Thomas – Joseph Bottum at Poems Ancient and Modern.

 

The Sleep of Seeds – poem by Lucia Cherciu at Every Day Poems.

 

“The purpose of poetry is to tell us about life” – Steve Knepper at New Verse Review.

Visitors to the Ce-Ment Pond: The Poetry of Birds

Last year, my wife decided she wanted a bird bath in the kitchen garden. She found one she liked, of concrete construction and simple in design. Our two sons helped move the bowl and pedestal from the car to the garden. It looks light – deceptively light; I can barely manage to empty the bowl when I clean it. 

I named it “the ce-ment pond,” in honor of one of my favorite childhood television shows, The Beverly Hillbillies. It has become an avian gathering place, a community center, a source of water in the St. Louis summer heat, and a communal bathtub. 

 

It’s also a source of discord. The birds fight over it.

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

Some Thursday Readings

 

Constantine Cavafy: The Making of a Poet – Gregory Jusdanis and Peter Jeffreys at Literary Hub.

 

Spring Thaw – poem by Maureen Doallas at Writing Without Paper.

 

“A Farewell,” poem by Charles Kingsley – Joseph Bottum at Poems Ancient and Modern.

 

The Dinners of Old London – Spitalfields Life.

Poets and Poems: Wendell Berry and “Another Day”

Eleven years ago, I read and wrote about a then-new collection of poems by Wendell Berry. Simply named This Day, it was a collection of old and new poems – what Berry called “Sabbath poems” – published between 1979 and 2013. He suggested reading these poems in a quiet place – the woods, a quiet room – because that’s where poems of rest and reflection should be read. 

Now we have the sequel – Another Day: Sabbath Poems 2013-2023. Berry turned 91 this month (Aug. 5, to be precise), and he’s still writing poems just as good as they were almost half a century ago. The poems are also just as consistent as they were in 1979; he has never tired of writing about the themes of family, relations, community, land, and landscape, all of it embodying the sense of place. His fiction, notably the Port William novels and short stories, are about the same thing; he even has a new Port William novel publishing Oct. 7, entitled Marce Catlett: The Force of a Story. 

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

Some Tuesday Readings

 

Come, Jeffers: Poetry of Old Age #1 – Lucas Smith at The Sprawl of Quality.

 

A Chinese Poem on a Greyhound Bus – Joseph Massey at The Free Press.

 

Four Walks in Central Park by Aaron Poochigian – Review by Carla Sarett at New Verse Review.

 

Scrutiny – poem by Teow Lim Goh at Every Day Poems.

 

“I Shall Go Back Again to the Bleak Shore,” poem by Edna St. Vincent Millay – Sally Thomas at Poems Ancient and Modern.

Poets and Poems: Jeffrey Bilbro and "Exile's Journey"

My introduction to Jeffrey Bilbro came through the internet. It was likely a link in someone’s post (now forgotten), But I clicked and landed at a site called Front Porch Republic.  

Bilbro is the editor-in-chief and an occasional writer, but it is mostly written by others. If you familiar with Wendell Berryor perhaps Paul Kingsnorth, then you’ll find Front Porch Republic familiar. It’s about community, land and landscape and how people interact with them, and th the things that threaten, like economic concentration and power. It’s also about the things that matter – family, children, neighbors, and friends – the kinds of things that people must work hard to make last.

 

When he’s not editing Front Porch Republic, Bilbro is an associate professor of English at Grove City College in Pennsylvania. I knew he had published non-fiction books, but I didn’t know he was a poet. Exile’s Journey is his first collection. 

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

Some Thursday Readings

 

Poet Laura: In the Sway of Tides – Sandra Fox Murphy at Tweetspeak Poetry.

 

“Yellow Feet,” a short story by Glenn McGoldrick, is free to download on Amazon today.

 

“She Walks in Beauty,” poem by Lord Byron – Anthony Esolen at Word & Song.

 

“The Duchess to Her Readers,” poem by Margaret Cavendish – Sally Thomas at Poems Ancient and Modern.