Poets and Poems: Paul Kingsnorth and “These Were the Stories of My People”

I’ve read Paul Kingsnorth for years, first his novels, then his poems, and then his essays. The writer who began as something of a radical environmentalist who discovered faith, explored Ireland’s holy wells and met wild saints, became a popular speaker, and, in a way, anticipated the promise and peril of artificial intelligence and the rise of what he calls “the machine.” It would be an oversimplification to call him England’s (or Ireland’s, since he lives there now) answer to Wendell Berry. But there would also be some truth to that oversimplification. 

Bery often wrote and spoke about industrial agriculture and the death f rural communities. Those themes are also part of Kingsnorth’s “machine,” but he goes further. He includes technology in general, and particularly digital technology, global economic systems, and the aspects of modern life he sees as soul-crushing. 

 

I like his fascinating, somewhat strange novels set in what appears to be Anglo-Saxon times. I’m taken with his essays and recordings of his speeches. And I like his two published poetry collections, Kidland And Other Poems (2011) and Songs from the Blue River (2018). Now Kingsnorth has a third collection, There Were the Stories of My People: New and Selected Poems.

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

Some Thursday Readings

 

“Out in the Dark,” poem by Edward Thomas and “No!,” poem by Thomas Hood – Sally Thomas at Poems Ancient and Modern.

 

May 15, 1886 – poem by Maureen Doallas at Writing Without Paper.

 

Poet Laura: A Mirthful. Generative, Thoughtful, and Zany Start – Catherine Abbey Hodges ar Tweetspeak Poetry.

 

Notes on Making a Canonical Anthology: The Oxford Book of American Poetry – David Lehman at The Hudson Review.

Poets and Poems: Rachel Hicks and “Accumulated Lessons in Displacement”

Poet and writer Rachel Hicks has lived in some unusual places. She was born in the foothills of the Himalaya Mountains, and she’s lived in India, Pakistan, Jordan, the Republic of Congo, Hong Kong, China, and the United States. Her nomadic background comes into full play with her debut poetry collection, Accumulated Lessons in Displacement. 

When I started reading, I expected to see those international experiences reflected in the poems. And they’re there. What I did not expect was the find so many poems of a haunting beauty, that leaves you with a sense of awe. But that’s what I found. 

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

Some Tuesday Readings

 

Crow – poem by Kendall Dunkelberg at Every Day Poems.

 

“They are all Gone into the World of Light,” poem by Henry Vaughn – Joseph Bottum at Poems Ancient and Modern.

 

Let’s Celebrate with an Ode to Joy – Tweetspeak Poetry.

Poets and Poems: Penelope Moffett and “Think of It as Music”

As I read Think of It as Music, the new poetry collection by Penelope Moffet, the first word that kept coming to mind was precision. It was followed by a related word – etching. Reading these poems is not only like looking at etchings; it’s like reading an etching. And then came the third word – landscape. 

Moffet writes in a very precise, deliberate way. Words are chosen carefully; then she positions them in the order that makes her meaning completely clear. And then you discover she’s drawn the landscape. Sometimes, it’s the natural landscape; other times, it’s more a personal landscape. She’s etching a picture that describes exactly what she wants it to describe.

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

Some Thursday Readings

 

“Some One,” poem by Walter de la Mare – Sally Thomas at Poems Ancient and Modern.

 

Hues of Devotion: A Reading of Shakespeare’s Sonnet 20 – K.S. Bernstein at Apple Blossoms in a Mournful Wood.

 

“Ah, Are You Digging on My Grave?”, poem by Thomas Hardy – Joseph Bottum at Poems Ancient and Modern.

"The Book of Joy: 100 Poems for Your Heart" by L.L. Barkat

The first book I ever read by L.L. Barkat was Stone Crossings: Finding Grace in Hard and Hidden Places. I read it straight through, likely because I was reading it in a hard and hidden place. I had finished a group bike ride across about half of Missouri with an unexpected meeting with construction on a bridge. I thought I was shaken up but generally okay for the next three days, until I was in a work meeting and suddenly discovered I was having trouble breathing. I made it home, and my wife drove me to the Emergency Room. On the way out the door, I grabbed Stone Crossings, thinking I’d have something to do while waiting in ER.  

By 1:30 a.m., I was in a hospital room after a diagnosis of four broken ribs and a partially collapsed lung. I couldn’t sleep, so I read the book. I will likely connect Stone Crossings with broken ribs for the rest of my life. My crossing wasn’t stone, but it was hard; the bridge was made of wood. And the impact was hidden for three days. 

 

My bike trip and reading the book came a few short weeks after meeting Barkat on what was then called Twitter and an impromptu poetry jam that started one Saturday afternoon in June 2009. She organized the poetry jams that ultimately became Tweetspeak Poetry. A year later, I joined her on the editorial staff of The High Calling. 

 

I write all of this because we have a good history. I’ve read all her books. I’ve read her poetry. She published two of my books, Poetry at Work and Brookhaven. I’ve read the books of her daughter Sara. And I am singularly incapable of writing a fair, unbiased, objective review of L.L.’s new poetry collection, The Book of Joy: 100 Poems for Your Heart. 

 

Just so you know.

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

Some Tuesday Readings

 

Letters Sent – Padraig O Tuama at Poetry Unbound.

 

Unlocking Poetry: A Simple Guide to Writing Free Verse – Jody Lee Colllins. 

 

Truth, Breathed Through Silver – Marc Sims at Mere Orthodoxy.

 

“Sea Love,” poem by Charlotte Mew – Joseph Bottum at Poems Ancient and Modern.

 

Whatever It Means – poem by Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer at Every Day Poems.

Poets and Poems: Betsy Mars and "Rue Obscure"

Reading poetry can produce a variety of moods. To cite only a few: Some collection prompt thoughtfulness. Others can make you thoughtful. Still others prompt you to go quiet. And I can read some of the poems by a poet like Billy Collins and smile, often laughing out loud. 

As I read Rue Obscure, the first full collection by poet Betsy Mars, one word kept popping into mind. And the word was pensive. Take that is the word’s broadest possible sense – deeply thoughtful and often hinted at sadness or wistfulness.

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

Some Thursday Readings

 

Looking Around – poem by Robert Cording at Rabbit Room Poetry.

 

Sextus Propertius and the Latin Love Elegy – Aaron Poochigian and A.M. Juster at Rabbit Room Poetry.

 

After-Effects of Fire – poem by Maureen Doallas at Writing Without Paper.

 

“The Old Familiar Faces,” poem by Charles Lamb – Sally Thomas at Poems Ancient and Modern.

Poets and Poems: Kortney Garrison and “Fixed Hours”

If I were asked what the most company themes in poetry are, I’d likely answer with two words: love and nature. Poets used to write a lot about love. But love as a poetry theme has suffered a serious blow in the popularity ratings in the last couple of generations. But nature? Poets have likely been speaking and writing about nature since the literary art was invented. Poets are still writing about nature. These days, writing about nature contains far fewer pitfalls than writing about love. 

Then I read Fixed Hours: Poems by Kortney Garrison. Many, perhaps most, of the poems use nature. She doesn’t celebrate nature for the sake of nature. Instead, she uses nature as a metaphor, and not for one particular thing, but for many things. And she uses nature in a deliberative, thoughtful, almost prayerful way.

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

Some Tuesday Readings

 

Walking into Mass in Ordinary Time – poem by Megan Willome.

 

Cords – poem by Franco Amati at Garbage Notes.

 

I Could Ask for One More Trip – poem by Peg Edera at Every Day Poems.

 

“On My First Daughter,” poem by Ben Jonson – Sally Thomas at Poems Ancient and Modern.

 

The Delta Dawn is Always Different – poem by Vershal Hogan at Faith on View.

Poets and Poems: Mischa Willett and “This Gift Card Has Already Been Redeemed”

I’ve talked before about my experiences with the art of Anselm Kiefer. I’d seen two of works at the St. Louis Art Museum, and then in 2014 I walked into an entire exhibition at the Royal Academy of London. Over this past winter, the St. Louis Art Museum staged a massive exhibition of his works entitled “Becoming the Sea,” named for a line of poetry from Gregory Corso. One work also cited lines from the poet Paul Celan, and I just posted about Celan last week. Yes, I’m a fan of Kiefer’s art, but I don’t think I could quite articulate why. 

Until now. I read a poem in This Gift Card Has Already Been Redeemed, the new collection by Mischa Willett. The poem is about Kiefer, and it’s about art, writing, and books. And it’s mostly about the act of artistic creation. The poem explained, to me, at least, what it was about Kieffer’s art that I find so profound.

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

Some Tuesday Readings

 

In Defense of Rhyme – Euphrates Moss at Society of Classical Poets. 

 

Poetry Club Tea Date: Magician – Tweetspeak Poetry.

 

“In No Strange Land,” poem by Francis Thompson – Joseph Bottum at Poems Ancient and Modern.

 

Lady Moon Launders – poem by Albert Giraud at Every Day Poems.

 

An Immigrant Requests a Heart Transplant – Rosa Lia Gilbert at Rabbit Room Poetry.

Poets and Poems: Christian Wiman and "The Dance"

I hesitated before deciding whether to write about The Dance, the new collection of poetry by Christian Wiman. It wasn’t because I didn’t like; I did, enormously. It was more like the experience of entering the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam, or the little chapel in the crypt of St. Bride’s Church in London. You feel the weight of the experience and the inevitable silence, even in a crowded room.  

With The Dance, you’ve stepped into a quiet that demands you listen without speaking. 

 

I’ve had this experience before with Wiman’s writing, both his poetry and his memoir, My Bright Abyss. That memoir was so intense that I needed three months to read it, sometimes only a paragraph or a page a day. I was reading it when I took an overseas trip, and I deliberately left it home because I knew it would overshadow everything I was about to see. 

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

Some Tuesday Readings

 

Finding & Singing: Ten Things to Notice When You Read a Poem – Scott Crider at The Imaginative Conservative.

 

“Youth and Age on Beaulieu River,” poem by John Betjeman – Alexander Fayne.

 

Brink – poem by Andrew Roycroft.

 

Joseph’s Amazement: Reconciling Suspense in St. Robert Southwell’s Poetry – Emily Ransom at Church Life Journal.

 

“I Read My Sentence Steadily,” poem by Emily Dickinson – Sally Thomas at Poems Ancient and Modern.

 

A Reading in Emily’s House – poem by Andrea Potos at Every Day Poems.

 

On repentance – poem by Sarah Spradlin at Rabbit Room Poetry.

Poets and Poems: James Tweedie and “Love Found, Yearned For, and Lost”

I’m a sucker for a good love poem. Apparently, I’m not the only one. Poetry about the subject of love is as old as poetry itself. Some of the most famous poems in literature are about love. 

Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s “How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.” Shakespeare’s “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?” Lord Byron’s “She walks in beauty.” “Endymion” by John Keats. Robert Burns’ red, red rose. William Butler Yeats’ “When You Are Old.” Virtually every poet has written about love. And it’s no wonder. Love may be the emotion, the feeling, the condition, and the presence we experience across languages, culture, histories, and geographies. 

 

As poet James Tweedie demonstrates in his new collection, Love: Found, Yearned For, and Lost, love is a big topic, not only covering a range of conditions and realities but also poetic forms. 

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

Some Thursday Readings

 

Bird Lands – poem by Maureen Doallas at Writing Without Paper.

 

“Heredity,” poem by Thomas Hardy – Sally Thomas at Poems Ancient and Modern.

 

The Tomb of Poetry: A reading of Shakespeare’s 15^th, 16^th, and 17^th sonnets – K.S. Bernstein at Apple Blossoms in a Mournful Wood.

 

“Little Orphant Annie,” poem by James Whitcomb Riley – Joseph Bottum at Poems Ancient and Modern.

 

“To a Louse,” poem by Robert Burns – Anthony Esolen at Word & Song.

Poets and Poems: Jessica Covil-Manset and "To Sing You, and to Shout"

You don’t understand the title of the chapbook To Sing You. and to Shout until you finish reading all its 17 poems. Poet Jessica Covil-Manset packs powerful emotion, reflections on a family, and eventual resolution into those few poems in a way that leaves you impressed with the impact and reflecting on your own family dynamics. 

Much of the focus is on the mother of the family, the one who leaves length voicemails, sings out of tune (and knows it), whose messages are sometimes, but not always spiteful, the one who is “my heartache / My biggest fan.” It’s not a flattering portrait, but it is also not entirely critical. 

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

Some Tuesday Readings

 

Farewell Letter – poem by David Whyte.

 

Poetry Club Tea Date: Daily Practices – Tweetspeak Poetry.

 

Neruda’s Updated Edition Totals 3,522 Pages – poem by L.L. Barkat at Every Day Poems.

 

Annunciation – poem by Alex Mouw at Rabbit Room Poetry.

 

“The Day is Done,” poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow – Sally Thomas at Poems Ancient and Modern.

Poets and Poems: J.I. Kleinberg and “All of We”

Take a text, any text. It might be a paragraph from a novel, an excerpt of an essay, a newspaper article, a poem, words in advertisements, or your own journal. Then look for ideas, words that stand out, sentences or phrases that can be formed by extracting words. Highlight what you’ve selected, or black out the surrounding text. Assemble the selected words in a new text, or you can simply leave them as is. What you have is a found poem. 

It’s not as easy as it might sound. In fact, it can as much time, thought, and effort as writing an original poem. A found poem can both construct and deconstruct a text. 

 

Ezra Pound extracted words and phrases from historical letters and government documents to help create his Cantos. A poetry collection based on the press briefings of Donald Rumsfeld was published in 2003. Found pounds have been created from baseball calls by the announcer for the New York Yankees. Other sources of found poems have been the etiquette books of Emily Post, the trial testimony of Charles Manson, The Elements of Style by Strunk and White, Wonder Woman comics books, and more. 

 

Poet J.I. Kleinberg collected examples of phrases and texts involved the word “we.” She explains that it is an inclusive word, implying all or at least a group. “We suggests the whole greater than the sum of its parts, the possibility of empathy, humanity, history, we inclusive of good and bad, familiar and surprising, guilty, optimistic, despairing…” She didn’t so much assemble the phrases as she designed the words into found poems (her master’s degree is in design). 

 

The result is All of We: Found Poems. 

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

Some Tuesday Readings

 

Homer’s Odyssey Book 1 – a Visualized Reading – Classical Poetry Live.

 

Poetry Prompt: Oh, My Word – L.L. Barkat at Tweetspeak Poetry.

 

What Is Metempsychosis? – poem by Tina Kelley at Every DayPoems.

 

“The Highwayman,” Poem by Alfred Noyes – Joseph Bottum at Poems and Ancient and Modern.

Poets and Poems: Robert McDowell and “The Excellent Assembly”

If you’re older than 29 tor 30, you know precisely where you were on Sept. 11, 2001. My wife was at home, our oldest son was in college, and our youngest son was in school. I’d gone early to my small office in downtown Kirkwood, Mo.  

I turned on my small, portable television to watch the news. Instead, I saw a large passenger jet crash into the South Tower of the World Trade Center in New York. Another jet had crashed into the North Tower 18 minutes earlier. A little more than 30 minutes later came the crash into the Pentagon. And then the crash into the field in Pennsylvania. 

 

Everything changed that day. Airline safety screening changed forever. A war started. The people who were the masterminds behind it were hunted down. But something deeper changed, something indefinable – the idea of the United States we carried in our heads.

 

Twenty-five years have passed. To remember that day, to remember the people on those planes and in those buildings, the policemen and firemen who gave their lives, and the families who lost loved ones, writer and poet Robert McDowell has written The Excellent Assembly. It’s a collection of 52 poems, not based on real people, but imagined to describe the types of people who died and were affected.

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

Some Thursday Readings

 

The Weeping World: A reading of Shakespeare’s ninth sonnet – K.S. Bernstein at Apple Blossoms in a Mournful Wood.

 

“Song of the Chattahoochee,” poem by the Sidney Lanier – Sally Thomas at Poems Ancient and Modern.

 

What Wendell Berry Saw – Jason Edwards at Front Porch Republic.

 

“Dear Friends,” poem by Edwin Arlington Robinson – Anthony Esolen at Word & Song.

 

“The Pobble Who Has No Toes,” poem by Edward Lear – Joseph Bottum at Poems Ancient and Modern.

 

Reading Wendell Berry’s ‘III’ – Megan Willome at Poetry for Life.

 

Poet Laura: By Heart – Donna Hilbert at Tweetspeak Poetry.

Poets and Poems: Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer and “The Wonderment”

Poet Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer starts this poetry collection with an explanation of what inspired it. I can’t say I’ve read or heard an explanation quite like it. Her father, on his deathbed, “his eyes open but unseeing,” said a phrase, an incomplete sentence: “From our birth…to our death…the wonderment.” 

In other words, all of it, all of life, is full of wonder. The great mountain vistas. The ocean sunsets. A baby’s laugh. But also, the unexpected death, the illness, the hard times, grief. All of it contains a sense of wonder. Visiting the place where her son died, which she wrote about in her previous collection, The Unfolding, and his grave. 

 

In The Wonderment: Poems, published today, Trommer writes about some of the things that fill her with wonder. 

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

Some Tuesday Readings

 

Wild Blackberries – poem by David Whyte.

 

“A Dirge,” poem by Christina Rossetti – Sally Thomas at Poems Ancient and Modern.

 

When an East Cast Girl Sees Saguaros –poem by Aberdeen Livingstone at Rabbit Room Poetry.

 

Winners of Third Annual First Things Poetry Prize – First Things Magazine.

Poets and Poems: Jen Karetnick and "Organ Language"

A grandmother’s jewelry. A heavy rainfall. The fruit in a pina colada. A soccer game. Accompanying a parent to a medical procedure. Waiting for biopsy results. A can opener. Grief. Riding in the car with your sister. Gardening. A frog. Cicadas. Arthritis. The neighbor who calls you by the wrong name. 

What all these disparate things have in common is that they’re familiar. common, everyday. They’re so familiar that we often forget them or overlook them. 

 

In the hands of poet Jen Karetnick, however, the familiar and the common become something else. She reaches into her own childhood. She considers the experiences of her own children. She looks at the life she’s living now. The subjects are largely what we know as experiences common to all of us, but Karetnick shows us how the familiar will also indicate something deeper, something more profound. That’s the heart and soul of her new collection, Organ Language.

Some Tuesday Readings

 

Night jar – poem by Sonja Benskin Mesher.

 

Planted – poem by L.L. Barkat at Every Day Poems.

 

“You, Andrw Marvell,” poem by Archibald MacLeish – Joseph Bottum at Poems Ancient and Modern.

 

Poetry Club Tea Date: The Pershing Hotel – Tweetspeak Poetry.

 

Do You Hear Birds? – poem by Elizabeth Wickland at Rabbit Room Poetry.

Poets and Poems: Peter Murphy and “You, Too, Were Once on Fire”

About the time my mother turned 75, she said something to me that she’d been apparently been saving up. “You know,” she said, “I’ve reached an age when I can say what I think, and I don’t have to worry about what happens because of it.” This was something she learned from her own mother, who’d made some kind of similar announcement at about the same age. Except my grandmother had been doing exactly that long before she announced it. So had my mother. 

I remembered those statements as I read deeper into You, Too, Were Once on Fire: Poems by Peter Murphy. Ad those thoughts hit me as I read “Stairs to All Levels,” a poem about Frank O’Hara and New York City and the Twin Towers and 9?11, and you don’t even realize it until the end of the poem hits you upside the head with a smack. It was that poem, followed immediately by “Miss Besieged Sarajevo,” about a beauty contestant during the Bosnian War in 1993, that made me realize I needed to make sure my seat belt was buckled and tray tables were locked securely for takeoff.

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

Some Tuesday Readings

 

A Giant on the Shoulder of Giants – J.C. Scharl at Public Discourse.

 

Hands of Christ – poem by Andrew Roycroft at New Grub Street.

 

Your Poems: The Beachy Poem Challenge – Tweetspeak Poetry.

 

“The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” (excerpt), poem by Samuel Talyor Coleridge – Every Day Poems.

 

“Jabberwocky,” poem by Lewis Carroll – Joseph Bottum at Poems Ancient and Modern.

Poets and Poems: Gabrielle Myers and “Go Forth: Lose Yourself into Life”

The end of a relationship with a spouse or partner is like a death – a death of familiarity, a death of structure, a death of how we live our lives and who we share that life with. I’ve never experienced that kind of loss, but I’ve seen it happen to close friends and family members.  

Gabrielle Myers experienced that kind of loss, a relationship she ended after “five years of verbal abuse.” She did what many poets do – she turned to writing poetry to understand it, assimilate it, and resolve it –if such a thing can ever truly be resolved. But she did it in a rather unique way, by using the natural landscape around her to structure and explain her poems. And her loss.

 

The result is Go Forth: Lose Yourself into Life, Myers’ fourth collection of poetry. It could also be subtitled with the words she uses to begin her introductory essay: “Begin to Know the World Again from Nothing.”

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

Some Thursday Readings

 

The Splendor of the Orient – K.S. Bernstein at Apple Blossoms in a Mournful Wood on Shakespeare’s Sonnet 17.

 

August, in Passing – poem by Riyanka Paul.

 

Sonnets in St. Louis: The Life of Sara Teasdale – Zoe Korte at Missouri Historical Society.

 

Piets and Poems: Martyn Hesford and "Ash Light"

I don’t know if grief is really a thing with feathers. Sometimes I think of it as a ghost, sometimes there, sometimes gone, but able to suddenly appear and startle you almost to tears. My father died nearly 40 years ago; grief didn’t hit me until three years after his death. My mother died 12 years ago; I felt it immediately. My half-sister, 11 years older, died several years ago; it felt like part of my childhood died, the time I knew her best. My half-brother, eight years older, died last year, and that one hit me harder than all the others. The best and worst conversation of my life was our last phone call, when he knew he’d die soon and was saying goodbye.  

But all these griefs return, not at once and not with the same intensity. Some dull with time; some don’t. The ghosts of grief are likely a measure of the strength and depth of the relationship. What I’ve learned is that grief, with all its ghosts, can be another form of love.

 

These thoughts about griefs and family and ghosts came bubbling up when I read Ash Light: Poems, the latest poetry collection by Martyn Hesford. (The collection is available through both Amazon UK and the publisher, Grey Swan Press.)

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

Some Thursday Readings

 

St. Clare: A Sonnet – Malcolm Guite.

 

Summer Camp Highlights – poem by Maureen Doallas at Writing Without Paper.

 

The Ragged Hand of Winter – Sonnet by K.S. Bernstein at Apple Blossoms in a Mournful Wood.

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.

Poets and Poems: Tamara Madison and “Morpheus Dips His Oar”

I don’t think I was quite ready for Morpheus Dips His Oar: Poems, the 2023 collection by Tamara Madison. The word that comes to mind is raw, something beyond candid. These are the words of understanding of what has shaped a life. 

Most of that shaping is by people – parents, siblings, family friends who might be a bit too friendly. There’s the mother who is mystified by her own grandchildren and any other children not her own, but she can quickly sketch them, “stilled like insects on flypaper.” The postmaster, her mother’s friend, is a little too friendly with his hands. Her friend’s father, a professor who seems so sweet, drives his daughter to attempted suicide. 

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

Some Thursday Readings 

 

“The Toys,” poem by Coventry Patmore – Joseph Bottum at Poems Ancient and Modern.

 

Marriage – poem by David Whyte.

 

Excerpt from The Portal to the Mystery of Hope by Charles Peguy – Anthony Esolen at Word & Song.

 

Poet Laura: Summer’s End – Donna Hilbert at Tweetspeak Poetry.