Poetry and insights
I’m in love with words, and I love to use the right words to create poems that have clarity and character. I think of my work as “literal poetry.” I don’t put my pen down until I’ve said exactly what I feel, exactly what I mean to say, so that you, as the reader or listener, will have no doubt about it. I want to write poems that don’t need to be explained—what you see is what it is. I want to write poems that express deep human emotions, and very thoughtful observations, and very precise meanings. I am a poet, a writer, a teacher, a moralist, a historian and an unflinching student of human nature. I think a lot. I strive to express truth and give context—both rational and emotional—to reality. I think words can be pictures, and lovely songs, and bodacious scents, and private flavors, and early morning caresses that wake each part of me, one at a time. I know some of those words, and, from time to time, I write some of them.
that rhyming thing…
easier said than done
Can cats talk?..“Cat talk,” my poem
start listening…
“…stoked again by antique thunders…”
“It looks like rain”…(my poem)
The Book of Days…part xxxxiv
nature poems about the dawn’s early light…
“The unseen owl…” “Occurrence,” my poem
I share my one note
Book Reviews and insights
Reading is part of my life. Old books are companions—they have a palpable essence that will never be duplicated in an eBook reader. I can live with books, inter librorum copias. I don’t read too many novels, although I’m partial to 19th century American and English writers like Dickens and Hawthorne and O. Henry. I’m happy when I’m reading aloud. I wish that I may live long enough to read at least most of the books in my library.
Literary Life: A Second Memoir…book review
Larry McMurtry’s love affair with books
Book reviews: how they got started…
Pros and cons…
The History of the American Revolution…book review
David Ramsay served in the war
The Eye of the Story…book review
essays and reviews by Eudora Welty
Our Ancient Faith…book review
not really a Lincoln book
Historical insights
I think it’s difficult to be a sensitive and sensible human being without some knowledge of history and its enduring elements. An insufficient understanding of history is an impediment to decent participation in human society. I am particularly intrigued by the systematic methods of the French Annalistes to examine the deep structures (longues durées) of history. Awareness and understanding of history allows us to create and sustain a mindful context for our past and present adventures.
Code Girls, the life savers…book review
Liza Mundy tells it
Crazy Horse…book review
…a loner and a lone eagle, says Larry McMurtry
The Nurses: Episodes 1-16…book review
by Janet Kovarik, a storyteller…
Essays Toward a Historical Theory of Big Business
The Essential Alfred Chandler…book review
Goodbye, Darkness: A Memoir of the Pacific War…book review
William Manchester’s nightmare…
21 Lessons for the 21st Century…book review
Yuval Harari is a teacher
The Other Madisons: The Lost History of a President’s Black Family…book review
he wasn’t the only one…
A Short History of the World in 50 Places…book review
Jacob Fields does the pique thing…
Christendom: The Triumph of a Religion, AD 300-1300…book review
Peter Heather tells a new story
The Revolutionary: Samuel Adams…book review
Stacy Schiff teaches more…
Politics: thoughts and insights
Yelling isn’t my style. I am a committed and, I think, well-informed liberal progressive. It’s my intention to avoid presenting any political commentaries that are doctrinaire, abusive, deliberately hateful or contrary to “…a decent respect to the opinions of mankind…” Maybe you’ll recognize those words from the Declaration of Independence. I respect the value and the necessity of dedicated support for the preservation of the public good. I’m willing to offer my considerations of what constitutes the public good.
Upheaval: Turning Points for Nations in Crisis (book review)
by Jared Diamond…frank and frightening
“Pick battles…small enough to win.” Kozol (quote)
Daniel Berrigan talks about evil…
1491 by Charles Mann (book review)
…lost American legacies
The Last European War (book review)
it’s by John Lukacs, dig in…
Lakota America: A New History of Indigenous Power (book review)
Pekka Hämäläinen tells it like it was…
What’s Wrong with Economics? A Primer for the Perplexed (book review)
Robert Skidelsky rebuts “Homo economicus”
The Founders’ Fortunes: How Money Shaped the Birth of America
Willard Randall documents it: money talks (book review)
Splendid Failure: Postwar Reconstruction in the American South
…the North forgot about slavery (book review)
Reconstruction After the Civil War (book review)
mostly, nothing changed
The Man Who Broke Capitalism (book review)
Jack Welch, all-American what?
Tidbits
Occasional items that tickle your funny bone, or point your mind in a new direction, or invite you to stop for a moment and listen to what your heart is telling you.
Feeling lucky? get ready for it
way to go…
“…my final future…”… “now then…” my poem
the carpe diem thing
“We almost always know…”
doing the right thing…
“faintest breaths…”…“another thing,” my poem
they never look up
Starman…an alien with special sauce
movie review, Jeff Bridges et al.
“a dancing wight”…“Another time,” my poem
no song sublime
friendship is “thinking aloud together”
Samuel Adams said it
“we think dirt is dirty…”…my poem
“we tend to be messy…”
What the Robin Knows…book review
what the robins say…
be a philosopher, sooner or later
a gentleman in Moscow did it