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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.
“A Time to Talk,” my version of the poem
Frost’s original is good, too
“…the hollow men…” and so on
T. S. Eliot, a bloomin’ wasteland…
getting started, a big thing…my poem
we did it
The Book of Days…part lxii
nature poems about the dawn’s early light…
“Caress,” my love poem
the squeeze of your fingers…
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.
The Greatest Sentence Ever Written…book review
it didn’t come easy
Did the British lose, or give up, or what?
Maybe it was the Revolutionary “War”…
The Things They Carried…book review
feelings may change…
Good Bones…book review
bones and more bones…
Uncivil Agreement: How Politics Became Our Identity…book review
fear and anger, not issues…by Lilliana Mason
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 allow us to create and sustain a mindful context for our past and present adventures.
Book review: “The Gentle Boy”
The Puritans had a dark side…
Book review: All The President’s Men
It’s a corker, but you won’t have to read it twice…
Book review: American Colonies
So many and so much came before the Pilgrims…
Book review: Shantung Compound
They didn’t care much about each other…
A poet is a “maker”
…and it doesn’t have to rhyme…
Book review: American Scripture: Making the Declaration of Independence
…it didn’t start the Revolution.
The “dime novels” popular in the Civil War
Think Kit Carson and the lads…
Book review: Forced Founders
Woody Holton explains that Virginia’s “Founding Fathers” had patriotism, and some other stuff, on their minds….
Book review: An Empire Divided
King George and his ministers never tried hard enough to win the Revolutionary War.
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.
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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.
The Sixth Extinction…book review
Elizabeth Kolbert talks about the other global horror…
“a breath of poetry…”…from Silas Marner
George Eliot said it all
“again is a potent word”…my poem
“redux,” get it right
changing the world into words…Bill Gass said it
a kind of alchemy
The Picture of Dorian Gray…classic?…movie review
The 1973 version is the best of more than 30
Aging: An Apprenticeship…book review
How to live so you’re ready to die…
the baby seats, step right up…my poem
we know the kids who will use them
“Speak like rain.” Isak Dinesen’s story
in her novel, Out of Africa
don’t cross the buck’s trail…my poem
a walk in the woods
Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day…movie review
and lives happily ever after…