Category: poetry

“. . . now I understand that it was not so ordinary after all.”

kosser2With his wonderful metaphors and his trademark compassion, Ted Kooser is a poet with many gifts. The gift that I appreciate most is his ability to look at ordinary things — rain, clouds, trees — and see what no one else sees. “Spatters of raindrops cold as dimes, and … Read More

“What do these extraordinary lines summon in you?”

housdenThe premise of Ten Poems to Change Your Life by Roger Housden is this: great poems can be dangerous. They can make you question your assumptions, change your direction, and find the courage to start over. I believe that reading can lead to reflection that inspires transformation. In fact, I’m … Read More

“If trees could speak they wouldn’t. . .

Laux cropped

The poem continues: “. . . only hum some low green note, roll their pinecones down the empty streets and blame it, with a shrug, on the cold wind. During the day they sleep inside their furry bark, clouds shredding like ancient lace above their crowns.” These wonderful sentences, which … Read More

“Tonight the windows hold all light inside: they fold it back on walls…

Taylor Henry cropped. . . and spill gold over things that tell us who we are.”  This is from “Learning the Language”  by Henry Taylor. It’s a beautifully constructed poem that follows strict rules of rhyme and meter. When he won the Pulitzer Prize in 1986, his love of form was … Read More

“Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside, you must know sorrow as the other deep thing.”

Intrator croppedAre poems tools? The 90 contributors to this book think so. They describe how specific poems have helped them. For example, our line this week, from the poem “Kindness” by Naomi Shihab Nye, was submitted by a teacher who has those words tattooed on her leg. She writes, “It … Read More

“What is the difference between a self and a soul?”

howe croppedWhy read poetry?  If you read novels because you like to find out what happens, and if you read non-fiction because you like to learn something, why read poetry? I read it because I like to think about questions that no one has “the” answer to.  I like unsolvable problems. … Read More

“There was a sunlit absence.”

heaney croppedThis is the first line of my current-favorite poem by the Irish poet who was said to be “permanently homesick.”  I wonder if somehow he enjoyed being homesick. (Absence isn’t dark, it’s “sunlit” and the title of the poem is “Sunlight.”) It describes his aunt baking scones in her … Read More