DailyLit is a free service that emails you small sections of a book or other piece of literature daily. Now a portion of my reading time is built right in to the time I spend checking email. Currently I’m subscribed to Poems by T.S. Eliot. I’ve had to tweak my spam filters [...]
Wislawa Szymborska gives some excellent advice about how to write (and not write) poetry.
“Your existential pains come a trifle too easily. We’ve had enough despair and gloomy depths. ‘Deep thoughts,’ dear Thomas says (Mann, of course, who else), ‘should make us smile.’ Reading your own poem ‘Ocean,’ we found ourselves floundering in a [...]
Down peppers the rain from a clear blue sky
Down trickles a tear on a youthful face
Feeling in haste and wondering why
Up struggles the sun from a wounded night
Out venture our hearts in their silent shrouds
Trying to ignite but wondering how
We can laugh and we can cry
And never see the strong hand of love
Hidden in the [...]
What is poetry?
There are as many definitions of poetry as there are poets. Wordsworth defined poetry as “the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings;” Emily Dickenson said, “If I read a book and it makes my body so cold no fire ever can warm me, I know that is poetry;” and Dylan Thomas defined [...]
bitter the mist
that hangs on my soul–
that fog I taste on my lips.
stale is the air
that seeps from my lungs
filling the hollow of night.
the flesh is torn
the spirit set free
Where Death, [...]
I was cleaning out a file cabinet the other night when I came across some of my old essays, poetry, journal entries, and other embarassing evidence of my youth. Just for the hell of it I think I’ll post one in which I was playing around with the effect of line breaks.
Enchanted silver pillars
[...]
