Late Self-Portrait by Rembrandt
by Jane Hirschfield
from After
The dog, dead for years, keeps coming back in the dream.
We look at each other there with the old joy.
It was always her gift to bring me into the present—
Which sleeps, changes, awakens, dresses, leaves.
Happiness and unhappiness
differ as a bucket hammered from gold differs from one of pressed tin,
this […]
The Kindness of the Blind
by Wislawa Szymborska (Nobel Prize in Literature 1996)
Translated from the Polish by J. Kostkowska
A poet is reading to the blind.
He did not suspect it was so hard.
His voice is breaking.
His hands are shaking.
He feels that here each sentence
is put to the test of the dark.
It will have to fend for itself
without […]
What are actors thinking in a scene and how do they prepare? More often than we know, the answer is poetry.
That’s what we learn in Jason Shinder’s newest newest anthology and its accompanying CD: “The Poem I Turn to: Actors & Directors Present Poetry that Inspires Them” (Sourcebooks Media Fusion, 2008) with a preface by […]
Read Michiko Kakutani’s review of William Styron’s “HAVANAS IN CAMELOT:Personal Essays,” in today’s N. Y. Times by clicking here. [You may be asked to log in.] Kakutani’s review essay is titled, “Styron’s Essays Give Glimpses Into a Life Spent in Good Company”
Here’s a quoted excerpt I particularly liked, because it articulates how I feel inside […]
Digges was born in Jefferson, Missouri and went on to write poetry that would win awards and attract passionate readers such as Sharon Olds. Learn more about Deborah Digges by clicking here. “Darwin’s Finches is from Vesper Sparrows (1986), her first book. —JGR
Vesper Sparrow photo by Chan Robbins
Darwin’s Finches
by Deborah Digges
1
My mother always called it […]
wishes for sons
by Lucille Clifton
from “Quilting”
i wish them cramps
i wish them a strange town
and the last tampon.
i wish them no 7 – 11.
i wish them one week early
and wearing a white skirt.
i wish them one week late.
later i wish them hot flashes
and clots like you
wouldn’t believe. let the
flashes come when they
meet […]
A friend put W. T. Pfefferle’s Poets on Place in my hands as I worked on preparing a talk on the influence of place in my own poetry. I found “Poets on Place” so invaluable that I typed many pages of detailed notes to ruminate on.
It’s an attractive work replete with compementary elements to […]
Joshua Tree photo by Michael Reichmann
“Joshua Tree” is from Common Ground (Confluence Press, 1988). These poems deal with experience, nature, the past, reading, solitude, travel, the seasons, aging, friendship, and identity. Click here for complete list of publications.
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JOSHUA TREE
by John Daniel
These bent trees that Mormons saw
as the prophet waving, waving the way
through desolation to a […]
Photo by Arabian Nights pillows
“Hospitality and generosity are the true calling cards of the Middle East.” –Naomi Shihab Nye
Missouri Writers Guild Conference Luncheon, April 12, 2008
Also see:
Does the Land Remember Me? (A Memoir of Palestine) by Aziz Shihab (her father)
Tasting the Sky by Ibtisam Barakat
RED BROCADE
–From 19 Varieties of Gazelle
by Naomi Shihab Nye
The Arabs […]
What the Living Do
by Marie Howe
(From “What the Living Do“)
Johnny, the kitchen sink has been clogged for days, some utensil
probably fell down there.
And the Drano won’t work but smells dangerous, and the crusty
dishes have piled up
waiting for the plumber I still […]
