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Community, Culture, Isolation,Oral and Written Language–And the poetry these forces shape. Eavan Boland on a “transnational poetics”
In an article originally published in American Poet, the biannual journal published by the Academy of American Poets for its members, Eavan Boland talked about a “transnational poetics.” I was particularly fascinated by her comparison and contrast of American and Irish culture and the poetic communities each country fostered–and how this shaped the poetry that…
Writing Embroidery: Skeins of Thought
Writing is an effort of untangling the skeins of thought. Rather than rolling them up in a ball, all neat and tidy, the writer finds plain cloth to embroider them. With each strand of thought stitching through the other the writer makes a new design. My sister and I embroidered in the back seat of…
Riehlife Poem of the Day: Turkish poet Crazy Ali recites “Do You Know”—recounted by Marcelline Burns
He introduced himself as “Crazy Ali”, and he wasn’t thinking about selling something to us. He wanted to share. Crazy Ali, The Turkish Poet (Photo by Marcelline Burns) I asked, “Who gave you that name?” to which he responded with obvious pride, “I gave it to myself more than a quarter century ago. I am…
“Clara’s Air” a poem by Arletta Dawdy–Part II
Sullied water and moldy bread, a wormy apple or bright berries, it was on these they fed. Night two or was it more? Gators snapping as carefully they stepped in mud and gore. Sounds of tiger growls rent the air, when the tree snake reached down to dust Clara’s curly hair. Dawn found them on…
Riehlife Bonus Poem of the Day: My Uncle Willard Thompson’s “Caught Out In Nevada”
My Uncle Willard (Davenport) Thompson mostly wrote prose in his life, but we recovered this poem from his papers this winter during my father’s documentation project. Uncle Willard was a brilliant man caught short in the Great Depression who used his creativity to start a literary magazine, Ride the Rails as a hoboe, and, in…
Riehlife Report Card Year One
Janet seated on Copper, our family American Bred Saddle Horse, riding tall at 15 hands My web log “Riehl Life: Village Wisdom for the 21st Century” has grown into my vision of it more fully over the course of the year. I run it as a magazine format, in which you hear several voices, and…