“Speak like rain!”

There's a famous passage from Out of Africa where Isak Dinesen introduces some Kikuyu tribesmen to poetry and its ability to rhyme. She writes the following: The Natives, who have a strong sense of rhythm, know nothing of verse, or at least did not know anything before the times of the schools, where they were …

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Where Pretentious Poetry Need Not Apply

It's always a good day when you stumble upon a book of poetry you love, a day that introduces you to a new poet who has written plenty of other books you can now explore, a day that time forgets but you won't soon because, well, it was so fun being lost in the thicket …

The Ernest Hemingway of Contemporary Poets

George Bilgere is the Ernest Hemingway of contemporary of poets. By that I don't mean he shoots innocent lions in his free time or drinks like a marlin. I mean he makes writing look effortless. The complex simplicity of his work inspires in us a most valuable sentiment: the good old "I can do that, …

Ideal Conditions for Writing? Hear Ye, Hear Ye!

What are ideal conditions for writing? Far be it for me to offer advice, but since you didn't ask, I'll relent. First of all, it is a myth that poetry, unlike it's more verbose cousins (novels, plays, essays) is best written on paper. Sure, many famous poets wax poetic (what else?) about blue ink on …

Basho Springs a Surprise (and Other Paeans to Spring)

It feels like winter still, but the Old Farmer's Almanac says differently. It's the first day of spring. The long-awaited equinox. Poets, like farmers, have forever taken note. It moved Robert "Beginning to Melt" Frost to prayer, for instance: "A Prayer in Spring" Oh, give us pleasure in the flowers today; And give us not …

“This Is Your Book on Drugs…”

Remember the old anti-drug commercial with the egg and the frying pan? "This is your brain on drugs," it said. Drop egg into pan. Pipe in amped sound of sizzling. I love metaphor, especially sunny-side up metaphors. Only having your first book of poems accepted for publication can be cloudy-side up at times. Think of …

The Sheer Poetry of Dullness

Quotidian. Mundane. For most of us, it's the relentless repetition and ordinariness of the sun also rising and setting. But make no mistake, it once started in the fertile soil of dreams. And, somehow, a tendril of hope remains in the ground beneath our feet, no matter how scorched it has become by the cycling …

Love Poetry in an Unusual Place: the Bible

One of the great revelations (if you'll pardon the word) of my youth was learning that you could read the Bible two ways -- one if by religion and two if by literature. Another epiphany (if you'll pardon a second word, oh good judge) was that the Bible wasn't always a stodgy read. Who put …

Scraps of Summer Blowing Across the March Sky

This morning, while walking the dog at 4:30 a.m., a trio of old friends greeted me. Yes, it's an odd hour for such meetings, but not when you consider that darkness is essential to these three. There, low in the east, was the Summer Triangle, making itself comfortable in March. The Three Celestial Wise Men, …

You, Too, Could Write a Poem

I am closing in on the final page of New York Times poetry columnist (now THERE'S a job) David Orr's You, Too, Could Write a Poem. Naively, I thought it was a book about writing poetry from a man who reads poems for a living. Not quite. It's a collection of Orr columns that have …