Fascinating and urgent
Ammo Grrrll of Powerline writes …I seem to be at a stage in my life where I find almost everything equally fascinating and equally urgent. I can relate – up to a point. Like Ammo Grrrll, I’m also at that … Continue reading →
Category Archives: Poetry
The best laid schemes: Kobe Bryant
I’m not a basketball fan; I stopped watching back in the 1970s. But I’d heard of Kobe Bryant even beore yesterday’s helicopter crash that killed him. He was that big a sports star, and the mourning is widespread. But although … Continue reading →
Emily Dickinson is hard to love
Dickinson’s hard to love, although she’s easy to admire immensely. Don’t get me wrong; I like certain of her poems. But the more inaccessible ones weary me, although I usually tend to have patience with difficult poetry if it really … Continue reading →
Love at first sight – in the movies
Of course, it helps to have Shakespeare writing your lines. But still, words – even Shakespeare’s – are not enough to convey the experience (one that some deny, but that does truly exist) of love at first sight. Not just … Continue reading →
Posting is a bit late today: reflections
Posting is a bit late today. One reason is that this morning I heard of the death of an old friend I hadn’t really seen in many years. The death was expected – I already knew this person was very … Continue reading →
Are you exceptionally likeable?
I already know that I’m not. Some people like me exceptionally well. But I think most people find me a trifle odd. Maybe not just a trifle. And now I know why. I don’t fit this profile at all, and … Continue reading →
Trump tweets and the uproar ensues
Just go to a site like Drudge today and you’ll see the furor in the list of headlines, which I reproduce here minus the links: Get out of USA, Trump tells congresswomen! Cortez fires back: We don’t fear you! President … Continue reading →
More things in heaven and earth…
I often read about something that makes me think of Shakespeare’s line from Hamlet: A phrase used by the title character in the play Hamlet, by William Shakespeare. Hamlet suggests that human knowledge is limited: There are more things in … Continue reading →
Yeats was a goner for Gonne
I’ve written about the great poet Yeats before, and in this post I dealt at length with his attitude towards aging and sexuality. In it, I mentioned that he had a lifelong love for and fascination—you might say “obsession”—with the … Continue reading →
The young-old—or is it the old-young?
Did you ever notice that young people sometimes write and/or perform as though they’re old? Some do it very successfully; the best example that comes to mind is T. S. Eliot—who perhaps was born old—who began writing his masterpiece “The … Continue reading →
Auld lang syne around the world
The lyrics were written in Scots dialect by the poet Robert Burns in 1788. That’s a lot of auld lang syne ago. But the song—set to a traditional folk tune—has endured, particularly at New Year’s to be sung right after … Continue reading →
Internet poetry fills a need
So-called “internet poetry” is a phenomenon I knew nothing about till I saw this critique of it by Rebecca Watts. Although the author finds the genre completely abominable, nevertheless her piece contains within itself some answers to the question of … Continue reading →