. . . Hosanna to the alligators in the highest: Glory be to their Maker. —Diana Woodcock, “In the Company of Alligators” We have lived here now for a whole year. Our neighborhood—carved from the Everglades—has zero lot lines and circle-around ponds (also known as lakes) while Surinam cherry hedges provide a bit of […]
Commit Poetry: Edgar Guest – and My Uncle Edgar
For Edgar Gilmore with congratulations and the best wishes always of another Edgar. Sincerely, Edgar A. Guest June 17, 1939 That’s the inscription inside Edgar A. Guest says: It Can Be Done, a book I found when we were packing up to move. I called my dad the other day. “Who was Edgar Gilmore?” He didn’t know. […]
The Metz Fire of 1908–and Maybe a Connection
My grandmother once rode a train through the middle of a forest fire. I heard the story second-hand from my dad. The family settled in Alpena, he told me, and never returned home to Tower, Michigan. Grandma was four years old. She was born in 1904. Tower is about 15 miles west of […]
Commit Poetry: Printing in My Heart’s Wax
Although I’ve forgotten a lot about my high school years, I do recall a fear of poetry, and letting my eyes roam around the room or stare at my book while I mentally begged the teacher not to call on me in class. Yet if I really was so scared, why did I torture […]
Commit Poetry: Prufrock Complete And Worth It All
I grow old . . . I grow old . . . Who starts memorizing poetry at my age? If someone had told me a year ago that I’d be memorizing swaths of poetry now—on purpose—starting with a 131-line T.S. Eliot poem, I might have rolled up the bottoms of my white girlfriend jeans and […]
Dared: Bikes, Lanterns, and Mary Oliver
After I took that spill on a hill at dusk into a pile of Mackinac Island horse manure some years back, I was afraid to climb back on my bike. But when we moved into this neighborhood carved from the Everglades, I agreed to join my husband on various wild adventures, some of which involved […]
Read-to-Write: Nature-Deficit Disorder (1)
I grew up on a lake–practically lived in the woods–and did all kinds of things outdoors that these days would be considered too dangerous. There was little on TV (we got maybe two stations) and no electronic “gizmology.” Books were my best friends, and I often read them outside. Last week my husband and I […]
Commit Poetry: Ten Reasons Why To Memorize
It remains a mystery why Tweetspeak Poetry chose Prufrock for me to memorize. If they didn’t feel like I was done with Thomas E, or he with me, and they wanted me to extend my brainy pathways with something long, they could have chosen a more sing-songy piece—like maybe something from the Old Possum’s […]
Commit Poetry: The Stolen Child – Complete
I’m still working on The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock–which is soon to be complete. But below is my whole recitation of The Stolen Child as dared by Tweetspeak Poetry for National Poetry Month. What do you think about the poem? I know there are some days I’d like to run away from some […]
Commit Poetry: The Stolen Child – Third Stanza
Today I’m reciting the third stanza of “The Stolen Child” by W.B. Yeats in response to Tweetspeak Poetry’s dare for National Poetry Month. Are you memorizing along with us? Leave a comment below and a link if you are reciting it in some form. Where the wandering water gushes From the hills above Glen-Car, In […]
