Birdsong has always caught the ear of the musician in me. I’m not the first. French composer Oliver Messiaen painstakingly translated a dozen or so birdsongs into musical notation, then composed a piece based on his research called, “Catalog of Birds”. The last few years, I’ve gotten more intentional about listening to birds, despite myContinueContinue reading “Finches”
Category Archives: Traditional poetry
In Memoriam CVI (106)
Last year, I became acquainted with Tennyson’s In Memoriam, a series of 131 poems he wrote for a close friend that died suddenly. These poems are full of beauty and striking imagery that uncovers the many faces of grief. I’ve read through In Memoriam twice but continue to keep a copy by my bed soContinueContinue reading “In Memoriam CVI (106)”
A Christmas Carol—Christina Rossetti
Adoration of the Shepherds by Gerard van Honthorst Christina Rossetti is a poet I became acquainted with in 2022…or so I thought. While reading her poems for the first time, I realized I had heard her poem “A Christmas Carol” set to music years before. “A Christmas Carol” is a meditation on how much ChristContinueContinue reading “A Christmas Carol—Christina Rossetti”
Remember
Well, I totally forgot to set up my blog post this week so I’m dashing off this quick post. Apropos of forgetting, I’m posting a haiku entitled “Remember,” which was in my third book, Shadow and Memory. RememberTo re-member, tore-collect and re-connect what time’s knife severed.
Conundrum
It’s been awhile—quite awhile—since I posted a haiku. As I’ve remarked before, I love haiku for their brief, impressionistic quality. “Conundrum” is a haiku that will be in my upcoming book, A Song of Glass. Incidentally, the title poem in A Song of Glass is also a haiku. Brief poems deserve brief introductions. So withoutContinueContinue reading “Conundrum”
The Pantoum
I’ve been learning about a new poetic form: the pantoum. This is a Malaysian form consisting of quatrains (four line sections or stanzas); the second and fourth lines in one stanza become the first and third lines of the following stanza. The first and third lines of the first stanza are then repeated as theContinueContinue reading “The Pantoum”
In Memoriam
The name Tennyson looms large in the world of poetry. But I hadn’t read his poetry until recently, when I picked up a copy of “In Memoriam.” “In Memoriam” is a series of 131 poems (plus a prologue and epilogue) Tennyson wrote for his friend, Arthur Hallam. Hallam died suddenly at 22 from a cerebralContinueContinue reading “In Memoriam”
The Door of Moonlight
In another post, I talked about poems that took me 12 or even 20 years to finish. Some poems just need time to sit. Today’s poem, “The Door of Moonlight”, is one such piece. While its vintage isn’t even close to 12 or 20 years, it’s a few years old. I wrote the first threeContinueContinue reading “The Door of Moonlight”
As Kingfishers Catch Fire
This week, I watched a video about understanding poetry (yes, poets need help with that too 😆). The example poem was “As Kingfishers Catch Fire” by Gerard Manley Hopkins. Hopkins has been a favorite of mine for a number of years, but I never chanced across this particular poem. There are so many things toContinueContinue reading “As Kingfishers Catch Fire”
Your Old Men Will Dream Dreams
We are incurable night owls in my family. Still, even we can stay up TOO late sometimes and suffer sleepiness the next day. Today is that day for me. When deciding what to post today, all I could think of was that I felt tired, which reminded me of a poem I wrote recently: “YourContinueContinue reading “Your Old Men Will Dream Dreams”
A Wandering Minstrel 