Posts Tagged ‘nature’
The Quality of Light
September 18, 2019
A sore hip. A hesitation in calling a name, finding a word. A slight but persistent difficulty now, getting the page where I can see it comfortably as I read. The quality of the light has changed somehow.
Read MorePoetry Friday: “First Kiss”
November 2, 2018
Todd Davis’s poetic imagination is steeped in the natural world. “First Kiss” demonstrates this as much as any poem possibly could. The poem describes a childhood courtship, every action of which either involves elements of nature or is seen in terms of them. This begins with the poem’s very first words: the girl sounds like…
Read MoreThe Stars of the Earth Cry Out
September 26, 2018
Last night, as I walked on the road that leads me home, I saw a deer sitting in the meadow. The moon was out, and the few stars not clouded with the glow of human endeavors kept their lights unmoving in the endless sea of almost darkness. The deer sat there, away from the road,…
Read MoreWriting the Land and Its Story: An Interview with Paul Kingsnorth, Part 1
June 4, 2018
“It’s the End of the World as We Know It…and He Feels Fine”—that’s how the New York Times Magazine titled a profile of the writer Paul Kingsnorth. Kingsnorth is an essayist and novelist, an Englishman who lives on a small homestead in Northern Ireland. With his deep concerns about what he called the “ecocide” of…
Read MoreIn a Funk
February 8, 2018
You’re not sorry you’re alive, just embarrassed. Aware of the burden of your body. How often do saltshakers tremble when you cross your unwieldy legs under the table? How many times do you hug an acquaintance too soon and feel their shoulders droop like dead wings? You don’t want to die. You want everyone to…
Read MorePoetry Friday: “The Name of God”
October 20, 2017
In Scripture, “the name of God” equals “the power of God.” Think of Jesus saying, in John’s Gospel, “I will do whatever you ask in my name” (14: 13-14). What Anya Silver does in this poem is invent a litany of extraordinary images for her personal relation to the name of God. She longs to…
Read MorePoetry Friday: “Underwhelmed”
September 29, 2017
Put on your hiking books and grab your compass, magnifying glass, and shovel: this poem is taking you on an exploratory adventure. What the poem is tracking down is the manifold concepts in the word “under.” Some of the poem’s “unders” are recognizable: like “under the splay-handed palms,“ “under the coral’s forest of horn,” “under…
Read MoreAs Petals Fall
July 25, 2017
I met a little boy new to the neighborhood this evening when I was pulling weeds in my yard. “Why are you in the dirt?” he asked, trundling to where I crouched. “I’m pulling weeds.” “Why?” “So that there’s there more room for the flowers.” “Why?” “Because I like the flowers.” “Why?” “Because they’re pretty.”…
Read MorePoetry Friday: “The Field”
July 7, 2017
I find solace in the natural world, in those precious moments alone, outside, away from the clutter and din of my material life. In “The Field” by poet, teacher and translator Jennifer Grotz we are invited to an open field “past the convenience store and the train tracks.” She tells us that as a girl,…
Read MoreCutting Down the Butterfly Garden
June 7, 2017
When we bought our new house, a jungle of weeds marked the front yard. I was annoyed. The previous owners—moving out of the state—had obviously phoned in the upkeep in their last months of ownership and I wondered aloud what else they would abandon in their final nights. Would we come home to a clogged…
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