“There is special providence in the fall of a sparrow.”–Hamlet That broken tree branch swinging in strong wind, caught by the branches of another tree ready and cocked for catapult toward the truck in the driveway, finally let loose and fell. It missed the truck by just a few short feet. But a duck was hitContinue reading “#260: On Fortuitousness”
Category Archives: Poetry
#259: Thirteen Views of Listening to A Song
I With my eyes closed, the lyrics become more vivid– like icicles in my fingers. II Bouncing up and down on a pogo stick, the drummer has all of my limbs and I have hers. III I watch that wave come up, a shimmering, a crescendo: some nonsense makes me cry a little. IV A man and a womanContinue reading “#259: Thirteen Views of Listening to A Song”
#258: Waiting for the Leaves
(after Mary Oliver) I’m sitting in the office space that adjoins my classroom while my student teacher is wrangling with a group of freshmen, and I am thinking about my oak trees. In this stark, small, white room, lit with florescent tube lights, desk littered with papers, student work to grade, a stack of booksContinue reading “#258: Waiting for the Leaves”
#257: What’s Hidden In This Poem
I have poet friends who hate poems about writing poetry and I think that’s all right, they can go ahead and hate that, but poets will continue to write poems about writing poetry until the cows come home and even after the cows come home because cows don’t give a shit, I mean they understand thatContinue reading “#257: What’s Hidden In This Poem”
#247: An Elegy for Spring Break
Goodbye to you, a week’s worth of mostly rain with a stretch of dry weather at the end, taunting us, forcing me out into the garage on Sunday night to fire up the grill. Even if I had nothing to cook, and even if it had continued to rain, I would have fired it up anyway, outContinue reading “#247: An Elegy for Spring Break”
#246: A Recipe
A Recipe Mix together in a bowl the following invisible things: Ad no alcohol, zero grains, absolutely no sugar, no beans, no milk, butter, or cream, and no other artificial anything. I have a bad feeling about this. Someone in the house wants to go healthy and I have agreed to play along. The partContinue reading “#246: A Recipe”
#245: The First Poem Written at the End of Spring Break
Here we go, full steam ahead, into my fourth consecutive year of celebrating National Poetry Month by writing a poem on every single day of April. If you are new to these parts, you might be wondering about the number in the title, in this particular case, #245. I’ve participated so far in three years of napowrimoContinue reading “#245: The First Poem Written at the End of Spring Break”
#244: On Listening to Students Talk about Seamus Heaney’s Poetry
Over three days I listened to 24 young people talk for 20 minutes a piece about literature, and 10 of those 20 minutes were dedicated to speaking about a single poem by Seamus Heaney. Most of them did fine work, but I couldn’t help recognize and remember and then start to record particular phrases or beginnings thatContinue reading “#244: On Listening to Students Talk about Seamus Heaney’s Poetry”
#243: A Poem Composed on a Word Processor about Writing by Hand
I read recently that handwriting is better for the brain than typing, what we call in this information age “word processing.” It’s better, handwriting, because the task is more physical, therefore more complex, therefore more memorable, theref more meaningful. Did you notice how I truncated “therefore” on purpose so that I could end the lineContinue reading “#243: A Poem Composed on a Word Processor about Writing by Hand”
#242: Flamingos in a Deluge
I promise: this poem is only about weather and the pink flamingos drowning in the back yard. Old Man Winter fought tooth and nail against warming: 10 days of school shutdown over four different storms and a fifth one predicted to be on the way. I’m tired of it, as are the pink flamingos, sinking back thereContinue reading “#242: Flamingos in a Deluge”
michael jarmer 