Just in time for Halloween, a poem by British poet Elizabeth Jennings, "Ghosts," video/reading:
Monday, October 5, 2020
Wednesday, September 30, 2020
"I Loved You," by Alexander Pushkin
Reading/video of a short poem by the great Russian writer. The poem was translated by Babette Deutsch, American writer, critic, poet, and translator.
Monday, September 28, 2020
Saturday, September 26, 2020
"Devotion," by Robert Frost
Reading/video of a four-line poem (I think we call that a quatrain) by Robert Frost:
"Gift," by Czeslaw Milosz
Reading/video of a short poem by Milosz, the Nobel Prize winning Polish poet:
Thursday, September 24, 2020
The Pink Pistil
In Which Small Creatures Crawl
Tuesday, September 22, 2020
"At the Bottom of Things," by Karin Boye
A poem by Swedish Modernist poet Karin Boye (1900-1941), translated by David McDuff, who translated her Collected Poems from Bloodaxe Books. Reading/video:
Sunday, September 20, 2020
Poet's Musings: "For Librarians," by Hans Ostrom
"Library Ode," by Philip Larkin
Libraries seem more important than ever in these anti-intellectual, anti-science times. Here's a short tribute-poem to them by Philip Larkin--reading/video:
Saturday, September 19, 2020
Friday, September 18, 2020
"Step Out Onto the Planet," by Lew Welch
A short poem by Beat writer Lew Welch. Welch (1926-1971) was an important poet and teacher in the San Francisco Renaissance/Beat Movement. For a time, he functioned as the step-father of the lad who would adopt the performer's name, Huey Lewis. Welch is presumed to have committed suicide on May 26, 1971, in the Sierra Nevada. His body has never been found. City Lights Books published his Collected Poems (Ring of Bone) in 2012, with an afterword by Gary Snyder, who was Welch's roommate at Reed College. Reading/video: