A couplet by Mr. Frost, reading and video:
Wednesday, October 28, 2020
Sunday, October 25, 2020
"It's This Way," by Nazim Hikmet
Reading/video of a short poem by Nazim Hikmet, poet and political prisoner in post-WWII Turkey.
Saturday, October 24, 2020
"To a President," by Walt Whitman
Reading/video of a short poem by Walt Whitman--the poem is directed to James Buchanan, widely thought to be the worst president in American history:
"Woods," by Wendell Berry
Reading/video of a short poem by farmer, environmentalist, poet, and essayist Wendell Berry:
Friday, October 23, 2020
"Once the Wind," by Shake Keane
Reading/video of a short poem by Ellsworth McGlanahan "Shake" Keane (1927-1997), jazz trumpeter and poet from the island of St. Vincent:
Thursday, October 22, 2020
"The Old Marrieds," by Gwendolyn Brooks
Short poem by the Pulitzer Prize winning poet Brooks (1917-2000)--and a rare poem that begins with the word "But."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=25Ew31iICl4
Tuesday, October 20, 2020
"The Thing," by William Carlos Williams
A little weary of your phone? Williams sympathizes. Video/reading:
Monday, October 19, 2020
Saturday, October 17, 2020
Beyond the Humptulips River
Sand daubers seem to skate
on the sheen left by retreating
surf. They move like freshly
hatched spiders. They were
called to be birds. We
were called to be humans
and have names for birds
and everything else.
Yesterday, my love and I
crossed over the Humptulips
River, glancing past bridge
beams at a big muddy flow.
Today, we're watching
gray waves, looking at
shivering stiff foam stacked
near driftwood. We're
saying human things.
It turns out we want
more and less of life
simultaneously. Same
old story. The surf's steady
roar can be used as a
lullaby noise or heard as
the indifferent voice of reality:
that thing against which
we bump up.
hans ostrom 2020
You, Sir, Are Morbid
Where you are well into
your sixth decade & you
think often of how you're
going to get it, it being
the absence of being.
Shot? It's America, so
yeah, good guess. Cancer?
You tried that once.
Going all the way with it:
how much pain? Acute
pneumonia: the long drowning.
Heart attack: hurt and horror.
Stroke: same. Dementia--
you're dying but it seems
like someone else is?
You always were morbid,
weren't you? Because
thinking the worst seemed
to help you pretend to
control things. Ah, that's
it--you'll probably die
trying to control something.
Which, in the abstract,
is kind of funny. Oh, well,
as a sage of the Sierra Nevada
once said to you, "Kid,
we gotta die of something."
hans ostrom 2020
Thursday, October 15, 2020
"Woods," by Wendell Berry
Reading/video of a very short poem by Wendell Berry about walking in the woods. Berry, a farmer, has published widely acclaimed poetry, essays, and fiction.
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