I won’t take much time today in presenting another short 90-second musical piece I composed. I also wrote the text for today’s composition, which isn’t the normal thing here. One of our principles is “Other People’s Stories” — we try to emphasize the value of a variety of poetic expression and what it’s like to … Continue reading Generations, and Poetry’s Possible Worlds
Are you familiar with the song “Reynardine?” You might be. It’s been performed by many of the best performers in the modern folk revival: Anne Briggs, Fairport Convention, John Renbourn, June Tabor, Bert Jansch and others.* Today as I extend our Halloween series, I’m going to introduce you to a version of the song you … Continue reading Reynardine
My time and energy is short tonight, so this post will reflect that, but I wanted to present this supple poem by William Butler Yeats written near the end of the 19th century, but, I think, applicable in our American year 2020. How many of us as couples, as friends, as families this year have … Continue reading He Bids His Beloved Be At Peace
Metaphors, implied or direct, are a form of an equation. If E=mc2 or 2+2=4 then should fog=little cats feet? Well, not exactly. But for some poems the metaphor, the image and “what it means,” is surprisingly equal at each side of the equals sign. Here’s a poem that Ezra Pound included in the first Imagist … Continue reading I Hear an Army
As we continue our accelerated exploration of poetry for National Poetry Month, let’s look at another way that poetry, and in particular T. S. Eliot’s “The Waste Land,” manifested itself in popular culture in the black & white TV era. Yesterday’s post about a Twilight Zone episode shouldn’t be all that shocking. Rod Serling made … Continue reading Poetry in Gray, Part 2
Like Thomas Hardy or James Joyce, D. H. Lawrence is another writer remembered more as a novelist than a poet, though he published multiple books of poetry in a variety of forms in the early 20th Century. He’s hard to place in the various “schools” of poetry of his time. He was published in Imagist … Continue reading Self-Pity
It’s 1956. World War One had ended less than 40 years ago, instead of 100. Robert Frost is the most celebrated living American poet, and he has traveled back to England to receive honors from both Oxford and Cambridge universities, a symbolic laurel helping to mark the 20th Century acceptance of American poetry into the … Continue reading Easter Monday (In Memoriam E. T.)
What makes for a “hit” in the small province of the Internet that is yours and mine? We started off the countdown of the most liked and listened to audio pieces here this past fall by talking about the variety of poets and writers that we use for words. Yes, we present well-known poems and … Continue reading And the most liked/listened to piece this fall was…
Frank Hudson 