Let Emily Dickinson Reassure You
Dear Bella Levenshteyn Let Emily Dickinson reassure you– Much Madness is divinest Sense — To a discerning Eye — Much Sense — the starkest Madness — ‘Tis the Majority In this, as All, prevail —…
Category: Poets
Zen Poem by Daniel Berrigan
How I long for supernatural powers! said the novice mournfully to the holy one. I see a dead child and I long to say, Arise! I see a sick man I long to say, Be…
Share the Wealth with Andrea Scarpino: What the Willow Said as It Fell
In time for National Poetry Month, Andrea Scarpino will do our next Share the Wealth on her new book of poetry, What the Willow Said as It Fell. Andrea shared with us in September 2014,…
Walt Whitman and Dear Layla
Dear Rebecca, Sarah, Matthew and Patrick, Joanie French and I took the Amtrak train to Texas in the summer of 2005 for a family wedding. Along the way and back, I read the Library of…
Be in Love with Yr Life
“Neighbors, friends, colleagues, students, fellow poets, and artists all came to her home where they were greeted with exuberance, shared in her bursts of full-bodied laughter, and were sent off with her signature Buddhist bow….
Reading and Writing Inter-Are
What you have to do, I believe, is to believe that there is a reader, a listener, a needer, within yourself, who corresponds closely to those readers out there, and you have to satisfy that…
Calming the Breath by Ko Un
Poised like an aging bear climbing a tree, hanging on tightly, I collect my breath. Poised like a bird stretching its neck out and pecking at food I collect my breath. Heaven and earth are…
Share the Wealth with Te Martin: The Wisdom of Silence, Pilgrimage, and a Compost Pile– Reflections on Summer
Come, come, whoever you are. Wanderer, worshiper, lover of leaving. It doesn’t matter. Ours is not a caravan of despair. Come, even if you have broken your vows a thousand times. Come, yet again, come,…
There’s Poetry and There’s Polemical Essays
Interviewer: Later this month you’ll be reading at the poetry festival, Split This Rock. Do you have an expectation for what you want the audience to take away from your reading? Alice Walker: A clearer…
Poetry Lover
I’ve read it every day of my life since I was thirteen. It is, among the man-made artifacts, my primary source of knowledge of the stuff of this world and the next. Its limitless archive…