poetry

The Journey

The Journey  by Mary Oliver One day you finally knew what you had to do, and began, though the voices…

8 years ago

Purgatory

This poem is for anyone who has ever sat through a Shakespeare play and found it too long. Purgatory by…

8 years ago

Subway Rush Hour and Modern Art

Subway Rush Hour by Langston Hughes Mingled breath and smell so close mingled black and white so near no room…

8 years ago

Coming

Coming by Philip Larkin On longer evenings, Light, chill and yellow, Bathes the serene Foreheads of houses. A thrush sings,…

8 years ago

Sea Fever

Here's another wonderful old chestnut: Sea Fever by John Masefield I must go down to the seas again, to the…

8 years ago

Before Disaster

"Fool and scoundrel guide the State." That's true enough. In the early 1930's when this was written speeding traffic on…

8 years ago

Stalin’s Heirs

Stalin’s Heirs by Yevgeny Yevtushenko Mute was the marble. Mutely glimmered the glass. Mute stood the sentries, bronzed by the…

8 years ago

Timothy Winters

If you went to school in the UK anytime in the last sixty years then you will probably be familiar…

8 years ago

Poem (I lived in the first century of world wars)

Muriel Rukeyser wrote this in 1968. Read it and tell me it doesn't feel like she is writing for this…

8 years ago

Palindrome

What an intriguing idea: Reversing time to see your younger self moving forward in time as you move backward. What…

8 years ago

Thaw

Thaw by Edward Thomas Over the land freckled with snow half-thawed The speculating rooks at their nests cawed And saw…

8 years ago

Trouble with Math in a One-Room Country School

Not a very effective way to get children to love school and enjoy math. But looks like it was an…

8 years ago

A Local Train of Thought

There's a comfort in routines and familiar sounds. Some towns have a noon whistle. If you've lived near a school…

8 years ago

Wood on the Downs

Wood On The Downs After Paul Nash by Martin Malone   We have been here before. Uffington, Hackpen, Grim’s Ditch,…

8 years ago

Shirt

March 25th marks the anniversary of the 1911 Triangle Shirtwaist fire. In Shirt Robert Pinsky weaves in the Triangle Factory…

8 years ago