Library Walk: Yeats' When You Are Old

An English poet turns a French poem from a sonnet into a douzain. From the original 14-line poem to a 12-line poem, When You Are Old, becomes an eight-line poem as it appears on New York's Library Walk with only the first two verses cast in bronze.

Dangling in Winter

Breeze? I’ve got the wrong idea
about aid. Is it helpful to sing
to the dying about the dead?
Give me Deuteronomy, Numbers,
the Book of Unholy Dread.

Patrice Bergeron: Beat Poet and Big Bad Bruin

With the NHL All-Star game being played this weekend we are reminded of a commercial for EA Sports NHL 15 video game that has Boston Bruins star Patrice Bergeron reciting a beat-themed hockey poem.

The poem, Feelings, is set in a dark cafe. Bergeron makes his way to the stage in full hockey uniform. He begins to recite the poem as a bass line keeps time. Images of NHL 15 flash on a screen behind the moonlighting all-star.

The Great Un

I find
that when not smoking a cigarette
or playing a video game,
or solving a puzzle,
eating or drinking something,
or not talking to someone,
reading a book, watching TV,
having the radio on
or doing anything else,

The Chapbook — There Is No Safety

There is no safety
beyond these walls;
but here you are
enclosed in all of me
and all I waited for
before the grace of you
appeared.

Heart Within Your Palms

He’s lived his life attempting to
help everyone with almost anything
& in so doing sacrificed everything,
yet even he knows that
Ambition is a pure form of energy
that can be harnessed
so as to accomplish almost anything.

Etched in Stone: Remembering Gregory Corso

Pyramid at Campo Cestio, Rome, Italy.

Gregory Corso died today

Not today
but on this date

From New York streets
to a resting place in Rome
and the poems between those beats

On the Road: Uncovering A Cowboy's Prayer in New Mexico

Originally built as a brewery in 1854, Schwenk's Hall in Cimarron, New Mexico was converted into a gambling hall and saloon in 1875. Those wild west days are long gone and the place is now a curio shop.

One of the curious items that we discovered was a vintage postcard with A Cowboy's Prayer written on it. The author of the poem was listed as Author Unknown.

With our curiosity piqued we purchased the card and set about sleuthing this unknown author. Can a poet truly remain unknown?

Fundraiser Jazz

I’ve been up pretty early
I’m still up pretty late
Another new donor
and another request

Taking your calls
at 595-1500
Stay with me babe
We’re going all night

The Chapbook — Diana Butler

For you,
colored flowers that sleep
and dream beneath the snow
are waked and given drink
and asked to form in circle
about your loving face.

Khalil Gibran: A Poet's Voice

Part One...

The power of charity sows deep in my heart, and I reap and gather the wheat in bundles and give them to the hungry.

My soul gives life to the grapevine and I press its bunches and give the juice to the thirsty.

Heaven fills my lamp with oil and I place it at my window to direct the stranger through the dark.

I do all these things because I live in them; and if destiny should tie my hands and prevent me from so doing, then death would be my only desire. For I am a poet, and if I cannot give, I shall refuse to receive.

First Lines Second Thoughts — Smilla's Sense of Snow

First Lines Second Thoughts is a look at the first lines of well known literary works. On second thought, do these opening words stand alone as poetry? Today, as the nation braces for another deep freeze we look at a book that we know from the 1997 film as Smilla's Sense of Snow.

Peter Høeg's Danish thriller was originally published in his native tongue as, Frøken Smillas fornemmelse for sne. The English-language version was first known as Miss Smilla's Feeling for Snow. Published in 1992.

Ella Wheeler Wilcox Poem Rings in The Year in Rhyme

What can be said in New Year rhymes,
That’s not been said a thousand times?

The new years come, the old years go,
We know we dream, we dream we know.