When done well, both a vision statement and a mission statement can read like a fine, moving poem. Glynn Young looks at the work of organizational poets.
Twitter Poetry: Of Shells, Fireworks, and Novellas
Glynn Young has five new poems from the recent Tweetspeak Twitter poetry jam, with prompts from the novella “The Novelist.”
Poetry at Work: The Doctor—William Carlos Williams
William Carlos Williams was both a poet and a physician, and both were part of the same whole.
Workspace Poetry
Observe the space you work in. No matter how simple and plain or how complex and luxurious, it contains poetry. Can you find it?
Poetry at Work™
“Work” is a multifaceted concept and subject. It extends from the board room to the shop floor, from the Oval Office to the local school district, from the tractor-trailer truck on the interstate to the university classroom, from stage and screen to the hospital intensive care unit, from raising a child to burying a loved […]
Discovering Moons, Discovering Myself
I wanted to give you something of comfort: words like an armoire smelling of talc, lined with lace, concealing a ruby bracelet, tortoise shell comb. Words that melt on the tongue a communion wafer. wheaten and whispering of salvation… (from the poem “Why Write” by Judith Valente) I read Judith Valente’s Discovering Moons twice, once […]
“Finding My Elegy” by Ursula Le Guin
Le Guin has pulled together some of her favorite poems and included new ones as a kind of possible life or work summary, including “Finding My Elegy”…
Thomas Gray and the Elegy
Thomas Gray and the Elegy: From the beginning to the epitaph at the end, the poem is shot through with meditations, reflections and allusions to death and the end of life…
Poetry in the Workplace
A few years ago, I was responsible for a fairly large team, and we needed help in writing. I had heard a poet speak at a writer’s conference, and was completely taken by his passion for writing, words, and language. So I invited him to be our guest speaker for a seminar. People on other […]
The Poet of the Workplace
I generally had fine English teachers in high school and college, teachers who emphasized poetry as much as they did other literary forms. From The Iliad through Beowulf and Chaucer, and then on to Romantics, Victorians and Moderns, I likely read as much poetry as I did anything else. And then, for close to a […]
Poetry for Isaac and Ishmael
This is not the poetry of Mideast politics but the poetry of people – peoples – caught up in Mideast politics, whether the scene is set in the Auschwitz death camp or the Aida refugee camp.
Book Spine Poetry
Wander around your basement or upstairs in your room. You’re sure to find a Cento Poem. We did.
Seamus Heaney, Gem-Cutter
Human Chain refutes the notion that poetry is the province of the young. It’s a collection of poems that demonstrates Heaney’s love of words and language, carefully chiseled and strung together like brilliant diamonds.
The Poetry Alcove
I live in an older suburb of St. Louis, the oldest suburb, in fact, incorporated in 1857. Just a few blocks from our house are four used bookstores, kept well supplied no doubt, by local state sales and the numerous used book fairs held every year. The oldest of the four, and the one with […]
Scenes from The Whipping Club 2
At our recent poetry jam on Twitter, we went into the woods, then to the ballroom, and then back to the woods. And we created five poems as a start. Now we have the next seven, and we’re deep into shoes, and shoelaces, and lace and gossamer (you can see the thread developing) and back […]
Scenes from The Whipping Club
It was another TweetSpeak Poetry Twitter party last Tuesday, and 13 intrepid souls braved the shock of their Twitter followers and tweeted away, creating lines of poetry. The prompts were all taken from The Whipping Club by Deborah Henry, the novel published by T.S. Poetry Press and listed as one of Oprah’s Hot Summer Reads. […]
Oprah Summer Reads 14-k Gold Giveaway
Some books make the A List, and some books make the O List. In February, T.S. Poetry Press, known for poetry and memoirs, published its first novel, The Whipping Club by Deborah Henry. It is the story of a child placed for adoption, and years later, his birth parents learn that he wasn’t adopted as […]
Guaranteed Disease-Resistant
There was nothing like roses. I was addicted.
A Vintage Journey I Didn’t Expect
With all the upheaval in the publishing industry because of ebooks, at least one positive development has resulted: we have the opportunity to read things we might not have otherwise. A case in point: my Kindle version of Wessex Poems and Other Verses by Thomas Hardy. Kindle price: free, part of the volunteer project to […]
The Poet Who Wasn’t
Carlos Fuentes died last week, a writer with a poet’s heart who didn’t write poetry.