I. The Owl and the Pussy-cat went to sea In a beautiful pea green boat, They took some honey, and plenty of money, Wrapped up in a five pound note. The Owl looked up to the stars above, And sang to a small guitar, ‘O lovely Pussy! O Pussy my love, What a beautiful Pussy [...]

T. S. Eliot is one of those love-him-or-hate-him guys. I’ll have a special place in my heart for The Four Quartets thanks to a wonderful junior-year seminar…hopefully you like him too. O dark dark dark. They all go into the dark, The vacant interstellar spaces, the vacant into the vacant, The captains, merchant bankers, eminent [...]

I’m on a Billy Collins kick lately, so here’s an excerpt of one of my favorite Collins poems : First, her tippet made of tulle, easily lifted off her shoulders and laid on the back of a wooden chair. And her bonnet, the bow undone with a light forward pull. Then the long white dress, [...]

Via Kahunna, an essay called Always Carry A Pencil: “An adept reader “phrases” a book as Ella Fitzgerald “phrases” Cole Porter, here leaning into the words and holding them back, there partnering them as Kafka partnered Goethe in February 1912: “I read sentences of Goethe’s as though my whole body were running down the stresses.” [...]

I feel like I could go for a walk! Life has been hectic. Good, but hectic. I have a lot of things planned for this blog and it’s a shame I haven’t been able to get them posted. Stay tuned. For now, here’s a gorgeous poem I found through a fellow Erie blogger: Hard Times [...]

Eye Rhyme Apologies in advance for linking to such a terribly-designed web site. If the watermarks and iframes don’t crash your browser, though, “Eye Rhyme” is a fun read.

In a complete departure from my last post, and in honor of the Sarah Lawrence College Poetry Festival this weekend, a poem. It’s technically about punctuation rather than words, but I love it nonetheless. Virgule Thomas Lux What I love about this little leaning mark is how it divides without divisiveness. The left or bottom [...]