Today is William Shakespeare's 450th birthday!  (Well, the day we observe as his birthday.  Nobody is 100% sure of his exact birth date.)  In honor of him and of it still being National Poetry Month, have a sonnet!  This is one of my favorites.

Sonnet 130:  My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sunMy mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun ( Read more... )

I saw Captain America: The Winter Soldier last weekend.  I enjoyed it quite a lot.  Steve is a character I've come to appreciate much more after reading Marvel fanfic.  I like that Steve's chief reason for being a superhero is because he's a good person who believes in doing the right thing, not because of daddy issues or personal trauma or the ( Read more... )

Today's poem is by e. e. cummings.  It's one of my favorite poems about romantic love.  I adore cummings's use of unlikely juxtapositions (e.g. "intense fragility").  The words are not complex, but the unusual phrasing means that this is a poem worth reading over more than once.  You really get the sense of how deeply the speaker treasures and is ( Read more... )

My grand plans of posting lots of poetry have sadly fallen by the wayside.  Well, the month is scarcely over half over, and here's another poem ( Read more... )

I chose today's poem after reading a fascinating article about the poem inscribed at the base of the Statue of Liberty.  I knew that there was some bit about "give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses," but I couldn't have told you anything more about the context or the author, not even whether these words were specially written for Lady ( Read more... )

April is National Poetry Month!  I adore poetry, though I read less of it that I used to.  I think this month I'll make an effort to reverse that trend as I hunt up poems and post them here.   I'll aim for at least two a week throughout April, perhaps more if time allows and the inclination remains ( Read more... )

I was pondering putting up a poem by Langston Hughes, one of the ones I'm familiar with such as "Dream Deferred" or "Theme for English B."  Instead, I found "Let America Be America Again" while browsing through a selection of his poetry.   This was the first time I've read it , but it really resonated with me. It speaks with the particular ( Read more... )

Samuel Taylor Coleridge, like many of the Romantic poets, was a larger-than-life character.  He's well known for his opium addiction and mental health problems, but he wasn't just some crazy stoned poet.  He was an influential literary critic, a friend to Wordsworth, planner of a failed utopian movement, and more.  I can think of at least three ( Read more... )

April is National Poetry Month, so I'm going to be posting some poems this month.  I'll aim for at least two a week.  Today's poem is by Mary Oliver, one of my favorite contemporary poets.  It's full of wonder at the natural world, accessible, and touched with a glint of humor.

( Read more... )

Meme from jaclynhyde  (I think someone else on the f-list also posted this meme lately and I neglected to do it then):  when you see this, post a poem in your journal.

In Blackwater Woods
by Mary Oliver
--------------------------

Look, the trees
are turning
their own bodies
into pillars

of light,
are giving off the rich
fragrance of cinnamon
and fulfillment,

the long ( Read more... )