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Beginner's Heart

It’s hard to keep up a routine in Maui. Even w/ every good intention, I have yet to pick up my journal. And despite how much I love my iPad, it’s impossible to upload certain images. But in honour of my past two days at Maui beaches, w/ a dear girlfriend, I’m going to try…

Today is my father’s birthday. He would be 96. It also happens to be Shakespeare’s, which should probably be more important (he’s a LOT older, for one) to a poet. But it’s not. I looked for poems about fathers, which seems appropriate. This one won, as I often want to ask my father about something,…

I confess to a huge crush on W.S. Merwin, begun long before I met him at a Nimrod Literary Journal weekend. His work is amazing. He’s a Buddhist from way back. And he’s trying very hard to restore & save a palm forest on Maui. Not to mention he’s just a lovely person, when you…

Even though it’s a bit briskish today (as my Aunt Bonnie would say…), you can tell it’s spring. The bees are working their fuzzy striped butts off. And there are fat peony buds in the walled garden, ready to burst open (probably while I’m gone next week). Because I’m going to.. .Maui! Which is, of…

The poet Mona Van Duyn is another favourite. This is one of hers I hadn’t known previously — I actually was looking for another poem when I came across it. Being a sucker for bees (my first name, as many readers know, means ‘the bee’; my family might even go so far as to say…

All I have is a voice To undo the folded lie… Today I tried to eat my lunch beneath a TV set blazing with the latest tragic news from Boston. From Watertown. From hatred. No one knows why the bombers in Boston chose to murder innocent victims. The home-made bombs certainly haven’t stirred support for…

Today is Poem In Your Pocket Day. Just a big FYI. 🙂 It also was Poetry for Peace Day at a local community college. I was lucky enough to be a reader, along w/ several talented student poets and a couple of stellar colleagues. My friend Allen — a long-time social activist — organised it.…

Poetry always helps me with grief. With rage at injustice, with loss. With all the sorrows — as well as joys — of human existence. Today’s poem is for the many victims rippling out from the horrific centre of the Boston Marathon bombings. It’s a poem by a poet who absolutely understood ugly hate, as…

As we enter the baseball season (for real addicts, that began with the spring training season!), I thought I’d share one of my very favourite poems. While baseball isn’t a great love of mine, I do have fond memories of watching my sons play. Beginning with T-ball, both sons played for a few years, then…

When I was 19, I gave my mother a book of poetry. Even then, it seemed to me that poetry was the best thing I could offer my loved ones. It was a book academics & serious poets would dismiss with (at best) a shake of the head, but I knew she would like it.…
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