The extraordinary thing about Emily Dickinson is that she wrote about 1,800 poems during her lifetime, but only a handful were published.  Almost all of her poems were published posthumously, when they were discovered by her sister, and Dickinson was finally regarded as an innovator who introduced a different way of writing poetry.   Dickinson didn’t conform to traditional…

Happy Birthday, Mr. President!  Thomas Jefferson, born April 13, 1743, was the third President of the United States. He is one of the key creators of the Declaration of Independence, and, you may also recognize him from that two dollar bill you keep in your wallet for good luck. Jefferson was considered one of America’s first ‘renaissance men,’ brimming…

April is National Poetry Month, and since I posted a video on the “Don’t Quit” poem last week, I thought it would be fun to continue posting video poems every Friday of this month. I’ve always loved William Wordsworth’s poem, “Daffodils,” a perfect tribute to spring that starts with the famous lines, “I wandered lonely as a cloud….” …

If you have been struggling with something in particular for a long time or if you have been facing unimaginable obstacles this week, be encouraged by this famous “Don’t Quit” poem written by an anonymous author years ago.      Here are the words of the entire poem: When things go wrong, as they sometimes…

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