Category: Poetry

Rain makes me feel AMAZING! To me, it’s not just a chore of Nature, It’s a feeling! Indescribable! The feeling you get running barefoot in the rain. Or snuggling on the Ferris wheel. Sharing an Ice Cream Cone. Riding on the handle bars of someone’s bike. Hiding in a secret place only you know about. […]

Walking together in the twilight Strong mild winds from the south Summer warmth with a hint of fall Open spaces stretching before us Light haze covering the sky Humid aid enveloping the fields Thick forests at the horizon Colors fading to shades of gray Fragrances of drying summer Fields of ripe corn and waving grass […]

On this morning’s meander before Thanksgiving feast I coast and curve mindfully between the crossing creek-bed Gazing in amazement at gigantic homes, humongous boulders, And timbered beams bravely lodging beneath the behemoth rock. The rushing stream, frosted along its sides, brags icily Of mountain trout hidden within. A small herd of overfed horses Stand patiently […]

It’s April and a single sandhill crane flies across my road. Great blue herons when they arrive blow in like dark-blue smoke. Their necks are bowed as if recoiling from the shock of finding Door County’s leafless spring. But this sandhill’s aim is arrow-straight gliding down to the stubble fields where he stands to rest […]

Wendy Videlock lives in western Colorado, where a person can stop to study what an owl has left behind without being run over by a taxi.

Dear Mr. Patrick Henry   Where are you when we need you? You raised a whirlwind and rode it to revolution. railed at king and parliament, aloof and overseas.   Our Congress seems detached, putting Party before public, re-election before principle. Hope packed her bags and left, and skeptics are having a field day.   […]

Dear Liberace,   May I call you Lee? Even in absentia, I know you’re out there. Smiling, glittering – the perfect host.   I remember seeing you on Person to Person. Edward R. Murrow, the famous newsman, interviewing you, the famous entertainer, on live television. Swathed in white, brilliant even on black and white TV, […]

Dear M. Antoine de St. Exupéry For a very long time I was a grown-up. This you will understand, having been such a person yourself. I spoke with other grown-ups of politics and fashions, of recipes and lesson plans. I wore stockings and pointy-toed shoes, just like the shoes that all the other teachers wore […]

Dear Saint Joan I’ve been meaning to write you for years after reading Shaw’s play and seeing Cindy Sheehan camped on the border of our leader’s land in Texas to protest our wars. From your lofty view, it cannot matter that I am a writer who also taught a generation about women like you, but […]

Dear Glenn Ford, In the days when you and William Holden made romantic Westerns in the West my friend, Joyce, and I could not decide which of you we loved the very best.

Dear Martha Stewart, With an adhesive lint roller in one hand and a julep strainer in the other I strive to be like your model of efficiency, but do have a bit of trouble locating my can opener. While I hope to master the six steps to foolproof gravy, tasty leftovers and perfectly folded towels […]

When we hear news of a flood, that news is mostly about the living, about the survivors. But at the edges of floods are the dead, too. Here Michael Chitwood, of North Carolina, looks at what’s floating out there on the margins.

These days are brim full of bad news about our economy – businesses closing, people losing their houses, their jobs. If there’s any comfort in a situation like this, it’s in the fact that there’s a big community of sufferers. Here’s a poem by Dana Bisignani, who lives in Indiana, that describes what it feels like to sit through a bankruptcy hearing.

“After Seeing the Art Film ‘SLAM'” & “Pieces”

“Swirling Girl” and “Just Bring It to the Table”

“The Last Time” and “Pet Names”

A honeymoon. How often does one happen according to the dreams that preceded it? In this poem, Wesley McNair, a poet from Maine, describes a first night of marriage in a tawdry place.

Several months ago, when Nancy Rafal and I headed down to Fort Atkinson to attend the First Ever Lorine Niedecker Poetry Festival, we went to an open mic connected to the festival. Robert Nordstrom was one of the poets who read and, in an evening of excellent poets reading excellent poems, I found Robert’s work particularly moving.

January sun comes through the window And warms my skin. Weeds poking through snow covered meadows That once were the fields and pastures That fed the cows, pigs and chickens That fed us.

In seven years, we’ve got a whole new body. – Li-Young Lee, Breaking the Alabaster Jar