Category Archives: Poetry

Hope springs eternal on the South Side

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Sunday afternoon, the White Sox are playing.
We sit at home, too lazy (or poor) to be at the ballpark
but rapt before the TV,
inside on a glorious sunny day,
buoyed by the hope that accompanies Spring.
Flowers and leafing trees, a warming breeze,
and a new season
with new young players
who haven’t yet disappointed.
They may yet,
but White Sox fans are accustomed to disappointment,
and the future is not today.
Today it’s still next year on Chicago’s South Side.

April in the rearview mirror

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April – what a month. I ushered it in with my annual April 1 (bunny bunny) reading of T.S. Eliot’s “The Waste Land,” then spent almost the entire remainder of the month reading and listening (and reading and listening, and reading and listening) to Leonard Cohen’s last book, The Flame. At month’s end, I had read the tactile book twice and listened to it on CD at least four times, if not five (starting in March). It was worth every minute. In between, I got to see Andrea Gibson perform, and read a lot of other poetry by a wide range of authors. I read poetry every single day of April, and it was a blessing. I also wrote poetry every day, although not all of it got published here. Here are all the pieces that did. There also were pieces I started and am still working on, pieces I discarded, and little snippets that found life only on my Twitter stream. Case in point:

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A little e.e. cummings to end National Poetry Month

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On the last day of National Poetry Month—today—I turned my attention finally away from Leonard Cohen and listened to a CD of e.e. cummings reading his own work. Undeterred by the fact that he was a pretty terrible reader (or this was one truly substandard performance), I was happily reminded how much I love his poem “somewhere i have never traveled, gladly beyond.” Continue reading →