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Category Archives: Poetry
Word Cloud: EARTH
by NONA BLYTH CLOUD Religion and Science — two different approaches to the questions, How Does Stuff Work? and Why Do Things Happen? When you start with the same questions, you often uncover similar answers. The Elements, for example. The “basic four”— … Continue reading
Posted in Poetry, Religion, Science, Word Cloud
Tagged Carl Sandburg, Earth, Edna St. Vincent Millay, John Keats, Joy Harjo, Mary Oliver, Pulitzer Prize, The Four Elements
4 Comments
Word Cloud: SENSATION
by NONA BLYTH CLOUD “Overnight sensation” – the star who bursts on the scene, seemingly out of nowhere, so often is someone who has labored unappreciated at their craft for years. At the end of the 20th century, Australian poetry was … Continue reading
Posted in Australia, Poetry, Word Cloud
Tagged Aristophanes, Basho, David Malouf, Dorothy Porter, LQBT literature, Sensation, The Monkey's Mask
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Dvořák and the Dumka
Antonin Dvořák was born on September 8, 1841, in a village near Prague. His Bohemian heritage strongly influenced his music. The word “dumka” means “thought” in Ukranian. As a musical term, it refers to the patterns of Slavic epic ballads, … Continue reading
Posted in Music, Poetry
Tagged Antonín Dvořák, B H Fairchild, Bohemian, The Dumka, Ukranian
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Word Cloud: RESISTANCE
by NONA BLYTH CLOUD In 1895, Japan was at war with China for supremacy over Korea, which was China’s most important client state. Japan wanted access to Korea’s coal and iron, and to use it as a buffer zone to prevent Chinese or Russian … Continue reading
The Pony Express in Prose and Poetry
____________________________________________________________ On April 3, 1860, a mail pouch containing 49 letters, five telegrams and miscellaneous papers was handed to a young rider in St. Joseph, Missouri. Amid great fanfare, a cannon was fired, and that first unnamed Pony Express rider … Continue reading
A Poem for National Dog Day
Since today is National Dog Day, here’s a tribute to that All-American Dog, the Mutt. ____________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________ Mongrel Heart by David Baker Up the dog bounds to the window, baying like a basset his doleful, tearing sounds from the … Continue reading
Posted in Dogs, Poetry
Tagged David Baker, Mongrel Heart, Mongrels and Mutts, National Dog Day
2 Comments
Word Cloud: TRANSLATION
by NONA BLYTH CLOUD The Nobel award committee’s citation called her the “Mozart of poetry,” a woman who mixed the elegance of language with “the fury of Beethoven.” Wislawa Szymborska (1923-2012) was awarded the 1996 Nobel Prize in Literature. The Nobel … Continue reading
Posted in Poetry, Poland, Word Cloud
Tagged Advice on Poetry, Nobel Prize for Literature, Refugees, Some People, Translation, Wislawa Szymborska
4 Comments
Word Cloud: ALOUD
by NONA BLYTH CLOUD Dana Gioia, the subject of last week’s post, often writes about the change poetry is undergoing from small runs of books at boutique publishers for a sparse group of readers to a populist movement of rappers and poetry slammers speaking … Continue reading
Posted in Poetry, Word Cloud
Tagged Aloud, Glasgow, Grandmothers, Holly McNish AKA Holly Poetry, Immigrants, Poetry Slam, Spoken Word, Women's Bodies
2 Comments
Word Cloud: GOLDEN
by NONA BLYTH CLOUD A poet with an MBA from the Stanford Business School who became a Vice President at General Foods and marketed Kool-Aid? Doesn’t sound very promising, does it? Even more damning, he’s written literary criticism, in books and … Continue reading
Posted in California, NEA, Poetry, Word Cloud
Tagged Beach Boys, Dana Gioia, GOLDEN, Los Angeles, Poet Laureate of California, Stanford MBA
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Word Cloud: AFTERIMAGE
NONA BLYTH CLOUD Writing poetry in reaction to headline news is risky business. Even some of the best poets have written work so momentary about a particular incident it’s glaringly out-of-place in their future collected works. But when a poet … Continue reading
Posted in Mississippi, Poetry, Racism, United States, Word Cloud
Tagged Afterimage, Audre Lorde, Homophobia, Lynching in America, Police Killing, Sexism
3 Comments
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Flowers For Socrates 