If you’re on Facebook, there’s no way you have avoided seeing the “25 Things” meme spreading. The task is to write a note with twenty-five random things about you, then tag twenty-five friends to encourage them to write their own (…)
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John Updike died today at the age of 75*. That’s a good statistical age. It sounds like an average lifespan; like a neat round American age. He was in many ways a penultimate American, a writer in love with the (…)
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Here is the moment in history as the poet sees it: “Someone is trying to make music somewhere,” and today, with the inauguration of President Obama and all it signifies, that someone stands (with the rest of us who hope and struggle) “on the brink” of success in that endeavor. That “someone” struggling to “make music… with a pair of woodnen spoons on an oil drum” (which is really all of us) can now launch into a rich and melodious praise song. That, in a poetic nutshell, is what this moment in time is.
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Thank you to all the readers who made this blog hit #16 on the WordPress.com Growing Blogs of the Day list yesterday! My desire is that this blog will spark engaged and intelligent conversation, and that certainly is happening in (…)
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Seeing the text of the poem Elizabeth Alexander read at today’s inauguration ceremony, I was shocked by its brevity. Watching it on TV, I estimated it at four pages of verse. Given the regular 12-point single-spaced treatment, it easily fits (…)
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