I don’t write in a journal everyday, but I have accumulated many entries over the past 50+ years beginning in 1966. Some items evolved into longer works. Among the leftovers little pieces survived. I thought a collection of these with a piece culled from the same date in a past year would make an interesting yearbook. The consistencies and inconsistencies of mind, skipping back and forth across time, provide varied perspectives. It is difficult to remember the context of the past we’ve lived; we also make suppositions about times that predate ourselves.

The few alterations from original drafts were to improve clarity. The worst of my work is not included. There remains enough mediocrity and immaturity to make me feel humble and you feel smart. There are also moments of accidental insight and incidental humor.

Author Stephen Crane referred to his little pieces as pills…apparently they were small and somewhat hard to swallow, but good for you.


Comments Welcome!

Monday, March 5, 2018

The kind of poems I most appreciate…


March 5, 2011  (I was 65)  

The kind of poems I most appreciate…

detail moments in the distant past
more real than all of yesterday:
Stanley Kunitz, “Portrait”

acknowledge the private inner existence that creates
every individual:
Stephen Dunn, “A Secret Life”

recognize the elements of the atmosphere to create
the import of the message before the reader suspects it:
Gary Snyder, “Hay for the Horses”

distill the original images and notions from which aspects
of complex ideas and knowledge were formed or first realized:
Heather McHugh, “Place Where Things Got”

follow the threads of information back and forth
until you have the whole cloth and feel smart wearing it:
Robert Pinsky, “Shirt”

demonstrate how our clumsy inability to act can lead us
to the correct non-action: 
Stephen Dunn, “At the Smithville Methodist Church”

speak directly in conversational tone and reveal purpose
when I didn’t know there was one: 
Paul Zimmer, “What Zimmer Would Be”;
Karl Shapiro, “Garage Sale”

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