Archive for the ‘poetry’ category

OPW: “The Summer Day”

July 22nd, 2008 | In OPW, poetry 

This poem by Mary Oliver has a few lines I quite like:
Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean—
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of […]

OPW: Assignment #1

May 7th, 2008 | In OPW, poetry 

Today’s Other People’s Words was selected mostly because I’m a sucker for clever titles. It’s not that I don’t like Philip Burnham’s poem, it’s that I wouldn’t have payed attention if not for that title.
Assignment #1: Write a poem about Baseball and God
And on the ninth day, God
In His infinite playfulness
Grass green grass, sky blue […]

OPW: “Snow, Aldo”

April 23rd, 2008 | In OPW, poetry 

Since it’s been warm outside recently (at least where I live), what better time is there for a poem about snow? This fun little poem, “Snow, Aldo,” is by Kate DeCamillo.
Once, I was in New York,
in Central Park, and I saw
an old man in a black overcoat walking
a black dog. This was springtime
and the trees […]

OPW: “The Aliens”

March 21st, 2008 | In OPW, poetry 

A slightly different poem than usual. “The Aliens” is from the famously tortured Charles Bukowski, and it wears that fact on it’s sleeve. I suppose that even though I don’t really empathize with the poem, it seemed an apt follow-on to the dissatisfied commentary I presented yesterday.
you may not believe it
but there are people
who […]

OPW: What the Uneducated Woman Told Me

March 14th, 2008 | In OPW, poetry 

Today’s Other People’s Words is a nice — if a little bleak — little poem by Christopher Reid.
That she was glad to sit down.
That her legs hurt in spite of the medicine.
That times were bad.
That her husband had died nearly thirty years before.
That the war had changed things.
That the new priest looked like a schoolboy and you could barely […]