Tag Archives: spoken word

Tennessee Williams reads Hart Crane: Voyages III and V, The Broken Tower, The Hurricane, and Eternity

… Voyages III Infinite consanguinity it bears This tendered theme of you that light Retrieves from sea plains where the sky Resigns a breast that every wave enthrones; While ribboned water lanes I wind Are laved and scattered with no … Continue reading →

Sonnet for Rosa Parks

27 Aug ’13

… Out of the ordinary there will come from time to time the good and very brave extraordinary, someone who can save us from our own damned selves and make us one humanity. Children take Rosa Parks for an example, … Continue reading →

In my words, April 8 – 14

14 Apr ’13

… On Friday, as I walked down 2nd Avenue in the rain coming back from the gym—after some laps in the pool (my crawl is getting better, less pain in the muscles in my left arm each time I move), … Continue reading →

Fucking I: I will come to you with a candle burning

22 Oct ’12

… Ouvrez-moi cette porte où je frappe en pleurant. …………—Apollinaire Open this door where I knock weeping. I I will come to you with a candle burning light a stick of incense comb and braid your hair with sparrows’ feathers … Continue reading →

Fucking II, part II: Poet Laundromat: I see a Tiajuana donkey leans

14 Apr ’12

… Poet Laundromat was published with the help of Stephen Spera & Philadelphia Eye & Ear Press in 1983. It comes from a long poem I was working on called Fucking, but it took its own form from the larger … Continue reading →

Poetry Lesson: Fog by Carl Sandburg

5 Feb ’12

… What follows is an ESL lesson I use with Fog by Carl Sandburg. I present it from the point of view of a teacher talking. The objective is to get the student writing, and that process is divided into … Continue reading →

Hope is the thing with feathers by Emily Dickinson: A closer look at and a lesson for an ESL teacher

11 Aug ’11

… I love and yet have mixed feelings about a poem by Emily Dickinson, but it doesn’t stop me from using it in a poetry lesson for students who are learning the English language. I let the class memorize the … Continue reading →

Archive Three: Little Caesar

9 Jun ’11

… I’ve been going through cardboard boxes at my father’s house and have found a lot of old magazines and letters from friends I forgot that I had. Some have not survived the mice. Fresh Paint’s been nibbled on but … Continue reading →

Sonnet 5: When I think of all the lovers I’ve had

9 May ’11

… When Bill Kushner heard I was writing sonnets, Bill being Bill asked me if I had written any with sex in them. I hadn’t. Bill suggested, “Why don’t you?” This sonnet was my first attempt, more philosophical than erotic. … Continue reading →

Sonnet 2: anti-Iraqi War sonnet

27 Apr ’11

One of my favorite spots in the woods is Walnut Run, where a stream rushes from its springs in rocky waterfalls down the South Mountain making its way to the Susquehanna River and finally the Chesapeake Bay. Winter and spring … Continue reading →

Yangtze Sonnet: 135

26 Apr ’11

… I took a trip through the Three Gorges in August of 2006 after teaching classes at the University of Wuhan for the month of July. I went with some of my teacher colleagues. Here is the first sonnet on … Continue reading →

Dusk by Ruiqi Liu

26 Jul ’10

When I first met Rich, the summer of 2008, I thought she was very shy, but I also knew she was confident enough to give me a poem she had written for a class assignment. Like most of my … Continue reading →