Category Archives: poetry

One of the pieces we played in the concert band in my first year of college was a piece by Elliot Del Borgo, called Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night. It was a dramatic work, sometimes atonal, with a … Continue reading →

In 8th grade, I was skeptical about all the stuff my English teachers the last few years had been saying about things like meaning and symbolism and all the rest of it. I would read a work, be it a … Continue reading →

One of my favorite collections is An Anthology of World Poetry, edited by Mark Van Doren, a poet and scholar who lived in the 20th century. Van Doren’s collection is an extensive gathering of poems in translation from all over the … Continue reading →

Poetry, like all art, must reflect and address all matters within the mess we call The Human Condition, which means that poetry can’t only be focused on positive matters or on beauty. Poetry must also look unflinchingly at the awfullest … Continue reading →

This is a repost, but I’m adding something at the end. I’ve occasionally seen comment that JRR Tolkien’s poetry in The Lord of the Rings is generally weak, but from my perspective, it’s one of my favorite aspects of the book, … Continue reading →

The North Sea is a place I’ve never seen, but the connotations I have of it are a deep sea of cold, gray waters. The North Sea is the body across which the Vikings came on their voyages of plunder, … Continue reading →

The other day, I posted two poems about cats. In comments, a fine reader asks: Are you familiar with the Hamlet Soliloquy done from the point of view of a cat? I had to admit that I was not, so … Continue reading →

If you’ve seen the movie Dead Poets Society, you remember that the movie quotes a bunch of poems throughout its running time. It quotes few in their entirety, and most are either quoted for dramatic effect or to basically provide poetic … Continue reading →