An Italian-American Writer & Poet with a Yankee Outsider Perspective
I know no one from Turkey, but some of my students practice an African version of Islam. They are Somali, have come here as refugees, often after spending years in Kenyan refugee camps. Thus I have acquired a small education … Continued
It’s not my first one–this collective. Early in my poetry writing, I took part in the Lake Street Writers Group. It was the 70s, with an explosion of interest in personal expression, in poetry about streets and lanes, farms and … Continued
Forgive me, I’m headed toward a slam of one of the great orchestral numbers. Last night we heard our favorite orchestra, the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, preform several Schuberts and one modern amazement: Betty Olivero’s “Neharot, Neharot,” which means “Rivers, … Continued
Of Turkey, not the bird but the country, I know almost nothing except its largest city Istanbul, curves around a beautiful harbor called the Golden Horn which leads to the Bosporus, that narrow pathway into the Black Sea. Yet listening … Continued
Walking the neighborhood this time of year with the azalea bushes blushing from winter’s nip under their skirts, the “green fuse” sparks, and I’m channeling some great poet whose name I’ve forgot. Words form in my head as I stride … Continued
It’s one thing to memorize a poem, but quite another to stand up in front of strangers and give it voice so compellingly that you meld your own timbre and emphasis, pacing and intelligence to the poem’s essence. Almost a … Continued
War fascinates me–maybe by studying it elsewhere, I hope to keep it away from here. Yet, there’s more to it: war with its upheaval, its extremes of fear, heroism, death, destruction, hope and camaraderie shows the human condition at its … Continued
Well, not really. Moby Dick was the whale chased by the Pequod out of Nantucket. I don’t mean Nantucket, though it figures in these notes, but the mainland town that in the 1830s, 40s, 50s, fitted out the most whaling … Continued
Even if you’re born, bred and live in the Cities (here in Minnesota that means the Twin Cities of Minneapolis/Saint Paul), you have a very good chance of being seduced by prairies. Heading out of the western suburbs, the prairies … Continued
Robert Frost’s poem with these three words in its title leads us into sudden contemplation of cold, deep snow, and of a woods with its heavy, silent magic lived so separate from us. Even our word woods, used in the … Continued