One of my creative writing professors gave the assignment to write poetry from art. It's possible she was trying to introduce us to ekphrastic poetry, which, according to the Lantern Review Blog, is "written in conversation with a work(s) of visual art." But she took a less formal approach, closer to what the Currier Museum of Art has been inviting people to each … [Read more...]
Coming Home to Scotland – The Poetry of Place
Until 2001, my mom thought our genealogy traced to England and Germany, but that year she and her brother discovered to their surprise that the ancestors they presumed were English actually came from Scotland. After tracing our family name to Kirkcudbright, where Robert Burns visited the Selkirk Inn and offered the famous “Selkirk Grace” (offered at the beginning … [Read more...]
Field Hands: A Poem
Field Hands My father asks me why I'm so dirty. I say it's because I played in the field with Becky. I won't tell him I worked from two until suppertime helping pick potatoes with the Hammons in their field. I won't tell him how warm and rich the earth was when Mr. Hammons plowed through, leaving dry ripples for us to dig our hands in to fish for potatoes. Or how … [Read more...]
