A select few poems available to all.
Poetry For All
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Any Sympathetic Being
The famed Minnesota poet Robert Bly has had a huge influence on my writing and I have grown to love his poetic form, the ramage. The idea of this particular work was to share a sense of desperation one can sometimes encounter in the deep South as warm nights activate a symphony of pests.
Shapes, Reasons, Chilean Seasons
Here, I offer a poem with an open rhyme scheme, focusing on celebrating the beauty of the heritage of a place, in this case, the Chilean seaside city of La Serena. I suppose it could be considered a descriptive poem or lyrical because it both aims to depict scenes vividly and evoke emotions relating to the setting and emphasizes personal emotions or feelings for this place. The city translates in English to “the serene.”
Bellwether
A playful poem full of rhetorical devices such as alliteration, assonance, homophone, ambiguity, imagery, and imagination of a shepherd and sheep, set in the Scottish Highlands.
Fortunate Cookie
A light-hearted poem about the novelty of fortune cookies and the humor of finishing off their words of wisdom with an all-to-familiar twist.
Southern Summer Delights
The ghazal (pronounced “guzzle”) is a form of amatory poem or ode use here. It originates in Arabic poetry. Medieval Persian poets embraced the ghazal, eventually making it their own. Consisting of syntactically and grammatically complete couplets, the form also has an intricate rhyme scheme. Each couplet ends on the same word or phrase (the radif), and is preceded by the couplet’s rhyming word (the qafia, which appears twice in the first couplet). The last couplet includes a proper name, often of the poet. In the Persian tradition, each couplet was of the same meter and length, and the subject matter included both erotic longing and religious belief or mysticism.
Shaken Chilean Kaleidoscope
The late Chilean poet and Nobel Laureate, Gabriela Mistral, was born this week in 1889. This series of free-form haikus follows my journey into her Andean birthplace, deep within the Valle de Elqui.
Purity in View
A poem about wandering Venice without direction, discovering beauty in every turn. It recalls a quiet moment on a pier with the my daughter, where light on water evoke a Monet painting. A tribute to shared wonder, memory, and the art found in everyday scenes along the canals.
The Big Roam
Poetry has a very particular relationship with time. Sometimes we can feel the instance of a curious corner of an experience, even from years past.
Hojancha Heights
This poem is written in the classical sonnet form. The setting is northwest Costa Rica, following an afternoon excursion from the Pacific Coast up into the mountains of the Hojancha canton. This area was originally inhabited by the Chorotega indigenous tribe, who occupied the Nicoya Peninsula during the pre-Columbian era; their tribal reach extended to Lake Nicaragua.
An Ode to Lee
The challenges with music, of course, can range from understanding music theory to simply having the perseverance to practice, yet despite those challenges, the rewards of learning make the journey worth it. When I was a young adult, the move from piano to learning how to play the guitar felt so foreign, so unconventional, until, of course, the right teacher came into my life, breaking things down into chords, and fingerpicking styles, and rhythms, removing for me the secrets of the guitar. This is an ode to that teacher, Lee.