Category Archives: Poetry

To be heard

If you don’t learn to write your own life story,

someone else will write it for you.

As I mentioned previously, April is National Poetry Month so when I happened to see To be heard on PBS I was glued to my television.  This documentary tracks three teenagers from the South Bronx as they tell their stories of friendship, love and struggle, and show how a radical poetry class inspires them to change.  The documentary also shows how language and in particular poetry brings people together.

Check out the trailer To Be Heard

April is national poetry month

I love poetry because it can evoke strong feelings. That may sound strange, because I hear people say they don’t “get” poetry. But when I ask these people when was the last time they read poetry they refer back to when they were in class.  Can you imagine what one might think of music if your sole experience was from music class? I’m pretty certain shows like American Idol and The Voice wouldn’t be on television.

Poetry is a lot like music. The trick is finding poets who speak to you.

Poetry inserts art into the form of communicating and can beautifully describe abstracts like love and faith. Poetry can also perfectly capture and describe a moment or feeling with amazing elegance.

I thought I’d share an excerpt from a poem in honor of national poetry month. This poem is appropriately named Boston and is a bit naughty.

I watched two men
press hard into
each other, their bodies
caught in the club’s
bass drum swell,
and I couldn’t remember
when I knew I’d never
be beautiful, but it must
have been quick
and subtle, the way
the holy ghost can pass
in and out of a room.
I want so desperately
to be finished with desire,
the rushing wind, the still
small voice.

If you are intrigued you can read the full poem online or purchase Aaron Smith’s book Blue on Blue Ground.  He even has a rather interesting poem about Brad Pitt.

The Boston Globe annual limerick submission contest

Each year The Boston Globe encourages readers to write a limerick in honor of St. Patrick’s Day. Have you submitted a limerick yet? Get in touch with your inner naughty-poet and submit your own limerick to The Boston Globe here.

Here is a humorous submission from 2011, which was penned by Kari Pedersen from Medford, MA.

There once was a mayor from Boston
Who’d talk like his mouth’s full of cotton
He’d mumble and he’d fumble
And on occasion, take a tumble
But his laughable gaffes not forgotten

Nothing gold can stay

One of my favorite poems ever written is by Robert Frost.  Each autumn I post his poem, Nothing gold can stay.  It is obvious that Frost was inspired by the fall foliage in New England when he wrote this poem back in 1923.  Nothing gold can stay won the 1924 Pulitzer prize for poetry.

I hope you enjoy the poem as much as I do.

Nature’s first green is gold
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf’s a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.