During Michael Hoover’s convalescing, area poets will be featured each week. This week’s poet/columnist is Katy Giebenhain who lives in Gettysburg.   What else does this part of autumn bring besides raking our leaf-choked lawns, mid-term exams and finally packing away shorts and sandals? The anniversaries of both...continued

In the wake of Michael Hoover’s convalescing, area poets will be posting articles to further the conversation of poetry. This week’s contributor is John Hutchinson John is a retired educator, grandfather of eight, and one who greatly appreciates the outdoors and traveling. He also enjoys writing a poem...continued

For years I had taken photographs for the sheer pleasure of capturing scenes I wanted to preserve for my continuous enjoyment. It wasn’t until much later that a friend of mine, who went to the Maryland Institute of Art for photography, complimented the perspective and composition in my pictures. At...continued

The Geraldine R. Dodge Poetry Festival, held in even-numbered years since 1986, is the largest poetry event in North America. Nearly sixty internationally acclaimed poets read and discuss their own poetry and lead conversations focusing on various topics concerning poets and poetry. The mix of poets varies greatly from biennial...continued

This week I am pleased to share a guest column by poet, writer, visual artist, singer, healer, and friend, Susan Beverly. Her “work is widely published and awarded. She loves reading publicly . . . and enjoys collaboration with colleagues in the arts. [Beverly’s] writing thrives on the...continued

On my way to Lowe’s last Sunday, thinking about the love in my life, it struck me suddenly: it’s not about what we have or don’t have, what we want or don’t want, what we do or don’t do, what we say or don’t say, what we feel, think or...continued

Lately I’ve been focusing upon the answers to three questions: Where do I come from? What am I? Where am I going? I’ve borrowed these questions from Ronald Wright who got them from Paul Gauguin, who inscribed the three queries in French upon a painting he did in Tahiti at...continued

In the wake of Michael Hoover’s convalescing, area poets will be posting articles to further the conversation of poetry. Each edition will begin with a brief biography of the contributor. This week, former Hanover Poet Laureate Dana Larkin Sauers is our guest columnist. Sauers is a member of the...continued

In the wake of Michael Hoover's convalescing, area poets will be posting articles to further the conversation of poetry. Each edition will begin with a brief biography of the contributor. This week, former and first Hanover Poet Laureate, Anna Manahan Bowman presents her views. She founded the Hanover Poets and has...continued

As you read this, I will be three days on the other side of a robotic assisted laparoscopic radical prostatectomy. It hurts just even to say aloud. Taking my cue from columnist Cubby Conrad, and hopefully tapping into her courage and wisdom, I will take a hiatus from writing to...continued

Who would be crazy enough to pick the last weekend in unofficial summer to come to the most toured town in our area to see the very popular, recently reconstructed visitor center? Yep, that's me. But what an experience I had this past Labor Day weekend, though things did not...continued

Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote: "Never lose an opportunity of seeing anything that is beautiful; for beauty is God's handwriting -- a wayside sacrament. Welcome it in every fair face, in every fair sky, in every fair flower, and thank God for it as a cup of blessing." Most writers use...continued

Intelligent commentary on 21st century poetics. World Class Poetry Blog

Each year I go through the ritual of purging my wardrobe as I prepare to start back to teaching. And, at least once every year, I am sorely reminded of one the talents I lack and am occasionally jealous of those who possess. I’m talking about organization. I want to be...continued

In the grand scheme of all things that comprise America, Michael Phelps is practically a local boy. Less than an hour’s drive from Hanover, Towson, or the Republic of Towson as my son-in-law has recently come to call it, has brought the world’s eyes to focus on this suburb of...continued

Our common denominator has to be love. The most common, love of self. The least, love of others. Here’s where less is really more. The indivisible, the smallest fraction. Reduce ourselves to love of others. So simple. So fulfilling. Yet, the most difficult of choices. It goes against our instinct...continued

If it weren’t for mothers, the world would not lose its harsh edge. Moms have a way to soften the blow of human gales and the globe’s disasters. They are the first defense we have, our protectors, our nurturers under the laws of nature. A blesséd day to all women...continued

The last workday of school for teachers is usually one of mixed emotions and lots of activity. The kids have all departed for their summer break the day before, and so the halls are filled with staff of all levels as the great purge begins. Projects, dittos, and bulletin board...continued

This Friday evening I will be walking our only daughter, April, down the aisle. I am happy to tears as I recall her journey from birth through childhood, from girlhood through her teens, and from college through her first years as a teacher. And now, she is a beautiful, sensitive,...continued

If we all could be projective and accurate, the world might be perfect, for each of us. But, risk and irony abound, perhaps as a blessing, to make life unpredictable, frustrating our ability to be in control and to know it all. Failure and disappointment force us to adjust our...continued

We all have hoped for perfection, envisioned what it should be like, and have occasionally been so audacious as to plan for it sometimes, especially when meaningful events are in the offing. Olympic athletes use perfection in their meditative training, picturing the perfect performance. Families desire sunny skies for the...continued

Little did I anticipate when I accepted an invitation by Janet Lohr to read and talk about my poetry to the Poet’s Corner at Cross Keys Village this past Monday that the evening would include several “firsts.” This was the first time in my tenure to be formally invited to work...continued

In part, most poets are chroniclers. They record truthfully, though maybe not realistically, the times in which they live. They couch their stories in metaphor and allusion. They compare and refer, rather than state directly. Poets hold before us mirrors of our nature or behavior as human beings, but the...continued

During my father’s recent stay, many of our conversations centered around family, genealogy, U.S. history, personal history, and of course, politics. We had avoided our talks about religion, per se, even though we have come to some unexpressed accord after years of not recognizing we’re really on the same team. So,...continued

Guest poet columnist Allen Taylor is webmaster of www.world-class-poetry.com and writes a daily blog at www.worldclasspoetryblog.com. He spent 2005 in Iraq with his National Guard unit and is revising a book of poems he wrote during that time. He and his wife operate a full-time Internet marketing...continued

Okay, okay. T. S. Eliot got it wrong. April is not the cruelest month. Sure, to some, being awakened from winter’s cozy forgetfulness is a drudgery, as spring stirs the memory, beginning the cycle of nurturing again with all its effort and pain. But, to others, resurrection is the promise...continued

Good deeds sometimes slip by unseen. Oh, sure, we notice their passing and at times even participate in them, aware or not, but occasionally the acts themselves warrant little attention. Such is the case with The Reader’s Café’s contribution to poetry and literacy in our community. Eleven years ago, an...continued

Thieves show up fairly often in poetry. The experience of being robbed is a useful metaphor because the implications are broad and readers can always relate to robbery on some level. From Elizabeth Bishop’s “The Burglar of Babylon” to Emily Dickinson’s Luke-referencing “’Remember me,’ implored the Thief’ –” to John...continued

What is special about the sentence "The quick brown fox jumps over a lazy dog"? Who was the first poet laureate of the United States? Which NFL team bears the name of an Edgar Allan Poe poem? Which American poet has won the most Pulitzer Prizes? These are...continued

An independent publisher of undiscovered poets. Iris G. Press

Okay. I’m in love with the moon. Her hues, the faces she reveals, the tilt of her head, her arches and crescents, her shy newness and her bold fullness. I love that she is reflective, sometimes yellow, and that she is a symbol of imagination, sensibility, and the creative insanity...continued

Night descends slowly, like understanding, the great leveling out below-- where land dresses in shadows and light belongs to those in flight. Earth dims to darkness like a faceless conversation; frozen explosions ascend, ghosts of prayer and dreams. Here, I embrace the expanse of you while a rainbow flattens into gold. ...continued

A child's final sigh rises skyward; yet another psalm with no reply. In upturned hands in outstretched prayer, innocence is proffered to a famished will. And God is breathing all creation in obesely, taking back the gift to every mother given. Her tacit shriek, silent hallowed shout, a grimly veiled and barefaced request: Don't let this humble sacrifice...continued

I want to be a poem hung in a pouch awaiting David's hand to heft me, be swung in a sling, given wings, flung to some Philistine's face, cracking cranium, breaking brow, creating chasm wide enough to ponder the power of pebble launched in prayer, mumbled verse, ancient mantra turning toy...continued

Two halves meet and want to become a whole, not realizing each is already a whole half, and not simply half a whole. The whole matter is resolved when one of the soon-to-be whole’s halves decides to be a whole apart and not play the part-of-a-whole part-- but, instead of becoming a whole in need of no...continued

Owls crowd your never-been-cleaned, heavy-draped rooms: predatory lamps, stark glares over edges of picture frames, vigilant figurines, carved handle on the ceiling fan's pull chain. Even a yellow-eyed bed throw. Your days link in iceless whiskey, smoke-rings from discount cigarettes. Folk wisdom reveals a remedy for drunkenness is raw owl eggs, nailing up...continued

Cells multiply where everything is taken away; divide when nothing adds up to something. Living becomes the geometry of influence; dying, the physics between holding on or letting go. At the axis of bone and marrow, where blood counts begin and stop, only fractions of humans remain.

Listen to the vacancy in this poem: spaces echoing absence, vague images, subtle cipher, the ache of appetite, silhouettes of unstressed syllables, a barely discernible persona-- How expectant lyrics fade; where each trace of allusion and delay at enjambment collude to say you are gone. The tug of war between lines leaves behind misplaced caesuras, aborted silence of...continued

Advent is a dervish of down and leaves, of birds gone south, trees letting go: shadows frame the world in lavender. Seasons adjust to axis and latitude; we practice solstice rites whose sun turns away on the promise of return. Modern magi, we search the sky for manifest miracles, metaphors in stardust and cosmic mystery. Autumn's feast is eclipsed...continued

Logic ricochets in a race to stay ahead of wishes for the kids when you go. Pursing lips against a blur of all that might have been, you take my arm to climb the slope behind the shed. I move some clay and stone, we pot the plants from friends because, you say, someone will see them bloom one day. Our...continued

Across the piazza from Duomo people fidget like pigeons, fixed on destination--Pisa, Firenze, someplace beyond binario duo, somewhere other than home. Blind man in a white shirt, bolo tie, dress shoes, puffs a cigar stub, waving a wand to match his crisp cadence and patent leather posture. Women urge their mothers arm-in-arm around the promenade, purses swinging in...continued

Change. A twist in the gut. A sinking in the heart. A fact of life. An affront to tradition. Something welcomed or repelled. Something to fight for or against. Most recognize that change is required for progress, though not all progress can be deemed good. There is comfort in holding...continued

Our brains are tickled by patterns. Gathering patterns is how we learn. We take in information through our senses and compare the experience to all previous experience. We then respond and file everything away for future comparisons. It’s easy to see the basic attraction to comparisons for increasing our understanding...continued

Last Saturday, Poetry Brew in York Arts gallery hosted one of the best featured readings by a southeastern PA poet. Afterward, a question loomed like the proverbial elephant in the room: why don’t more poetry aficionados and non-poets attend poetry readings and open mics? It is a question that is...continued

You got to love my Dad. He’s Sagittarius through and through. On the positive side, he’s optimistic, freedom-loving, and good-humored; honest, straight-forward, and philosophical. No. Really. He is all of these. As most Sagittarians, Dad has his moments of restlessness. (That’s what we in the poetry business call hyperbolic understatement)....continued

In celebration of the season of children, let’s elevate imitation’s place in our lives. Copycatting, aping, mimicking--all get a bad rap. But, similar to the popular soft drink, imitation is the real thing. Falling in love with our children is magical. It begins when they first lock onto our eyes and...continued

As curtains close on another year, we scurry in the wings to manage the set for next year’s opening. Scenes from the new season’s production include vacations we may take, places we may visit, promotions we may strive for, celebrations we may attend. In all the roles we may play...continued

Whenever I introduce poetry to students, my first question is: who here loves poetry? When only a couple of brave souls volunteer to be jeered at, I insist that everyone in the room loves poetry. Then, I find the most skeptical moan or screwed up face, and bet that person...continued

Following is both an excerpted conversation on poetry and the process of critique, initiated by my stated intent to keep the conversation about poetry going in our community. (MH) Here is a poem written by me, Brian Kilkelly. No Worries If you don’t see it by now, I worry quite a lot. I worry about...continued

At the risk of sounding redundant, a wizened friend once remarked that great literature isn’t bound by national boundaries. This comment points to the obvious, that any statement about human nature or human behavior crosses all borders because of our shared experience with power and frailty. Further, the sentiment hints...continued

By the time Le Hinton reads the following comments, it will be too late for him to retract his guest poet column for next week. He knows I’m just kidding, of course, because he has a great sense of humor. However, although he is driven and success-oriented, Hinton is a...continued

We continue to have a national conversation about using a wall or a fence along our southern border. We insist it is for protection, but maybe it’s really an insistence on privacy. 
 Privacy. The state of being free from intrusion or disturbance in one's private life or affairs. Secretive....continued

Land development sometimes supplants farmland. Whether for families or businesses, all is commercial. The price of progress, or the cost of living and sometimes dying? Investing and sacrificing for our collective future. Children choose not to continue farming. Some simply cannot afford it; others go to school for some other...continued

Inevitably when I am at the playground with my son, some overly eager Mom/Barbie wanna-be, with perfect hair and nails, will bounce over, and after launching into a full rendition of how hard it is to find a good preschool around here and isn’t it terrible what “they’ve” done to...continued

Last month’s guest writer, Julia Tilley, marvelously explained why she writes poetry and she speaks for many of us. Although I spend a great deal of my free time writing poetry, I’d like to explain why I read poetry. Almost no day passes without my reading several poems. Yes, I...continued

Less than a year and a half ago I traveled to Tuscany in Italy for a bit over a week. This indulgent tryst was the result of a generous invitation from my former sister-in-law with her friends and traveling companions. Having spent time in Rome, Firenza (Florence), and a few...continued