top of page

       Featured Poem of the month​

 

I AM A WOMAN WHO

I am a woman who sits beside the ocean,

listens to its rhythm

and hears the song of life.

I am a woman who loves trees,

tells them her stories

then listens to their wisdom.

 

I am a woman who dreams of fireplaces on rainy days,

looks out at squalls on the water,

and lights candles to brighten the gray.

I am a woman who sees a face in flowers

and smiles back at them.

 

I am a woman who genuflects to look into children’s eyes,

delights in their stories,

and hears the wisdom that comes from their lips.

I am a woman who rises with the sun,

sits on the moon,

and rides a star in her dreams.

The author of the acclaimed book, A Life Interrupted: Living with Brain Injury (Pearlsong Press), Louise Mathewson’s short stories, narrative essays and poems have appeared internationally in numerous publications including Wordgathering: Journal of Disability Poetry, and the first volume of the bestselling book series, Cup of Comfort. A traumatic brain injury survivor, Louise advocates for those who have been affected by brain injury, stroke and other disabilities. Online at www.louisemathewson.com.

     REFLECTION SINKS

 

    In a ray of sunshine

    she sits atop the lake

    rippling beside her

    as she shivers in the breeze

    but warmed by sun she calms

    her reflection sharp as a mirror

    until the sun sets

    and the water rises

    as she begins to sink.

 

 

    SNOW REMNANTS

 

    The crack in the pavement

    smiles with remnants of snow

    still gleaming between its borders

    until afternoon sun melts it

    into a tiny river

    frozen at sunset.

Diane Webster grew up in Eastern Oregon before she moved to Colorado.  She enjoys drives in the mountains to view all the wildlife and scenery and takes amateur photographs.  Writing poetry provides a creative outlet exciting in images and phrases Diane thrives in.  Her work has appeared in "The Hurricane Review," "Philadelphia Poets," "Illya's Honey," and other literary magazines.

....and now...

...from the mind of...

the Mad Poet 

poetry magazine, editor, Anthony Uplandpoet Watkins, Anthony Watkins

In Memoriam Richard Wilbur (1921-2017)

​      Better Than Starbucks The Interview

 

Richard Wilbur interviewed by Jason Gray in the summer of 2004

Richard Wilbur

This interview was first published in

The Missouri Review, Volume 27, Number 3, Winter 2004

Richard Wilbur (March 1, 1921 – October 14, 2017) was born in New York City. He twice won the Pulitzer Prize, for New & Collected Poems (1988) and Things of this World (1956), for which he also won the National Book Award. His other numerous honors included the Wallace Stevens Award, the Aiken Taylor Award for Modern American Poetry, the Frost Medal, the Bollingen Prize, the T. S. Eliot Award, two Guggenheim Fellowships, the Prix de Rome Fellowship. He was a former poet laureate of the United States and a chancellor emeritus of the Academy of American Poets. Retired from a teaching career that included Harvard University, Wesleyan University and Smith College, he lived in Cummington, Massachusetts, at the time of this interview. His books included eight volumes of poetry, children’s poetry, several translations of Molière and two books of prose. His new Collected Poems was released at the end of 2004.

 

Jason Gray is the author of Photographing Eden, winner of the Hollis Summers Prize, and two chapbooks, How to Paint the Savior Dead and Adam & Eve Go to the Zoo. His poems have been featured in Poetry, The Kenyon Review, American Poetry Review, The New Criterion, and elsewhere. He is the associate editor of The Writer's Chronicle.

Love Calls Us to the Things of This World

 

The eyes open to a cry of pulleys,

And spirited from sleep, the astounded soul   

Hangs for a moment bodiless and simple   

As false dawn.

                     Outside the open window   

The morning air is all awash with angels.

 

    Some are in bed-sheets, some are in blouses,   

Some are in smocks: but truly there they are.   

Now they are rising together in calm swells   

Of halcyon feeling, filling whatever they wear   

With the deep joy of their impersonal breathing;

 

    Now they are flying in place, conveying

The terrible speed of their omnipresence, moving   

And staying like white water; and now of a sudden   

They swoon down into so rapt a quiet

That nobody seems to be there.

                                             The soul shrinks

 

    From all that it is about to remember,

From the punctual rape of every blessèd day,

And cries,

               “Oh, let there be nothing on earth but laundry,   

Nothing but rosy hands in the rising steam

And clear dances done in the sight of heaven.”

 

    Yet, as the sun acknowledges

With a warm look the world’s hunks and colors,   

The soul descends once more in bitter love   

To accept the waking body, saying now

In a changed voice as the man yawns and rises,   

    “Bring them down from their ruddy gallows;

Let there be clean linen for the backs of thieves;   

Let lovers go fresh and sweet to be undone,   

And the heaviest nuns walk in a pure floating   

Of dark habits,

                      keeping their difficult balance.”

Richard Wilbur, “Love Calls Us to the Things of This World” from Collected Poems 1943-2004. Copyright © 2004 by Richard Wilbur. Reprinted with the permission of Harcourt, Inc. This material may not be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior permission of the publisher.

bottom of page