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Practicing Poetry Themes: Gone Fishing
Elizabeth Bishop’s poetry included fish more than once in “The Fish” and “At the Fishhouses.” My poetry also reflects my experience with fish and fishing as seen in the below example.
Poetic Form: Sestina
I was going to focus on Elizabeth Bishop’s “One Art” as an example of a villanelle. But, since I have been working on a sestina, I decided to read Bishop’s “Sestina” for some encouragement. A sestina is a challenging, yet worthwhile form. I have written and published one that is, […]
Quotation of the Week
Inky
Join me each Wednesday for this virtual reading experience as I read a selection from Redefined: A Year of Poetry. By the end of the year, I will have read 52 of the 366 poems contained in this collection. I encourage you to subscribe to this blog in order to […]
Poem of the Week: Elizabeth Bishop’s “At the Fishhouses”
I feel a particular kinship with Elizabeth Bishop’s “At the Fishhouses.” The fishing in Nova Scotia and Massachusetts are different from fishing in Minnesota, but some images are similar. There are other lines within this poem that resonate with me and give me more understanding of Bishop as a poet […]
Poet of the Week: Elizabeth Bishop
Some poets feel like kindred spirits as soon as we read their work. Some take longer to get to know. We need to get to know them beyond their written word because they reveal more about the world around them than about themselves. At times, we may need to go […]
Books of the Month: April 4-May 1
Fiction The Four Winds by Kristin Hannah Five Stars I absolutely loved this newest book by Kristin Hannah. I learned more about this era of history–the Dust Bowl and how it affected people during the Great Depression–and would compare its themes to those of The Grapes of Wrath . Hannah […]
New and Occasional Additions
Throughout the month of April, I shared insights about poets, poems, quotations, poetic forms, and my own poetry practice based on these themes. I decided that I enjoy what I am learning about the poets I am studying. Learning new things–even about topics I already know in depth–excites me and […]
Practicing Poetic Themes:
During my mentorship with poet Jim Moore, I wrote this poem based on the title from Tomas Tranströmer’s “April and Silence.” While my poem and Tranströmer’s are different in their themes, this title is often one that comes to mind during the month of April.
Poetic Form: “Epiphanic Lyric”
“[Tomas Tranströmer] has perfected a particular kind of epiphanic lyric, often in quatrains, in which nature is the active energizing subject, and the self (if the self is present at all) is the object.” Katie Peterson, Boston Review as quoted by Poetry Foundation; italics mine When I was researching Tomas […]
