Poetry

Massachusetts poet J. Lorraine Brown has used an unusual image in “Tintype on the Pond, 1925.” This poem, like many others, offers us a unique experience, presented as a gift, for us to respond to as we will. We need not ferret out a hidden message. How many of us will recall this little scene […]

Autumner I am an Autumner by nature, a collector of perfect things and old landscapes, hue addicted. Impatient with the nouveau riche country-come-latelys in their concrete grays, who drive by drinking in my Sugar Maples, then drive away . . .                           unblessed […]

technopoem #1 my computer sits and thinks about things pares its nails yawns finally does what I tell it to do or doesn’t like living with a cat © Jacqueline Jackson 2005

Descriptions of landscape are common in poetry, but in “Road Report” Kurt Brown adds a twist by writing himself into “cowboy country.” He also energizes the poem by using words we associate with the American West: Mustang, cactus, Brahmas. Even his associations — such as comparing the crackling radio to a shattered rib — evoke […]

kinquote poem # 5 colleen eight having just played some mozart and a bit of vivaldi polishes her new fiddle lays it in its case thank you daddy for getting me this violin — the sound! when I vibrato I can hear my heart beating in the strings we too dear colleen oh we too […]

Many of you have seen flocks of birds or schools of minnows acting as if they were guided by a common intelligence, turning together, stopping together. Here is a poem by Debra Nystrom that beautifully describes a flight of swallows returning to their nests, acting as if they were of one mind. Notice how she […]

hodgepodgepoem #1 they’re probably written up in some linguistic something or other but consider echoic h pairs how many there are of them more than any other letter and know what they’re seldom hotsy-totsy for instance humdrum that’s blah while all disorderly like the catch-all kitchen drawer are higgledy-piggledy helter-skelter derogatory ones try hocus-pocus hoity-toity […]

We’ve all done it. People watching as spectator sport. Lola Lucas has a keen eye as demonstrated in this snapshot of her recent trip to a local bookstore. At the Springfield B & N Moms with strollers stop by the café For a shot of much-needed espresso While a farmer in bib overalls sorts through […]

uttermadnesspoem #1   I wonder how many soldiers fighting our oily war wondered if they’d be two-thousandth or after     or before © Jacqueline Jackson 2005

In this fine poem about camping by Washington poet E. G. Burrows, vivid memories of the speaker’s father, set down one after another, move gracefully toward speculation about how experiences cling to us despite any efforts to put them aside. And then, quite suddenly, the father is gone, forever. But life goes on, the coffee […]

aroundtownpoem #8  at edwards place across the street the older sisters were drawing naked ladies in the life drawing class elspeth went along and drew naked ladies too november six was her birthday and also the birthday of the instructor she and her sisters made two cakes and carried them to class they were back […]

When Carol Manley sent this poem I was struck by its similarity to Robert Clarke’s, published here on Oct. 13. While Clarke encountered a beggar in Lisbon, Manley only had to travel as far as downtown Springfield to find the same kind of need. Both poems, a short haiku sequence and this longer free verse, […]