Banjo52

Camouflage: Yellow Warbler At Butlers Birds on 8/14/14  ], the blogger mentions the Eastern Pee Wee and the House Finch in connection with “predatory thanatosis,” a wonderful academic p...

http://banjo52.blogspot.com/2014/08/predatory-thanatosis.html

Key West, Florida Wooster, Ohio Surfaces by Kay Ryan : The Poetry Foundation Once again I like a Kay Ryan poem, “Surfaces.” The succinctness, subtlety of imagery, and the surprisin...

http://banjo52.blogspot.com/2014/08/kay-ryans-surfaces-and-crime-in.html

On my walk today, I saw a new bird. He's not rare, but he was my first Chipping Sparrow. (Someone please correct me it that's incorrect). I didn't get a good look at him in real life, but I took...

http://banjo52.blogspot.com/2014/07/the-chipping-sparrow-and-richard.html

aka Peace and Wisdom Party Thirty seconds of this video conveys plenty, but I’m a masochist and watched all four minutes. The film wants to be funny, and sometimes it may be, but I find it...

http://banjo52.blogspot.com/2014/07/guns-and-morons-plus-chase-twichells.html

Here is former Poet Laureate, and native Detroiter, Phillip Levine with a portrait of women who labor. Really labor.  Would you agree that he does not sentimentalize her or the work? http://www...

http://banjo52.blogspot.com/2014/06/blizzard-by-william-carlos-williams.html

First a note on the photos: which of these women might be the poem's speaker? Now, on to the work itself. http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poem/246502 In poetry, humor is su...

http://banjo52.blogspot.com/2014/06/hannah-gambles-growing-bear_16.html

Here is D.H. Lawrence’s poem, “Bavarian Gentians.” I think I know why it came to mind as I talked last time about Dylan Thomas and “The Force that through the Green Fuse Drives the Flowe...

http://banjo52.blogspot.com/2014/06/dh-lawrences-bavarian-gentians-and.html

I'm pretty sure I was a college freshman when I first encountered Dylan Thomas' "The Force that through the Green Fuse Drives the Flower," and I'm pretty sure I had no clue what it meant or wh...

http://banjo52.blogspot.com/2014/05/spring-and-dylan-thomas-force-that.html

I'd like to think this is the bird in the gospel song: What a beautiful thought I am thinking Concerning a great speckled bird. It cometh descending from heaven On the pages of God's holy word.�...

http://banjo52.blogspot.com/2014/05/the-great-speckled-bird-is-robin.html

At Kensington Metropark the other day, I discovered an island hubbub, a rookery full of Great Egrets, Great Blue Herons, and Cormorants. Below them Canada Geese squawked. Closer to shore, red ...

http://banjo52.blogspot.com/2014/05/poking-and-prodding-ee-cummings-o-sweet.html

Golden-Crowned Kinglet, I think http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/173533 http://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Ovenbird/id Early in my walk two weeks ago, before I came upon the gart...

http://banjo52.blogspot.com/2014/04/frosts-diminished-ovenbird-small-brown.html

In my April 5, 2014 post about Jamaal May's "Hum for the Bolt," we were feeling lightning’s sneaky approach, its skill at getting near us before we realize it, then flashing a bolt of awarenes...

http://banjo52.blogspot.com/2014/04/snakes-stealth-beauty-emily-dickinson.html

Hum for the Bolt by Jamaal May : Poetry Magazine Blurred Edges “Hum for the Bolt” is the title poem of a first book by the up and coming Detroit poet, Jamaal May. We can see “Hum f...

http://banjo52.blogspot.com/2014/04/jamaal-may-hum-for-bolt-lightning.html

Blue Traveler In case you came for a poem, a discussion of Mary Szybist’s “Night Shifts in the Group Home” follows two brief travel notes from strange bedfellows on the internet. But p...

http://banjo52.blogspot.com/2014/03/more-motel-charm-plus-mary-szybists.html

Server In case you've come for a poem, here’s Detroit’s own Philip Levine on the subject of work, which seems relevant to motel dirt, as guest or as worker: http://www.poets.org/viewmed...

http://banjo52.blogspot.com/2014/03/motels-bugs-slices-of-life-and-pizza.html

Here is an excerpt from Peter Stitt's 1972 Paris Review interview with esteemed poet James Wright (1927-1980), whose eloquence here makes clear why his finished poems are so widely admired....

http://banjo52.blogspot.com/2014/02/james-wright-dog-horse-gopher-and.html

Prodigal There is much to love about Jane Kenyon’s poem, “Happiness,” Happiness by Jane Kenyon : Poetry Magazine especially if we violate the New Criticism and read her life into h...

http://banjo52.blogspot.com/2014/02/jane-kenyons-happiness.html

http://www.versedaily.org/2011/goodkisser.shtml “Why I Am Not a Good Kisser” is a Mary Ruefle romp in which we see her ample, quirky, speedy cerebellum and its thick book of informa...

http://banjo52.blogspot.com/2014/01/mary-ruefle-why-i-am-not-good-kisser.html

Cat with No Tail It’s supremely difficult to raise an anti-war poem above the level of shouted, trite protest. Vonnegut succeeded in Slaughterhouse-Five, largely because he was aware that ...

http://banjo52.blogspot.com/2014/01/mary-ruefle-kurt-vonnegut-and-problem.html

Here are two poems sharing the title “Snow,” the first by Maureen Seaton  (1991) Snow by Maureen Seaton : The Poetry Foundation   and the second by Naomi Shihab Nye (1998).  http://...

http://banjo52.blogspot.com/2014/01/two-snow-scenes-maureen-seaton-and.html

http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15745 It's hard not to talk about snow in our foot of the stuff and our single-digit temps. So, while I consider other poems on the subject, let's ...

http://banjo52.blogspot.com/2014/01/wallace-stevens-snow-man-again.html

Wood Storks, Northern Florida Somewhere, years ago, I heard of a greeting that was common somewhere in Africa. Instead of settling for "Hello," the first human says, "I see you." And the oth...

http://banjo52.blogspot.com/2014/01/an-african-greeting-is-it-poem.html

Sandhill Cranes It seems everyone wants me to like Billy Collins’ poetry, and for the most part, I do. I especially like what he and the other makers of “the poetry of accessibility” h...

http://banjo52.blogspot.com/2013/12/billy-collins-snow-day-and-gift-of-gab.html

http://banjo52.blogspot.com/2013/12/on-second-thought-silence-of-snow.html

A friend's request to see my photos of the new-to-me golden-crowned kinglet made me think of e.e. cummings’ Poem 53 and hear it as a thanks-giving as well as its more obvious prayer of be...

http://banjo52.blogspot.com/2013/11/an-ee-cummings-thanksgiving-for.html