‘The Parkland, Florida, School Shooting’ by Bruce Dale Wise The Society February 20, 2018 Culture, Poetry, Terrorism 16 Comments This life—O, how much more of it remains? The night is brief. Toward those short trees, we saw a bird, descending with our grief. Chris Hixon,...
‘ Which Is the Grandest Name of All?’ and Other Poetry by Ted Hayes The Society February 20, 2018 Beauty, Culture, Human Rights in China, Humor, Poetry, Short Stories 7 Comments Which Is the Grandest Name of All? Which is the grandest name of all? Churchill, Churchill, Churchill! Winter sere or crimson fall Churchill,...
‘Ballade on the Man Who Could Have Killed George Washington’ by Ron L. Hodges The Society February 19, 2018 Culture, Poetry, Short Stories 8 Comments “But it was not pleasant to fire at the back of an unoffending individual…so I let him alone.” —Major Patrick Ferguson, British Expeditionary...
‘Night Watch’ by Jordan Hege The Society February 18, 2018 Beauty, Poetry 19 Comments Tonight, I saw the moon Stalking me, watching me Hiding surreptitiously. She knows I know she's there She knows I do not care Reasons for and...
‘Limerick’ by Annie Acho Tartoni The Society February 18, 2018 High School Submissions, Humor, Limerick, Poetry 6 Comments There once was a girl named Shelly. who bought a pet fish by the deli. But to her surprise, with fear in her eyes, she saw the fish dead on its...
‘Insomnia’ and Other Poetry by Joe Tessitore The Society February 17, 2018 Beauty, Humor, Poetry 23 Comments Insomnia Many's the night I lie in bed with words to write that fill my head. They twist and turn and jump and shout. Oh how I yearn to get them...
‘Lost in Thought’ by Marie Davids The Society February 16, 2018 Beauty, Poetry 4 Comments She sits in thoughtful silence, chin in hand, That old blue skirt hem covers her thin knees. Gazing west, the sunset’s silvery...
The Power of Poetry: A Traditional Chinese Story The Society February 15, 2018 Culture, Short Stories, Translation 6 Comments Fenghan Gao was an outstanding artist of the Qing Dynasty (1644-1912 AD). He had profound wisdom and was multi-talented; he was good at writing poems...
‘Sonnet for Elizabeth’ by Joseph Charles MacKenzie (with Audio) The Society February 14, 2018 Beauty, Poetry, Readings 23 Comments I fear no more the settling of the night Or mind its grey, evaporating shades; Mine ears are deaf to time’s lost serenades, Mine...
‘Swallows’ by Leo Yankevich (with Video) The Society February 13, 2018 Beauty, Culture, Poetry, Readings, Video 8 Comments https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rjc_6R0ang8&feature=youtu.be It was once thought that swallows wintered on the moon, or morphed...
Essay: On Edgar Allan Poe’s Search for Supernal Beauty and His Five Greatest Poems The Society February 12, 2018 Best Poems, Essays, Poetry, The Raven 6 Comments . by David Bellemare Gosselin Today, seldom is Edgar Allan Poe's voice heard as it's drowned out by the popular notions of Poe as some sort of...
‘Brother Be’ by Andrew Todd Ramirez The Society February 12, 2018 Beauty, Culture, Poetry 12 Comments Like feathered tip of swooping sparrow Our kinship cuts like that of arrows A brother’s love has weakened me I’ll take the slice, so...
‘William Blake’ by David Paul Behrens The Society February 11, 2018 Beauty, Culture, Poetry 3 Comments In another lifetime I was William Blake When I saw his work That was my take He wrote about love And the human heart I thought I was...
‘The Harvest’ by Teri Skultety The Society February 10, 2018 Beauty, Poetry 4 Comments The sparkle on the river, the lights from distant shore, the cold and bitter glitter, the beckoning of more, Is beautiful to look at, ‘tis a...
‘Those Days and These’ and Other Poetry by Jane Blanchard The Society February 9, 2018 Culture, Humor, Poetry 6 Comments Those Days and These “‘. . . Macbeth does murther sleep.’” —William Shakespeare If only such a villain were __Alone in this regard, The...
‘Between the Trees, Along the Path – Monon Trail, Carmel IN’ by Rosaleen Crowley The Society February 8, 2018 Beauty, Culture, Poetry Between the trees, along the path I hear the woodpecker tap tap tap. Beneath the bridge, cyclists roll through Pedaling and laughing two...
‘Flower of Choice’ and Other Poetry by David Watt The Society February 7, 2018 Beauty, Culture, Humor, Poetry, Short Stories 16 Comments Flower of Choice On native Australian flowers The wattle bears her gold in early spring As luminescent beads on woody strings, Spreading perfume...
‘Cutting Remarks’ by Jennifer Hinders The Society February 6, 2018 Humor, Poetry 2 Comments How wonderful of God to hold us together, When man is prone to tear us part, Said the surgical student thoughtfully, As he practiced his...
Essay: Unmerited Neglect: A Look at Three Longfellow Poems The Society February 5, 2018 Beauty, Culture, Education, Essays, Poetry 5 Comments By Carter Davis Johnson In a period where American literature was considered peripheral and amateur, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882)...
‘The Fall of Jerusalem’ by Ron L. Hodges The Society February 4, 2018 Poetry 2 Comments Jeremiah 52 When Judah rebelled against the Chaldean horde, They sought to gain freedom without help from the Lord, Trusting, instead, in the...
On ‘Hylas and the Nymphs’ Removal from a British Art Museum and Other Poetry by Bruce Dale Wise The Society February 3, 2018 Art, Beauty, Culture, Deconstructing Communism, Poetry 8 Comments (All poetry by Bruce Dale Wise) Hylas and the Nymphs by Beau Ecs Wilder John William Waterhouse's "Hylas and the Nymphs" must go; enchanting,...
‘A Sonnet Riddle’ by Sharon Zhou The Society February 3, 2018 Poetry, Riddles 11 Comments I’m born from a forked tongue’s hissing mutter, An ungrounded half-truth, forceless and tame. Just like a spark struck from flint I shudder At...
‘The Deer Crossing’ by Ken Allan Dronsfield The Society February 2, 2018 Beauty, Poetry 6 Comments Sun slowly dipping in the western sky; the winds are light and the pine boughs tossing. From their warm, peaceful beds the meek and...
‘A Robin’s Song’ by Connie Phillips The Society February 1, 2018 Beauty, Poetry 6 Comments A robin should fly south before the snow, With others in the flocks of migrant birds, Quite safe amid this seas’nal ebb and flow— To...
2018 Poetry Competition Winners Announced The Society February 1, 2018 Poetry, Poetry Contests 8 Comments First Place ($500 Prize): C.B. Anderson, Massachusetts “Stonewalls Sometimes a Prison Make” “Praise for the Mother of Summer”...
‘Thoughts on January 31, 2018’s Complete Lunar Eclipse’ and Other Poetry by Amy Foreman The Society January 31, 2018 Poetry 21 Comments Read about last night's lunar eclipse here. Thoughts on January 31, 2018’s Complete Lunar Eclipse Reflected Glory, full and...
‘The Drunken’ (A Raven Parody) by J. Simon Harris The Society January 30, 2018 Humor, Poetry, The Raven 6 Comments Once upon a midnight dreary, while I wandered, drunk and weary, Over many a quaint and dimlit alley of forgotten doors— While I plodded, barely...
‘The Last Time I Saw Paris’ and Other Poetry by David Whippman The Society January 30, 2018 Beauty, Culture, Poetry 10 Comments The Last Time I Saw Paris You have imagined how it was, I expect: Troy’s famous towers burning, the city wrecked, the lines of weeping...
‘Sort of Old’ and Other Poetry by Heidi Griminger Blanke The Society January 29, 2018 Culture, Humor, Poetry 6 Comments Sort of Old I take my senior discount at restaurants and stores. I cover up my gray hairs with Clairol reservoirs My...
‘At Lincoln’s Tomb’ and Other Poetry by Adam Sedia The Society January 28, 2018 Beauty, Culture, Deconstructing Communism, Poetry 11 Comments At Lincoln’s Tomb Springfield, Illinois, 2016 Be glad you cannot rise to life and stand Outside that tomb to die again from shame At Illinois,...
‘Firing Truman Capote on a Snowy Evening’ by Con Chapman The Society January 27, 2018 Culture, Humor, Poetry 9 Comments Truman Capote was fired from his job as a copy boy for The New Yorker after he angered Robert Frost. Whose kid this is, I do not know, He seems to...
Translation of Dante Canzoni ‘Amor che ne la mente mi ragiona’ The Society January 26, 2018 Beauty, Dante, Poetry, Translation 3 Comments By David B. Gosselin The nature of the subject matter discussed in Dante Alighieri’s lyric poetry, his canzoni, has been debated time after...
Rediscovering Percy Shelley’s Greatest Work: ‘Prometheus Unbound, with Other Poems’ The Society January 25, 2018 Beauty, Best Poems, Culture, Essays, Poetry, Reviews 8 Comments By Brett Forester Writing but one fine, enduring poem is a remarkable achievement. Writing a book of great poems is an even rarer triumph. Yet in...
‘Stone Walls Sometimes a Prison Make’ by C.B. Anderson The Society January 24, 2018 Beauty, Human Rights in China, Poetry 5 Comments Stone Walls Sometimes a Prison Make What might have happened once in Carolina To folks whose only wish was for some peace Is commonplace...
‘The Garden of the Gods’ and Other Poetry by Elizabeth Spencer Spragins The Society January 23, 2018 Beauty, Culture, Poetry 2 Comments The Garden of the Gods A Cywydd Llosgyrnog When storm clouds hid the Manitou*, They cloaked invaders from his view: Giants* who...
‘Perked Coffee’ and Other Poetry by Bob McGinness The Society January 22, 2018 Culture, Humor, Poetry 7 Comments Perked Coffee Things today are bad and getting worse, examples always seem to us abound: service for consumers seems perverse, and music...
Translation of the Iliad’s Beginning by J. Simon Harris The Society January 21, 2018 Culture, Education, Epic, Homer, Poetry, Translation 7 Comments Homer’s Iliad I.1-47. Translation in the epic hexameter, the meter of the Greek. Sing of the wrath, my goddess, of Peleus’ son Achilles, doomed...
‘The Breaking Season’ by Annabelle Fuller The Society January 21, 2018 Beauty, High School Submissions, Poetry 9 Comments Lips, soft as velvet, primrose pink, Are rent the blue of bruising ink. They rive and crackle in the cold, Retract in tissue paper...
‘On Reading Ginsburg’s “Howl”’ and Other Poetry by Gregory Spicer The Society January 20, 2018 Beauty, Culture, Humor, Poetry 13 Comments On Reading Ginsburg’s “Howl” Once, I possessed an open mind, Which I assure you was my own. I used it to read Ginsberg’s...
Review: What Is Shen Yun All About? The Society January 19, 2018 Beauty, Culture, Deconstructing Communism, Essays, Human Rights in China, Music, Performing Arts, Poetry, Reviews 42 Comments By Evan Mantyk Advertising for it is everywhere. If you haven’t seen it, you just haven’t been paying attention. A brilliantly colored image...
