Category: American poets

  • The Official Top 20 Countdown of the All Time Greatest Love Poems of Paul Laurence Dunbar

    _____         Paul Laurence Dunbar (1872-1906) with a friend I have been reading all the poems I can find by Paul Laurence Dunbar, in order to create another top 30 countdown. Yesterday, when I got down from the hundreds to 55 poems in order, I knew I did not want to lose […]

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  • Nikki Giovanni’s “We Are Virginia Tech”

    _____ Click on Nikki Giovanni‘s picture to be taken to the CNN article from which you can watch and listen as she stirs the crowd with her poem “We Are Virginia Tech.” _____ by Nikki Giovanni We Are Virginia Tech We are Virginia Tech. We are sad today, and we will be sad for quite […]

  • The Ella Wheeler Wilcox Top 30 Countdown

    Ella Wheeler Wilcox, 1850-1919, was an American poet and mystic, one of the two poets I can find who was labelled as Poet Laureate of Humanity, the other being Rumi. As Rumi is today, she was known to be the most read poet in America in her time. There is much to find about her […]

  • “The Scent of Ensure” by J. Shawcross

                _____                   by J. Shawcross                       “for my sister Jackie, who has a feeding tube               and a great sense of humor”       […]

  • Misplaced Leisure Water: The Displaced Function of Poetry

            In a Books Inq. blog post from yesterday, the Philadelphia Inquirer’s books editor, Frank Wilson, linked to this item in Poetry Magazine: Does Poetry Have a Social Function? Here is some of what he wrote: On New Year’s Eve, one of our dinner guests, a beautiful Chinese woman, read several classical […]

  • "’Twas the Night Before Christmas," illustrated by Jessie Willcox Smith

              pictures by Jessie Willcox Smith (1863-1935)     – – –     written, very likely, by either Henry Livingston, Jr. (1748-1828) or Clement Clark Moore (1779-1863)                         originally titled “A Visit from St. Nicholas”     now popularly […]

  • Christmastime at Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s

            Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (February 27, 1807 – March 24, 1882)         Aftermath     When the summer fields are mown, When the birds are fledged and flown,         And the dry leaves strew the path; With the falling of the snow, With the cawing of […]