Today is Pi Day. Because it falls so close to my birthday, I used to be obsessed with Pi Day and pi in general. When I was 17 or so I decided to memorize pi to the 314th place (NERD!). I broke up the task into chunks and memorized pi to the 31st decimal place […]
Category Archives: Poetry Analysis
Song of the Hermit Thrush – “A benediction on the air”
Recently I watched an episode of Leslie the Bird Nerd on YouTube about the Hermit Thrush and remembered the little bird I saved from the netting in the chicken run in October last year. I dove into learning about the Hermit Thrush and discovered some beautiful poems inspired by this powerful little singer. All About […]
Elly is Baptized, Lambs, Lost Letters
As an atheist, heathen, pagan, I had many people try to evangelize me. Usually, they focused on questions of how. “How do you explain the existence of the eye,” was one that stands out, but there were many others. They were always challenges to explain the existence of life, the universe, everything… in the absence […]
High School Senior – by Sharon Olds
I read through a book of poetry this morning and I flipped to “High School Senior” by Sharon Olds. One of the things I love about good poetry is its ability to render feeling visible. Yes, here is the color and shape of my morning. For seventeen years, her breath in the house at night, […]
Ophelia in the River Revisited
I shared this poem before and I wanted to offer an explanation of what it means to me, since the image of Ophelia is one of someone who commits suicide by drowning. That is not a theme I am exploring in this poem, I promise! I have always been a visual thinker. Thoughts come as […]
Song of Songs
I’m auditing a course this summer from Saint Bernard’s School of Theology and Ministry one free course summer audit program. There were so many interesting courses to choose from, so it was difficult to choose. Ultimately, I chose A Mystical Commentary on the Song of Songs: A/D325: MY BELOVED IS MINE, AND I AM MY […]
Poetry Analysis: Two Views of a Garden
Mary Oliver’s “On Not Mowing the Lawn.” and Andrew Marvell’s “Garden” both deal with themes of nature, gardens, and the reversion of order to wildness. “On Not Mowing the Lawn” is exuberant and commands us to let the lawn be, to let the grass spring up and the birds sing and the crickets chirp. In […]
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