two big eyes:
face in a tree trunk
unsettles me.
Tree Face [Senryū]
Reply
Category Archives: Poetry
American Beautyberry [Haiku]
Beautyberries,
dense clusters of fuchsia,
lure hungry birds.
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Autumn Shadows [Haiku]
autumn long shadows
of a tuft of tall grass
etch rocky ground.
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BOOK: “A Poetry Handbook” by Mary Oliver
A Poetry Handbook: A Prose Guide to Understanding and Writing Poetry by Mary OliverMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
Publisher site — Ecco
This is an excellent soup-to-nuts primer on poetry writing. While it would be a great tool for someone just beginning their poetic journey — i.e. one who didn’t yet know iambic pentameter from trochaic tetrameter — it also offers some nuggets of wisdom for one who is farther down the road. Mary Oliver had some unique ways of thinking about, or expressing thoughts about, the art.
The book does cover ideas relevant to both modern and traditional poetry. In this regard it has an advantage over, say, Stephen Fry’s The Ode Less Traveled in that Oliver considered both free and metered verse to be poetry.
The author uses the occasional poem or fragment from a variety of poets to make her points but doesn’t get bogged down in examples or analysis of poems.
Among the discussions that seemed better or more insightful than those in other such books were reflections upon the role of imitative exercises as well as exploration of the value of workshops and feedback.
I’d highly recommend this book for poets and serious poetry readers.
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FIVE WISE LINES [September 2026]
Luck, diligence, spontaneity, and inspiration
Mary oliver; A Poetry Handbook
are all needed to write a poem.
…above all let us never accept as cause for what we do not comprehend something we comprehend even less.
Marquis de sade; Juliette
…wise people don’t tell us what to do;
david brooks; How to know a person
they start by witnessing our story.
The race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong,
Hunter s. thompson; The Rum Diary
but to those who can see it coming and jump aside. Like a frog evading a shillelagh in a midnight marsh.
We do not see things as they are,
Anaïs Nin
we see them as we are.
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Autumn Afternoon [Haiku]
Autumn afternoon,
light warms a copse of pines;
beyond: crisp blue sky.
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Head of the Table [Haiku]
yellow bird perches:
the chairback at table's head.
it's eyed like a boss.
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Slaughter-bot [Free Verse]
Clumsy Kung Fu robots
will become slaughter-bots
in our time.
What they lack in Zen spontaneity
and warrior ethos they will make
up for in speed, power, and
dense metal alloy.
Replaced limbs will make them more
-- not less -- capable fighters.
Will a battling robot ever wonder
How did we get here?
or
What is the point?
Or will it only wonder why it is
using its feet as impact weapons
when it has ray-guns?
(It is a little like building a typing pool
of robots... only way, way cooler.)
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Speed Kills [Kyōka]
speeding across
the river bridge by car,
i miss the scent --
sweet riverine perfume --
that I'd smell from the bank.
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Askew [Haiku]
a tree grows, askew;
canopy stretched one way -
wind can’t shake it.
