static dragonfly
perched on a water lily;
speeds: zippy & dead.
Two-Speed [Senryū]
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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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DAILY PHOTO: Zipaquira Street Art
PROMPT: Relationship
Which relationship has taught you the most about yourself?
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My relationship to sensation.
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Autumn Afternoon [Haiku]
Autumn afternoon,
light warms a copse of pines;
beyond: crisp blue sky.
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DAILY PHOTO: Zaftig Ladies of Fernando Botero
PROMPT: Business
If you could start a new business right now, what would it be?
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A “Human Skills for Humans School” that teaches all the important competencies that have been left out of an educational system that is 75% about making the workers of yesterday and 25% about making citizens, but which doesn’t care a whit about building emotional intelligence, self-confidence, natural setting problem solving, movement skills, creativity, primitive living, combat skills for a robot apocalypse, etc. Those worker bee skills are already starting to show their obsolescence and are very likely to continue to do so at an accelerating rate.
The bad news is that AGI and robots are sure to do almost all productive tasks better than humans by the end of the century. The good news is that we have plenty of room to be grow as a species.
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DAILY PHOTO: Embalse Peñol-Guatapé
PROMPT: Healthy Eating
What are your best healthy eating habits?
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Don’t eat after 7pm. Make vegetables and fruit the largest component of consumption by mass.
Alternatively, I can get behind anything in Michael Pollan’s Food Rules, as summarized by his haiku:
eat food.
mostly plants.
not too much.
