PAUL SCOTT DERRICK This offers two bodies of work that have grown from roots planted deep in the ancient Chinese book of wisdom, the I Ching (or Book of Changes). It isn’t my purpose to interpret or to apply any…
Looking Backward for Moving Forward
The suitcase of Hermes
Juvenile Magnolia
STEPHEN WILSON All year long I’ve been waiting on the promise of a light green cocoon whose size increased in almost imperceptible increments its tepals unable to free themselves yet always on the point of budburst as if something inside…
My Mother’s Garden
CLAUDIO SOTTOCORNOLA Regarding beauty, care, responsibility… In March 2003, when my mother unexpectedly left us, in part due to some human errors and omissions, I immediately became aware of the contrast between her way of being — generous, giving,…
Dante: An English Perspective
NICK PARKER Dante has been one of those undercurrents, a kind of basso continuo, in my life since I first encountered him forty years ago. When I lived in Alessandria in the late 70s, I was fortunate in having a…
The Wisdom of Unspoken Words
GERMAIN DROOGENBROODT How Celan’s Poems inspired me Although born in the Flemish part of Belgium where Dutch is the official language, as a youngster it was not the Flemish nor the Dutch poetry that fascinated me, but the French, Baudelaire,…
Emily’s room
ANNA STELLA SCERBO Emily Dickinson lived on poetry, poetry was her Pole star, her only reason to live. In mid 19th century Massachusetts, education had hard puritan rules. Emily suffered from that situation but claimed and got freedom without striking…
On Poetry and Morning: Twelve Observations
RICHARD BERENGARTEN 1. Dispassionate morning greets me. I breathe into rain-sounds, sleep-filled, dream-billowed. My flat roof creaks, pitter-patters. 2. It holds above me. The world that bears me confirms it’s in place. 3. But dreaming hasn’t done with me, still…