{Poet, Paul Willis reflects on To Blossoms by Robert Herrick}

To Blossoms

Fair pledges of a fruitful tree,
Why do ye fall so fast?
Your date is not so past
But you may stay yet here a while,
To blush and gently smile,
And go at last.

What, were ye born to be
An hour or half’s delight,
And so to bid good-night?
‘Twas pity nature brought ye forth
Merely to show your worth,
And lose you quite.

But you are lovely leaves, where we
May read how soon things have
Their end, though ne’er so brave;
And after they have shown their pride,
Like you a while, they glide
Into the grave.

—Robert Herrick (1591-1674)

Robert Herrick may not be as spiritually sincere a poet as George Herbert, but he awakens me to the beauty and pathos of nature as few other writers do.  For the wistful spirit of carpe diem, he is unsurpassable.  “To Blossoms” is one of his many … Read More »

{in this piece, writer Daniel Bowman and students Hannah Hanover and Robbie Maakested discuss Recluse Freedom, a new book of poetry by John Leax.}

When Antler asked me if I’d review Jack Leax’s new book of poems, Recluse Freedom, I had mixed feelings. I’d written about Leax’s work before, having recently published a two-part career-spanning interview with him here. I wasn’t sure I’d have much to discover that I hadn’t already explored. And yet I couldn’t pass up the chance to write about the new book, which I’d read in manuscript form and loved for many reasons.

First, Recluse Freedom is the perfect follow-up to 2005’s Tabloid News, a book in which Leax dramatically abandoned the earnest first-person poetic persona that had become barely distinguishable from his own voice. In doing so, he broke a contract with his readers—a move that both … Read More »

A review of Pruning Burning Bushes, by Sarah M. Wells. Wipf & Stock, 2012.

In this volume Sarah Wells joins the ranks of lyric poets committed to documenting the pulse of the spiritual within the ordinary. The challenge for any poet working in this mode is to distinguish her voice from the many others writing in a similar form, to transform the “formula” of event/reflection into something luminous, something that makes the reader pause a moment. At her best, Wells demonstrates that often the best way to do this is to be as specific and particular as possible.

The poet in this mode, as the Romantics taught, is not necessarily the one who has extraordinary experiences but the one who is awake to all experience and turns to language to give that experience form, definition, name. The poet notices what Wells calls … Read More »