Jan 31, 2022 | Current Ned Note, On Writing, Poetry
Great hike this month — encountered the poem The Well Rising by William Stafford, engraved in basalt near Lake Oswego Oregon. Here’s some history and context for how this poem was placed in this location, with kudos to Kim Stafford for the detail. William...
Jan 16, 2022 | Current Ned Note, Past Notes, Poetry
The poet Langston Hughes was a great inspiration to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Examples of their connection are expansive. In 1956, King recited Hughes’ poem “Mother to Son” from the pulpit to honor his wife Coretta, who was celebrating her first Mother’s Day. That...
Dec 15, 2021 | Current Ned Note, On Writing, Poetry
bell hooks (Sept 25,1952-Dec 15,2021) It is poetry that changes everything. — from bell hooks’ Bone Black: Memories of Girlhood in love there are no closed doors each threshold an invitation to cross take hold take heart and enter here at this point...
Nov 24, 2021 | Current Ned Note, On Writing, Poetry
BY W. S. MERWIN Listen with the night falling we are saying thank you we are stopping on the bridges to bow from the railings we are running out of the glass rooms with our mouths full of food to look at the sky and say thank you we are standing by the...
Sep 7, 2021 | Current Ned Note, Past Notes, Poetry
Rosh Hashanah – Sept 6 – 8, 2021 new year. Ned Hayes Rosh Hashanah comes this year on a day of cool wind, a breathtaking portent of winter taking the world, rude lover tossing the sheets away. in autumn the sadness of all things is greatest for now...
Sep 1, 2021 | Current Ned Note, On Writing, Poetry
Andrew Grace After my father died I should have gone to therapy. I tried instead to solve my grief with alcohol and poems. Now I am almost 40 and all I can tell you about grief is that when I found my father on the floor of the machine shed the radio was on and wind...
