Be warned, poetry has its downsides and its wild sides. It may seem innocent enough, but like a calm ocean, it can produce sneaker waves you’ll never see coming. Of course, some poetry instantly puts us off because of its ambiguity or paradoxically because of its offending clarity. These poems are easy to spot however,…
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“Poems we love are just songs we must sing again and again.” –dale biron As an average or even avid reader of poems, we should know how badly we are outmatched. It’s not fair how poems say what they don’t mean one minute, then mean what they don’t say the next. Writers of poems are surely on to…
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The half-life of my courage can be short. I need small, consistent boosts of inspiration. Poems work well! –Dale Biron For many friends and loved ones, this is a time of deep cultural anxiety. There is a feeling that this time it’s more than simply partisan bickering, but that the fabric of our very democracy…
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All poems are discovered poems, and those we love, miracles. Whether we luckily find and read a poem written by someone else, or stealthily stumble upon one that we ourselves write. The love and the process for me are virtually the same. Again, both are miracles. And miracles happen in our minds, hearts and souls….
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Let’s be gentle with ourselves. Try to stay calm. And if not calm, a little less anxious. This has been a pretty rough election cycle. But as an old political science major, I can’t deny it’s also been strangely exciting and gratitude-provoking. What…? It’s true, gratitude sometimes arrives in paradoxical packages. Meaning of course, we can’t be grateful for what…
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The little piece of writing below (maybe a poem) recently scurried into a page of my notebook during one of my morning writing sessions. Later I realized it must have bubbled up from a recent conversation with a psychotherapist friend of mine about how challenging it can be to keep our deepest promises. I mean the…
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There are two essential dimensions of leadership: “plumbing,” i.e., the capacity to apply known techniques effectively, and “poetry,” which draws on a leader’s great actions and identity and pushes him or her to explore unexpected avenues, discover interesting meanings, and approach life with enthusiasm. ––James March, Stanford Professor Emeritus Cancer! The word itself hisses, stings and…
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Years ago at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, I majored in political science. It hasn’t helped me stave off a deeper despair than I’ve ever felt before regarding our politics. Our democracy is in as much danger and pain as I’ve ever seen before. When I say, God help us these days, I really…
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