Monthly Archives: February 2012

The Philosophy of Walking, by John Cowper Powys

Posted on February 29, 2012 by admin

(Have you heard of John Cowper Powys? Neither had I, until Michael Perkins treated me to A Philosophy of Solitude published by Powys in 1933. It scintillates with arguments against group thinking. Here’s a passage about walking, sex, and the … Continue reading →

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Why You Should Stand on a Mountain, from Joseph Wood Krutch

Posted on February 28, 2012 by admin

(By chance, the cover of my edition of Joseph Wood Krutch’s The Desert Year, first published in 1952, has a beautiful photograph of orange poppies flowering far into the distance below the towering pinnacles of Mount Ajo in southern Arizona. … Continue reading →

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“Walking” By Edward Abbey

Posted on February 27, 2012 by admin

(From The Journey Home.) Whenever possible I avoid the practice myself. If God had meant us to walk, he would have kept us down on all fours, with well-padded paws. He would have constructed our planet on the model of … Continue reading →

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Abraham Lincoln as the Catskill Eagle

Posted on February 23, 2012 by admin

“Embedded in the narrative of Moby-Dick is a metaphysical blueprint of the United States. Melville fills the book with telling similes and metaphors that allow a story set almost entirely at sea to evoke the look and feel of America … Continue reading →

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Two fun poems from “Liberty’s Vigil, The Occupy Anthology”

Posted on February 22, 2012 by admin

Two poems that I especially enjoyed in Liberty’s Vigil, The Occupy Anthology use form to generate great wit out of the tired language of slogans. A Villanelle for Hard Times The unending crisis—begun by the cronies of Shrub. While many … Continue reading →

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Herman Melville & Hart Crane

Posted on February 21, 2012 by admin

Nathaniel Philbrick has written a marvelous book, Why Read Moby-Dick? Let me quote: “Moby-Dick is a novel, but it is also a book of poetry. The beauty of Melville’s sentences is such that it sometimes takes me five minutes or … Continue reading →

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The Beacon Mountain Poem

Posted on February 20, 2012 by admin

Long before I grew enamored with Beacon as NoBro (North Brooklyn) with its gentrifying main street of art galleries and funky coffee houses clustered in restored brick buildings at both ends, I encountered it as a prison town. (“Be-A-Con,” a … Continue reading →

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My Elegy for Mauro Parisi

Posted on February 17, 2012 by admin

(Late in 2004 I returned from a long stay in the Adirondacks to learn that Mauro Parisi had taken his life. I hadn’t known him well, but what I had known hadn’t prepared me for this news. In this elegy … Continue reading →

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Samuel Claiborne Recalls Mauro Parisi

Posted on February 16, 2012 by admin

Robert Milby’s poem, “The Hudson River in Winter,” brought back memories of Mauro Parisi, who took his life in 2004 by jumping off a bridge. Here are two elegies by Samuel Claiborne. Mauro You were the one I first noticed … Continue reading →

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“The Hudson River in Winter” by Robert Milby

Posted on February 15, 2012 by admin

Morning Hudson River has ice on its face; Ice on its skin in late January. Ghosts fly low to kiss ice bouquets in its powerful arms, jeweled cloak; Hair rivulets and tribulations of Winter blue. I shout crow poetry from … Continue reading →

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