Tag: poetry
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Why I Read Poetry
When my kids were little, I told them early on: don’t let your school get in the way of your education. Our education system kills beautiful things within us, and one of those casualties is our love for poetry. Poetry. I’m not talking Hallmark cards, or boxes of candies, or any of that shit. I’m talking…
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“Nighttime Reading With Marcos: Pablo Neruda”
This is a special segment of TWB podcast, called Nighttime Reading with Marcos. I read every night, and sometimes, when I’m really getting into it, I talk to myself. So I thought, what the heck, turn on the recorder and share it with listeners. This first one is on a poem by Chilean Pablo Neruda,…
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To Read, Perchance, to Survive.
There were always books in the house. My father, a mechanic and coal miner, loved history and science. Mom read historical novels and mysteries. Somewhere around fifth grade, I got into the James Bond series. We didn’t own any of these books; Mom and I visited the local library in Rogersville, Tennessee (population 4,802) once…
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We’re all gonna die.
Death is something we don’t like to think about much, especially our own. I don’t believe it’s good to dwell on it too much, because there’s a lot of life to live. But that life really doesn’t mean much without death. Think of it as a deadline that you never know when it’s gonna come.…
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Poetry and Injustice
This week we pulled over from our regularly-scheduled program of. . .whatever it was I was gonna teach–maybe it was the villanelle form; anyway–we got off track in order to discuss the United States’ president’s decision to end the DACA program (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals). The basics: DACA promised the children of immigrants two…