This was my challenge for the Celtic component of the Bardic Quest at War of the Wings, 2017.  Boasts have a particular prominence in Celtic mythology: the most famous is the Song of Amergin, but the boasts in Mac Datho’s Pig are also notable.  Audio version You call yourselves Bards? That word is mine– My Mother Tongue gave […]

So, this happened:  Mine is the penultimate piece.   It was interesting to be recorded.  Like many people, I had a hard time getting used to the sound of myself, but I think I’ve now messed with recordings enough now that I do indeed recognize my own voice at a remove. Everyone involved with this […]

When Tethera was in full swing, our performances at Celtic festivals tended to include question and answer sessions, because, well, we have an small, interesting and interested group of fans.  A question we got several times was: “What sort of creation myth did the Celts have.”  And the three of us would explain that while […]

Here I go, using any excuse to evangelize about a poet I like.  Medbh McGuckian is fantastic, and she has a great sense of compression.  I posted a lovely poem of hers over on the quasi-knitting side of my interweb presence.  Both are about love, of course, but in very different ways. Blood-Words Medbh McGuckian […]

It would be pretty lame if a poetry blog couldn’t get its act together to participate in the Blogger’s Silent Poetry Reading, huh? I’m going to cheat, because I’m like that. At first I was going to post my favorite Lauterbach, but I already have an excuse to do that, so then my brain started […]

Originally posted by Rachel   Well, I can’t make Lanea find all of the wool poems all by herself, can I? A sentimental old favorite, this one, by Christopher Marlowe. Come live with me and be my love, And we will all the pleasures prove That valleys, groves, hills, and fields Woods or steepy mountain […]

John Dyer’s The Fleece is one of those works that few people read but everyone should.  Well, everyone should read it but it’s really hard to get copies.  Dyer was Welsh, and his family, being Welsh, knew a lot about sheep.   The Fleece is an epic–four volumes of blank verse–about sheep, published in 1757.   It’s […]

by James Still(1937) The spider puzzles his legs and rests his webOn aftergrass. No winds stir here to breakThe quiet design, nothing protests the weavingOf taut threads in a ladder of silk:He is clever, he is fastidious, and intricate;He is skilled with his cords of hate. Who can escape through the grass: The crane-flyQuivers its […]

by E.B. White The spider, dropping down from twig,Unfolds a plan of her devising,A thin premeditated rigTo use in rising. And all that journey down through space,In cool descent and loyal hearted,She spins a ladder to the placeFrom where she started. Thus I, gone forth as spiders doIn spider’s web a truth discerning,Attach one silken […]

Here he is again, making a splash in Slate this time, where James Longenbach reviews Muldoon’s latest book of poetry and mentions some of Muldoon’s essays (haven’t read any of it yet, myself–such a poor scholar these days).   Take a peek, and maybe it will make you fall for Muldoon like I have. I’ll intended […]