In an essay written 12 years ago, I announce a special event with a backdrop of Mary Oliver’s blackberries.
Sign up for my weekly newsletter
Tag Archives: Marriage
The Joys of August Blackberries
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged "August", August, courtship, fertility, Mary Oliver Comments closed
Poems that Celebrate Long Marriages
Two poems to celebrate our 50th wedding anniversary, by Kunitz and Fanthorpe.
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged "Atlas", "River Merchant's Wife", "Sonnet 116", "Touch Me", "When You Are Old", 50th marriage anniversary, Ezra Pound, Relationships, Stanley Kunitz, U.A. Fanthorpe, W.B. Yeats, William Shakespeare Comments closed
To Julia, Upon 49 Years of Marriage
A James Weldon Johnson poem for our 49th wedding anniversary.
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged "Only Beauty That Is Never Old", James Weldon Johnson, wedding anniversary Comments closed
Lit Steels Spines in Face of Pressure
One answer to how Austen’s Fanny Price resists the unrelenting family pressure to marry Crawford: she has read Richardson’s “Clarissa.”
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Clarissa, Family, Jane Austen, Mansfield Park, Samuel Richardson Comments closed
A Father’s Day Poem about Tenderness
For upcoming Father’s Day, here’s a poem about father tenderness by Li-Young Lee.
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged "Gift", Father's Day, fathers and sons, Li-Young Lee Comments closed
To Julia, Who Turns 70 Today
I celebrate my wife’s 70th birthday with a Christina Rossetti love poem.
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged "I Loved You First", birthdays, Christina Rossetti, love Comments closed
You Are the Salt of the Earth
Jesus telling the disciples they “the salt of the earth” reminds me of Clifton’s poem “salt.”
Verbal Combat Trumps Soft Romance
Shaw contributed some great plays to the feuding couples comedy genre, including Man and Superman and Pygmalion.
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Aphra Behn, C. S. Lewis, feuding couples comedy, George Bernard Shaw, Horse and His Boy, Man and Superman, Much Ado about Nothing, Pygmalion, Rover, Taming of the Shrew, William Shakespeare Comments closed
The Roots of a Beautiful Marriage
Spiritual Sunday Every time I visit Slovenia (six times now, the first two for year-long Fulbrights), I learn something new. In my most recent visit, I discovered it is common for couples to live together for years before getting married (if they ever do). While I can’t speak to overall statistics, I talked with several […]