Tag Archives: Winter

T.S. Eliot Meets Groundhog Day

If the groundhog sees its shadow today, will it fall into existential despair?–which is Eliot’s response to shadows in “The Waste Land.”

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Oliver on the Cruel Beauty of Cold

In “Cold Poem,” Mary Oliver finds a positive life message in bitter cold conditions.

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Peeped Most Piteously for Pain of the Cold

With our first snowfall, birds are swarming our feeders, bringing to mind a passage from “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight” and an Oliver Herford lyric.

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Burdened by Ice

Spiritual Sunday With much of the country groaning under the weight of winter storms, I share a Robert Hayden poem in which the speaker calls out to God in his misery. I warn you the poem does not conclude with a comforting—or a facile—promise. Sounding very much like George Herbert in his inability to pray, […]

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Snow Days Open Cracks in Time

Wednesday Checking the east coast’s weather report from Slovenia, I see that it has been blanketed by snow, closing a number of schools and workplaces. I therefore repost this essay on the joys of a snow day. Reprinted from Feb. 9, 2010 An unusually heavy snowstorm has locked us into our homes these past few […]

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How to Celebrate a Winter Storm

Here’s a January poem by Dante Gabriel Rossetti that will cheer you up if you’re being currently battered.

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Blizzard Jonas: How the Wind Doth Ramm!

In “Ancient Music” Ezra Pound voices what all those who were hit hard by the weekend’s Jonas Blizzard were thinking–and often saying.

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From the Dark, Cold Grime a Flower Comes

Mary Ann Bernard shows spring coming only with difficulty–but being all the more meaningful because of that.

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Poem for Coping with Depression

Mary Oliver’s “Poem for a Blue Heron” is a hopeful but realistic poem about coping with depression.

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