Month: July 2012

Meet the Poets: Edwin Arlington Robinson – 1922, 1925 and 1928 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry

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“And thus we all are nighing
The truth we fear to know:
Death will end our crying
For friends that come and go.”
— Edwin Arlington Robinson

Edwin Arlington Robinson (December 22, 1869 – April 6, 1935) was an American poet who won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry three times: in 1922 for his first Collected Poems, in 1925 for The Man Who Died Twice, and in 1928 for Tristram.

Much of Robinson’s poetry contemplates the problem of how the self might separate itself from a rigid society, yet remain as a tutelary spirit. In the end Robinson’s decision would seem to have been that this could best be done by eschewing the dramatic catastrophes–vengeance, martyrdom–and offering instead temperate ironies, cool understatements and a language calculated, like Wordsworth’s, to heal. This decision, as one looks back now from the present with its poetry of scrimshaw, its poetry of sociology, requires one to say that Robinson chose not to write for any particular time, for “any particular time” likes to have salt in its wounds. Equally it requires that one say that Robinson wrote for all time, for “all time” wants to be made healthy and to survive. — Radcliffe Squires from Edwin Arlington Robinson: Centenary Essays. Ed. Ellsworth Barnard. Copyright © 1969 by the University of Georgia Press.

For more information on Edwin Arlington Robinson see: http://www.english.illinois.edu/maps/poets/m_r/robinson/about.htm

Meet the Poets: Robert Frost – 1924, 1931, 1937, and 1943 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry

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“Poetry is when an emotion has found its thought and the thought has found words.” — Robert Frost.

Robert Lee Frost (March 26, 1874 – January 29, 1963) was an American poet. He is highly regarded for his realistic depictions of rural life and his command of American colloquial speech. His work often employed settings from rural life in New England in the early twentieth century, using them to look at complex social and philosophical themes. One of the most popular and critically respected American poets of his generation, Frost was honored often during his lifetime, receiving four Pulitzer Prizes for Poetry (1924, 1931, 1937, and 1943). He was the 1958 and 1959 United States Poet Laureate.

Your can read more about Robert Frost at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Frost.

Photo credit: The picture is of Robert Frost, American poet, taken in 1941.The source is the Library of Congress. New York World-Telegram & Sun Collection. The photographer was Fred Palumbo, World Telegram staff photographer. “No copyright restriction known. Staff photographer reproduction rights transferred to Library of Congress through Instrument of Gift.”

Meet the Poets: James Merrill – 1977 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry

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“Free me, I pray, to go in search of joys
Unembroidered by your high, soft voice,
Along that stony path the senses pave.”
— James Merrill.

James Merrill was an American poet. His poetry falls into two distinct bodies of work: the polished and formalist (if deeply emotional) lyric poetry of his early career, and the epic narrative of occult communication with spirits and angels, titled The Changing Light at Sandover, which dominated his later career. Although most of his published work was poetry, he also wrote essays, fiction, and plays.

Beginning with the prestigious Glascock Prize, awarded for “The Black Swan” when he was an undergraduate, Merrill would go on to receive every major poetry award in the United States, including the 1977 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for Divine Comedies. Merrill was honored in mid-career with the Bollingen Prize in 1973. He would receive the National Book Critics Circle Award in 1983 for his epic poem The Changing Light at Sandover (composed partly of supposedly supernatural messages received via the use of a Ouija board). In 1990, he received the first Bobbitt National Prize for Poetry awarded by the Library of Congress for The Inner Room. He garnered the National Book Award for Poetry twice, in 1967 for Nights and Days and in 1979 for Mirabell: Books of Number. He was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1978.

You can read about James Merrill at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Merrill

Poem: Why Won’t You Talk?

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Why Won’t You Talk

Why won’t you talk?
About the things that you feel
Yes it’s you and me
We share a common history

What can I do?
To get through to you
What can I say?
To make your pain go away

Once you enjoyed being in my arms
Your personality charmed
You were made for me
We shared our destiny

But now distant you’ve become
Like the setting sun
A million miles away
You never want to play

Despair has overtaken you
More deadly than the flu
Will you ever return to me?
The girl once that I did see

While we share our life
As husband and wife
Somewhere gloom and despair
We were a handsome pair

To death do we part
Was our pledge from the start
I will stay the course
God’s strength is my source

I count myself blessed
I married the best
A lover and a friend
Faithful to the end

A companion for life
Together we survived strife
You’ve put up with me
Forever grateful I will be

Still, I wonder … why won’t you talk?
About the things that you feel
Yes it’s you and me
We share a common history

2008
Jimmie A. Kepler
Originally published in WORDS…RHYMES…POETRY & PROSE!

Image by Tumisu from Pixabay

Poem: By the Big Creek

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By the Big Creek

I was hiking
By the big creek
On an summer day
In the bright sun
It was so hot
And I was all alone

Lost in my thoughts
My foot struck the pathway
To the cadence
Of the music
I was listening to
On my iPod

By the big creek
There were people
Reading signs saying keep right
And a concrete path
With city dwellers walking
To and fro

Lovers hand in hand
And it all made sense
Except for the litter
On the big creek’s banks
While across the way
Was a broken down barbed-wired fence

In the bright sun
Not a cloud in the sky
There was sweat on my brow
Running down my temples
As an old lady walked by
And she smiled at me showing her dimples

It was so hot
I drank some water
Lots of cool water
And the temperature
Was 110 degrees
And that was in the shade

Lost in my thoughts
My foot struck the pathway
To the cadence
Of the music
I was listening to
On my iPod

While I was hiking
By the big creek
On an summer day
In the bright sun
It was so hot
And I was all alone

© 2011
Jimmie A. Kepler

Poem: Becoming a Writer

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Becoming a Writer

To become a
Writer

You must read
Books

and

Often write your
Story

In mind-numbing solitude,
Alone.

© 2012
Jimmie A. Kepler

Hell’s Highway by George Koskimaki

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George Koskimaki was 101st Airborne Division commanding general, General Maxwell Taylor’s radio operator. He wrote the three-book history of the 101st Airborne during World War Two. Hell’s Highway: Chronicle of the 101st Airborne Division in the Holland Campaign, September – November 1944 is the second book in the series.

I had previously read Cornelius Ryan’s “A Bridge to Far”, Stephen Ambrose’s “Band of Brothers” and “Citizen Soldiers”, Robert Kershaw’s “It Never Snows in September: The German View of Market-Garden and the Battle of Arnhem, September 1944”, Martin Middlebrooks’s “Arnhem 1944: The Airborne Battle” (focusing on the British specifically at the Arnhem sector), and James Gavin’s “On to Berlin”. All of the books gave good presentations and different points of view of Operation Market Garden. George Koskimaki’s book is based on interviews with more than six hundred paratroopers journals the soldiers intense personal accounts. It gives the vivid previously untold versions of the Screaming Eagles’ valiant struggle.

Hell’s Highway gives us something not covered in the other books. It tells of the Dutch people and members of the underground and their liberation after five years of oppression by the Nazis. It shares how they have never forgotten America’s airborne heroes and how the 101st endangered and even sacrificed their lives for the freedom of the Netherlands and Europe.

While some readers may find the book hard or even tedious to get through because of the detail, I did not. The personal accounts gave vitality to the story. It kept it flowing instead of reading like a military after action report. Mr. Koskimaki did a superb job of telling the history the 101st Airborne Division during Operation Market Garden.

The book is just right for beginners and experts of the 101st Airborne Division. The three books George Koskimaki wrote on the 101stAirborne Division are 1) D-Day with the Screaming Eagles, 2) Hell’s Highway: Chronicle of the 101st Airborne Division in the Holland Campaign, September – November 1944, and 3) Battered Bastards of Bastogne. I highly recommend the book.

Poem: The Teacher and The Little School

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The Teacher and The Little School

The day began as many others.
The alarm clock sounded disturbing the night’s rest.

She lay there for a few moments
wiggling her toes
feeling the cool of the morning.

She always slept with her feet outside the covers.
She missed the days
when she had a husband
to help keep her warm.

Quickly the morning routine of
personal hygiene,
getting dressed,
eating breakfast and
Bible reading and prayer were completed.

Exiting the modest apartment
she scrapped the ice off the windshield
of her ten-year old Honda Accord.
Placing the key in the car’s ignition switch and
turning the key in a clockwise direction,
the engine started.

The minutes she sat
letting the engine warm up
seemed like a half-hour.
Scanning the car’s radio she found her favorite station.
She listened to a morning Christian devotional.
“How long a minute can seem
when you’re in a rush,” she thought.

Placing the right hand
on the gear shift lever,
she shifted the car’s transmission
from park to reverse.
Looking in the rear view mirror
Ensuring all was clear behind her,
she slowly removed her right foot
from the brake pedal.

The car started rolling.
With this movement
the car seemed
to come to life.
Her daily trek
to the little school
where she worked
as a kindergarten teacher
had begun.

A smile came to her lips
as she reflected on the little school.
Eight months earlier, she was a total stranger.
The prospects of a mysterious work environment
full of unknown co-workers and dozens of unknown
kindergarten aged children had frightened her.
Yet, today the realization of the loving environment
of the little school made a smile come to her lips.

She couldn’t help it.
Enjoyment was received
from her labors with her class.
All was not perfect at the little school.
But, she had already learned
in her fifty plus years,
all is not perfect anywhere.

The anticipation of being
with the teachers, teacher’s aides
and the kind late middle-aged man principal was strong.
Stronger still was her eagerness to see
the five and six-year-old children in her kindergarten class
where she attentively served as their teacher.

The dear young children
in this class loved her.
She knew they cared.
They hugged her legs
and knees daily telling her so.

At last, the twenty-minute drive from home was completed.
She arrived at the little school.
She wished the travel was shorter,
though she loved listening to the morning devotionals on the radio.

Placing her right foot on the brake brought the car to a stop.
After returning the gear shift lever to park and turning off
the ignition all signs of life left the vehicle.

“I’m here.” The smile broadened on her face as she exited the car.
She realized she was about to receive more joy and love than she would give.

©1990
Jimmie A. Kepler