What’s your favorite rainy day song?
Photo courtesy Gabriel Santiago |
Introduction by Ted Kooser: I’ve talked a lot in this column about poetry as celebration, about the way in which a poem can make an ordinary experience seem quite special. Here’s the celebration of a moment on a campus somewhere, anywhere. The poet is Juliana Gray, who lives in New York. I especially like the little comic surprise with which it closes.
Photo courtesy Schicka |
When you’re faced with a big, overwhelming project or experience, how do you cope?
Note: I'm taking a more relaxed approach to blogging this summer, so occasionally I'm going to rerun a previous post. I hope you enjoy this one, from 2013.
When I started writing this post, I had just gotten back from riding my bike for the first time in…years. My kind husband recently cleaned out the garage, brought my bike down from the ceiling where it had been suspended, pumped up my flat tire, lubed the chain and adjusted the seat so it’s just right. I finally wheeled it out onto the nature trail, and while I hadn’t exactly forgotten how to ride a bike, let’s just say that I didn’t look very graceful doing it. There was some irrational weaving and one or two interesting experiments with gears and braking, but soon I was pedaling happily down the trail. I wasn’t very skilled, but at least I didn’t hit a tree.
Still practicing... (Photo by Holly Bryan) |
Introduction by Ted Kooser: Surely, some of you have paged through an old book and come upon a dried flower, fragile as a spider web, the colors faded. Here’s a fine poem about pressing flowers by Chelsea Woodard of New Hampshire, from her book Vellum.