Category Archives: Starting from Poetry

All posts from January 2009 thru January 2012.

In the Highest Limb, Satisfied

Posted on May 31, 2009 by Adam Penna

My thoughts these days have revolved around prayer rather than poetry.  For me these two aren’t so far apart.  Many of the poems I have written are more prayer than poem, as far as I’m concerned anyway, especially if the aim … Continue reading →

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On Poetic Insight

Posted on May 8, 2009 by Adam Penna

I listened to a good friend and a fine poet lecture on teaching writing a few weeks ago.  I was impressed especially by how she goes about teaching.  Her pedagogy is very similar to mine, and I chalk that up … Continue reading →

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A Few Thoughts After a Long Trip

Posted on April 9, 2009 by Adam Penna

It is part of the poet’s job to get used to his inner rhythms, those seemingly predictable patterns which, from a distance, map his temperament.  I was reading some old poems yesterday and found that, as I have always hoped, the new poems … Continue reading →

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The Dead Don’t Sing

Posted on March 23, 2009 by Adam Penna

I was feeling pretty awful the other day.  It was the 17th.  I know that because I picked up my Book of Common Prayer, turned to the psalm reading in the psalter for the 17th day, and read psalm 88. … Continue reading →

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Ours to Love

Posted on March 10, 2009 by Adam Penna

I literally wrote myself sick last week.  Mostly I think this was because I stayed awake for twenty-four hours the day of the big snowstorm to finish a series of poems, which I began perhaps a week before that.  I don’t … Continue reading →

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On Greatness

Posted on February 26, 2009 by Adam Penna

There seems to be an anxiety felt by the Baby Boomer generation that the world, when they have gone, will cease to be.  It must be a consequence of their belief that the world, before they entered it, didn’t exist. … Continue reading →

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Noli Me Tangere

Posted on February 23, 2009 by Adam Penna

Our conceptions of God and God are not the same thing. This is why, for me, poetry surpasses religion in the knowing of God, because poetry looks to discard the concepts that don’t work to discover and embrace the ones … Continue reading →

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An Activity of the Spirit with Many Names

Posted on February 19, 2009 by Adam Penna

To write poems before midlife begins, really, is nothing much.  Nothing truly vital competes for one’s consciousness like it will soon.  And the longer we make adolescence, the less a risk writing poetry is for as long as one depends … Continue reading →

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On Dante’s Inferno, Cantos V & XV

Posted on February 13, 2009 by Adam Penna

I’ve been reading Dante lately, and have been meaning to say something about him on this blog.  Then a friend emailed me, asking about a few things related to the Inferno.  I thought I would paste my response here, since it pretty much … Continue reading →

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It Must Root in the Heart

Posted on January 29, 2009 by Adam Penna

Poetry requires living a real life.  This means daily interaction with the real world with its real requirements, and its real people with their real demands.  It is poetry, which becomes a kind of hermitage, a walled-off garden, in which … Continue reading →

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