Welcome!
My recent and upcoming readings:
Sunday, March 22, 2020, 5 pm
Two of my poems are the text of "Far Past War," a new choral work by my sister, composer Augusta Read Thomas. The work will be performed by the Cathedral Choral Society at March of the Women, their celebration of women's suffrage and women composers.
Washington National Cathedral
3101 Wisconsin Ave., NW, Washington DC
For more information:
Click here for Augusta's website.
Click here for the Choral Society's website.
Sunday, March 15, 2020, 3 pm
With two other poets TBA
Blue Whale Poetry Series
Unity of Santa Barbara
227 E Arrellaga St, Santa Barbara, CA
Saturday, Oct 5, 2019, 7:30 pm
"Poets and Painters"
Julia Lisella, Bob Carr, Joyce Swagerty, Amy Clark, Nancy Boutilier, Kathy Nilsson, and I will read poems responding to the work of local painters.
Munroe Saturday Nights
First Parish Church
7 Harrington Rd, Lexington, MA
Click here for details.
. . .
Poem of the Month:
Horses
by Pablo Neruda
From the window I saw the horses.
I was in Berlin, in winter. The light
was without light, the sky without sky.
The air white like wet bread.
And from my window a vacant arena,
bitten by the teeth of winter.
Suddenly led by a man,
ten horses stepped out into the mist.
Hardly had they surged forth, like flame,
than to my eyes they filled the whole world,
empty till then. Perfect, ablaze,
they were like ten gods with pure white hoofs,
with manes like a dream of salt.
Their rumps were worlds and oranges.
Their color was honey, amber, fire.
Their necks were towers
cut from the stone of pride,
and behind their transparent eyes
energy raged, like a prisoner.
And there, in the silence, in the middle
of the day, of the dark, slovenly winter,
the intense horses were the blood
and rhythm, the animating treasure of life.
I looked. I looked and was reborn: without knowing it,
there, was the fountain, the dance of gold, the sky,
the fire that revived in beauty.
I have forgotten that dark Berlin winter.
I will not forget the light of the horses.
~ from Full Woman, Fleshly Apple, Hot Moon
Translated by Stephen Mitchell
