VESPERS IN THE BARRENS [Revised] These hills were carved by Carnegie’s and Thompson’s full ferrous might. The jack and pitch pine’s brown paper needles and rigid brawny cones… I have submitted this poem to a journal so it is incomplete here.
VESPERS IN THE BARRENS [Very early draft] Men’s insatiable digging rendered this landscape bare for decades. But now the jack and pitch pines festoon the floor with their brown paper needles, their rigid brawny cones. I’ve walked these paths for thirty years, paths where black bears check my intentions before snapping to attention, bolt, and … More VESPERS IN THE BARRENS
Like many of you, I’m thinking about why Anthony Bourdain’s suicide has hit me. Celebrity deaths—even the deaths of celebrities I love or admire—don’t usually affect me much. But Bourdain has and I think I know why. Part of it is that suicides have affected my life. Four of my friends have committed suicide over … More A moment of reflection on the suicide of Anthony Bourdain
A few years ago I lived at a boy’s boarding school. The Kiskiminetas Springs School—Kiski—rests on 350 acres in rural western Pennsylvania. There was a run I loved to do there. From spring through fall, I’d run off of campus, across a pair of bridges, to an old canal trail paralleling the Conemaugh River. A … More Eulogy to a fox
My father died seven years ago today. He loved woven words. They were the closest sound to divinity for him. In them and through them, he connected to our family, his friends and colleagues, and thousands of students. It was a testament to his passion for language and connection that so many of those students … More Woven words were the closest sounds to divinity. Seven years on, I miss you dad.
Since I have submitted this poem to a journal, I’m taking down the full draft. O MAGNUM MYSTERIUM ON ROARING RUN Why when I turned back did I almost put my senses away, as if walking back were perfunctory, unworthy of care and attention…
In January, I read from Heartwood at Webster’s Bookstore and Cafe. Here are some videos that my publisher, Penny Eifrig, took. J. Harlan Ritchey’s art is at my feet in the videos. He drew the cover and internal art in Heartwood. “The Omega Rite” is the opening poem in the book, a sort of overture … More Reading at Webster’s: The Omega Rite, The Fox, Open for Business, and Hume at the Melting Places
Today is Poem in Your Pocket Day. So what’s in my pocket? “A Stone,” a poem I’ve been working on since last summer. A single stone can seem at once to be just itself while also being the story of its place. They are beautiful metaphors for the events of our lives. Stones are the poetry of … More Stones are the #poetry of experience
The last poem I posted, “The Omega Rite,” is something of this poem’s inverse twin. Their structures and themes come from the same place but move in almost opposite directions before meeting again. They are, then, the alpha and the omega of the poems I’ve written over the last year’s project, encompassing their themes and … More The Alpha Rite: See the end at the beginning and the beginning at the end
“The Omega Rite” The creation stretches its fingers to penits dicta in no uncertain terms: This is the end. There is noend. This is the beginning. There is nobeginning. You will see. But you will notsee it unless youseeitwritten. See it.Read it. Read … More The Omega Rite: A poem on the beginning as the end and the end as the beginning
Peter Walks for Democracy 