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    Crocuses
    By Adam Sedia
    • May 1
    • 1 min

    Crocuses

    You meekly poke your purple heads Through stubborn clumps of snow That yet persist in fallow beds Though balmy breezes blow; First to...
    1 comment
    The Parable of the Red Sky
    By Adam Sedia
    • Mar 15
    • 11 min

    The Parable of the Red Sky

    After crossing the Great Mountains, I saw before me, to the west, a vast and sprawling plain. Many great rivers crossed its fertile...
    6 comments
    Windmills (Benton County, Indiana)
    By Adam Sedia
    • Feb 22
    • 1 min

    Windmills (Benton County, Indiana)

    The thunder departs. Its withdrawing boom Calls to a beam of angling light That strikes the titan towers through the gloom And sets them...
    5 comments
    The New Year
    By Adam Sedia
    • Dec 31, 2021
    • 1 min

    The New Year

    The fields stretch out, bare, icy: __Wide, blank, yet-unetched slates, Tabulae rasae, waiting __The chisel of the Fates, But deep beneath...
    3 comments
    Incense
    By Adam Sedia
    • Dec 12, 2021
    • 1 min

    Incense

    A hundred tongues of smoke— Translucent wisps, lithe specters— Rise, snaking languidly, Curling, grasping like tendrils At the light they...
    4 comments
    Why Amanda Gorman Is Not a Poet
    By Adam Sedia
    • Dec 1, 2021
    • 9 min

    Why Amanda Gorman Is Not a Poet

    Amanda Gorman became something of a phenomenon, fêted as a celebrity from the moment she read her poem, “The Hill We Climb,” amid the...
    293 comments
    Whitman’s Curse: Contemporary Poetry as Solipsism
    By Adam Sedia
    • Oct 29, 2021
    • 23 min

    Whitman’s Curse: Contemporary Poetry as Solipsism

    Contemporary poetry is plagued by several characteristic vices: obscurity, banality, nihilism—each a topic for examination in its own...
    8 comments
    Autumn Leaves
    By Adam Sedia
    • Oct 1, 2021
    • 1 min

    Autumn Leaves

    Flecks of yellow gold in bright cascades, Less like the hurried rain than lazy snow, Twirl downward, throwing out their warming glow As...
    2 comments
    Beyond the Lines: Robert Frost's "Acquainted with the Night"
    By Adam Sedia
    • Sep 17, 2021
    • 4 min

    Beyond the Lines: Robert Frost's "Acquainted with the Night"

    Robert Frost’s talent radiates best from his shorter poems. His poetic voice, naturally laconic, finds its most expressive mode in his...
    2 comments
    Beyond the Lines: Shelley's "Ozymandias"
    By Adam Sedia
    • Aug 8, 2021
    • 4 min

    Beyond the Lines: Shelley's "Ozymandias"

    Percy Bysshe Shelley’s “Ozymandias” is one of his shortest works, but also one of his best known, anthologized to the point of ubiquity....
    0 comments
    Two Rains
    By Adam Sedia
    • Jun 8, 2021
    • 1 min

    Two Rains

    The Two Rains On Yorkshire’s moors, on Wiltshire’s plain, On Cornwall’s sea-sprayed craggy cliffs, the rain Hangs limp, immobile, from...
    0 comments
    The Gift of Lilies
    By Adam Sedia
    • Mar 22, 2021
    • 1 min

    The Gift of Lilies

    If angels plucked up blossoms In endless, light-drowned skies, With curved sextuple petals Glowing radiant white, Pearlescent in noon’s...
    0 comments
    Beyond the Lines: Ode on Melancholy
    By Adam Sedia
    • Jan 27, 2021
    • 6 min

    Beyond the Lines: Ode on Melancholy

    An ode on melancholy might conjure the worst stereotypes of poetry: restless youth agonizing over imagined existential crises – a...
    0 comments
    The New Year
    By Adam Sedia
    • Jan 1, 2021
    • 1 min

    The New Year

    The fields stretch out, bare, icy: __Wide, blank, yet-unetched slates, Tabulae rasae, waiting __The chisel of the Fates, But deep beneath...
    1 comment
    Nebula
    By Adam Sedia
    • Nov 16, 2020
    • 1 min

    Nebula

    When my time has come And helium Weighs down on my exhausted core, Spent from shedding light Through the endless night Until the fuel...
    0 comments
    Clarity and Obscurity: Eliot's Masks
    By Adam Sedia
    • Sep 15, 2020
    • 41 min

    Clarity and Obscurity: Eliot's Masks

    T.S. Eliot means many things to many different people. Like Yeats he won the Nobel Prize in Literature. In the academy he numbers among...
    0 comments
    Ode to Spring
    By Adam Sedia
    • May 25, 2020
    • 2 min

    Ode to Spring

    O life-affirming season, mild and fair Yet bursting with life, rousing long-dulled sense, Whose spark of youth electrifies the air Heavy...
    0 comments
    Dawn  Herald
    By Adam Sedia
    • Mar 30, 2020
    • 1 min

    Dawn Herald

    Night broods heavy, dark, and still – Its darkest, stillest hour, When the damp, dead airs chill And the starlight glows dour. I roam the...
    0 comments
    Beyond the Lines: Frost's "Fire and Ice"
    By Adam Sedia
    • Mar 16, 2020
    • 4 min

    Beyond the Lines: Frost's "Fire and Ice"

    Anyone who has ever attended a commencement ceremony in the United States has certainly heard Frost’s “The Road Not Taken,” often recited...
    0 comments
    Clarity and Obscurity IV: Yeats and the Occult
    By Adam Sedia
    • Oct 30, 2019
    • 28 min

    Clarity and Obscurity IV: Yeats and the Occult

    Modernism produces obscure poetry because it denies the existence of absolute truth. Without a fundamental truth to reveal, poetry is...
    0 comments
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