by Warren Gaston | Sep 22, 2018
A man with a stein of stout sits down to read a poem, but first he takes his frothy beer and blows away the foam. The words are poetic, the stanzas melodic, the rhythm made to rhyme, the metaphor is romantic, a rose in wintertime, words basic but not dumb, a semantic...
by Warren Gaston | Sep 17, 2018
What Poems Get Done Poems are the exploration of the common ground of human experience with the common ground of a language. Everyone has experiences throughout the day. Everyone uses language throughout the day. What most of us don’t do is look at our experiences...
by Warren Gaston | Sep 15, 2018
I am reading a book on the Swiss artist Alberto Giacometti (1901-1966) in an attempt to rouse up my language. He knew things I want to know and expressed things I want to say. With immense vision and skill he used metal, plaster, paint, and clay to create gaunt...
by Warren Gaston | Sep 12, 2018
“I am a Muslim,” our guide announced over the loudspeaker as our tour through Istanbul began. “I am a Muslim because I was born in Istanbul. If I had been born in Rome I would be a Catholic. If I had been born in New Delhi I would be a Hindu. If I had been born...
by Warren Gaston | Sep 10, 2018
I had an uncle we called ‘Vest’ who lived out in Arizona. He would make rare visits to see my mom, his younger sister. There were twelve years between them and a continent and several worlds. “Why Vest?” I asked him of his uncommon name. “You’re mother called me...
by Warren Gaston | Sep 7, 2018
The hawk’s immaculate eyes. gaze down from its drift and spots a flash of brown shimmer disturbing distant grass. Assuming I know the hawk’s first thought, instinctual, immediate and without doubt, I wonder if there is a second thought, measured, reflective and...
by Warren Gaston | Sep 5, 2018
When I hear a violin in the hand of a master, it is hard not to think of dead goats and their guts, or a horse disturbed by its slightly altered tail, or think of a maple forest grieving one of its own, or think of discipline, hours and hours of practice. I think of...
by Warren Gaston | Sep 4, 2018
Alive in Language To write poetry is to be alive in language. To be alive in language means to live in awe of language, our most fundamental human accomplishment. To be alive in language is to be fascinated by language. Sight and sound, the seeing and hearing of...
by Warren Gaston | Aug 31, 2018
Whatever happened to rhyme? Poems can no longer be defined as writing that rhymes. Since the 19th century with poet pioneers Emily Dickinson and Walt Whitman, rhyming has gone out of vogue. Nowadays few do. Most modern poems do not, at least not rhymes stuck neatly at...
by Warren Gaston | Aug 28, 2018
“Our view of man will remain superficial so long as we fail to go back to the origin of silence, so long as we fail to find, beneath the chatter of words, the primordial silence, and as long as we do not describe the action which breaks this silence. The spoken...
