Do we imagine the dead as content in their zone, or do they express anxieties about how the world of the living functions in their absence? Poems in this episode offer contrasting answers: Frederic Weatherly's "Danny Boy"; A.E. Housman's "Is My Team Ploughing?"; Thomas Hardy's "Ah, Are You Digging on My Grave?"; John McCrae's "In Flanders Fields"; Homer's depiction of Odysseus' dialogue with his dead mother in the Underworld (from The Odyssey, Book 11); Ted Kooser's "Old Cemetery" (from Delights and Shadows, Port Townsend, WA: Copper Canyon Press, 2004), used with permission of Copper Canyon Press, coppercanyonpress.org.
“Where Is My Home?”: Do you carry in your mind images of a former landscape you lived in, an extended area you called home? ...
“Narrative Poems”: These poems offer at least an outline of a story, with a plot and some time references. Like many successful stories, substantial...
“A Redwood, an Ancient Orchard, a Sequoia”: Do you have a favorite tree you pay special attention to when you take a routine walk? ...