I sat outside on a deck with my father. He spied an ant on the railing and began reciting a poem about ants, \u201cDepartmental,\u201d by Robert Frost. I was cooking us fish for supper and went to the yard to retrieve some rosemary for seasoning. When I returned, he recited the poem \u201cRosemary\u201d by Marianne Moore. He recited assorted Psalms and Proverbs during dessert. When I remarked how members of the National Therapeutic State think people are sick if they prefer being alone, my father recited a line from Emily Dickinson: The soul chooses her own society and then shuts the door<\/i>. We then segued into Donald Trump and he recited \u201cOzymandias,\u201d by Shelley, certainly the best poem ever written about Donald Trump. I mentioned to my father about the dog book I was writing and he picked up an anthology of poetry and read \u201cDream On, by John Tate. This poem contains the line: The family dog howls all night,\/ lonely and starving for more poetry in his life<\/i>. My father found a collection of Japanese tankas and read a few aloud. We marveled at their beautiful economy and extremely private nature. Somehow we started talking about anti-war films and I said my favorite was Paths of Glory<\/i>. My father asked me if I knew where the title of that film originated. I said I didn’t know. He then recited a line from \u201cElegy Written in a Courtyard\u201d by Thomas Gray: The paths of glory lead but to the grave.<\/i><\/p>\n
In the last year, poetry has become very important in my life. It has directly led me to meet wonderful new people. It has directly led me to finding a unique voice to report the non-poetic story of what I witness in probation meetings. It has directly led me to bond with my father in a way I never imagined.<\/p>\n
(If you found this post enjoyable, thought provoking or enlightening, please consider supporting a writer at work by making a financial contribution to this blog or by purchasing an NSP book.) <\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I sat outside on a deck with my father. He spied an ant on the railing and began reciting a poem about ants, \u201cDepartmental,\u201d by Robert Frost. I was cooking us fish for supper and went to the yard to retrieve some rosemary for seasoning. When I returned, he recited the poem \u201cRosemary\u201d by Marianne […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3628,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,42],"tags":[610,609,6,190,88,612,611],"class_list":["post-3627","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-meditations","category-poetry","tag-dad","tag-father","tag-matt-love","tag-oregon-poetry","tag-poetry","tag-poetry-encounters","tag-poetry-matters","has-post-title","has-post-date","has-post-category","has-post-tag","has-post-comment","has-post-author",""],"builder_content":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3627","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3627"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3627\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3629,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3627\/revisions\/3629"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3628"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3627"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3627"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3627"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}