We Two Boys together Clinging /Walt Whitman
I promised myself to read more Walt Whitman this month. I always had a slight allergy to his loose-limbed lines but inspired by my visit...
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Alistair Appleton
Jan 315 min read
What does Buddhism have to say about sexuality and gender?
New member Fran, coming from a progressive Islamic mosque in Canada, was interested in Buddhism’s stance on gender and sexuality and so I...
969 views14 comments
Alistair Appleton
Sep 5, 20221 min read
Paul Hoover / House of Cedar, Rafters of Fir
Hoover is not a poet I’m familiar with but another that I discovered on the excellent Poetry Foundation app. He is riffing on the imagery...
196 views4 comments
Alistair Appleton
Aug 15, 20222 min read
From "Out on the lawn, I lie in bed" / WH Auden
A very Audenesque Auden poem from 1933 that undercuts the dreamy, chummy pastoral of the first few stanzas with an unsettling meditation...
1,385 views2 comments
Alistair Appleton
Jun 20, 20222 min read
The Swan / Mary Oliver
Mary Oliver is the best-selling poet in America by a long shot. And her life, mostly in Provincetown, Massachusetts but in her last years...
557 views4 comments
Alistair Appleton
Jun 13, 20221 min read
Thunder / Elizabeth Bishop
I love Elizabeth Bishop's poetry. The Moose and The Sandpiper are both masterpieces. But I came across this uncollected sonnet of hers...
421 views8 comments
Alistair Appleton
May 30, 20221 min read
Lana Turner Has Collapsed / Frank O'Hara
I love Frank O'Hara's poetry and I wrote an IG post on his birthday a few months ago. "One of the most delicious and intoxicating poets I...
191 views1 comment
Alistair Appleton
May 26, 20221 min read
We're building the ship as we sail it / Kay Ryan
Kay Ryan is an erstwhile America Poet Laureate and a Pulitzer Prize winner. But what is so delicious about her poem are the mordent...
461 views5 comments
Alistair Appleton
Jan 21, 20224 min read
Every broken heart is sacred
The final blog in my series of seven from 2013 is perhaps the juiciest of them all. I was all tender from a very intense, heart-breaking...
257 views2 comments
Alistair Appleton
Oct 11, 20216 min read
Coming out is (still) good for you
This is an article I wrote almost 10 years ago but it still seems to hit the right note. COMING OUT IS GOOD FOR YOU. This article was...
89 views1 comment
Alistair Appleton
Aug 25, 20101 min read
A Rumi quote
This Rumi quote seems to encapsulate how wonderful the mindfulness was on Holy Island last week. Out beyond ideas of wrong doing and...
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