http://themillennialpedestrian.com Poems about walking around in Central Park ... and other places. Tue, 03 Jun 2008 13:21:00 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en This poem came my way via another poetry site, "American Life in Poetry," hosted and edited by the former Poet Laureate, Ted Kooser. It makes me want to know more about the work of R. S. Gwynn, and to eat something unhealthy. It helps if you’re familiar with "Pied Beauty," ... http://themillennialpedestrian.com/2008/06/03/r-s-gwynns-fried-beauty/ Commercial Intrusion At last! A comprehensive guide to the best places to eat in my new home town, Providence, RI. It’s a great city for dining and one that has sadly been withoout an up-to-date, comprehensive restaurant guide for about five years. Now, thanks to a year of dedicated research, that ... http://themillennialpedestrian.com/2008/05/05/commercial-intrusion/ This little look back into adolescence by Bill Matthews appears in a new book called The Making of a Sonnet, edited by Edward Hirsch and Eavon Boland (Norton). Even if you never saw an NBA game with a date in the late ’50s, if you’re male, you can identify. And ... http://themillennialpedestrian.com/2008/04/10/willam-matthewss-cheap-seats/ There were complaints about the Billy Collins poem, “Parade.” Some found it morbid and depressing. To address this issue, here’s another poem about death! This one’s from the inimitable Hilaire Belloc, an Englishman of the early 20th Century whose classic work is Cautionary Tales for Little Children. In these delightfully ... http://themillennialpedestrian.com/2008/03/31/hilaire-bellocs-henry-king/ The Parade    By Billy Collins How exhilarating it was to marchalong the great boulevardsin the sunflash of trumpetsand under all the waving flags –the flag of desire, the flag of ambition. So many of us streaming along –all of humanity, really –moving in perfect sync,yet each lost in the room of a ... http://themillennialpedestrian.com/2008/03/10/billy-collinss-the-parade/ TMP is going on vacation – all the way to New Zealand, where we’ll be biking on the South Island. It may be inspiring (I hope so) but there won’t be any opportunities to stop and post poetry. So until early in March, the blog will be idle. That doesn’t ... http://themillennialpedestrian.com/2008/02/10/kay-ryans-dutch/ This poem is a good example of poetry doing a small thing so much better than prose could. A possum tries to cross a busy L.A. intersection: the raw ingredient for a "Metropolitan Diary" piece in the N.Y. Times. In the hands of Larry Levis, this minor urban vignette takes ... http://themillennialpedestrian.com/2008/01/28/larry-leviss-the-oldest-living-thing-in-la/ Well, in winter’s dreariest hours, food, drink and poetry about food and drink can lift our spirits. Roy Blount was a Sports Illustrated writer when I worked there in the promotion department many years ago. He was a joy to read back then and it turns out he’s still got ... http://themillennialpedestrian.com/2008/01/19/roy-blounts-song-to-onions/ In E.L. Doctorow’s novel World’s Fair there is the most wonderful description of the German dirigible Hindenburg’s 1937 passage across the Bronx as she headed for her mooring in Lakehurst, NJ: "She sailed incredibly over the housetops, and kept coming right toward me, … and kept coming and kept coming ... http://themillennialpedestrian.com/2008/01/03/hindenburg/ The stars don’t care what we do, let alone how long we live. Auden’s poem seems especially apt at this time of year, this time in life, and this time in our history, as it must have to Auden when he wrote it in 1947. (The phrase "lacrimae rerum," by ... http://themillennialpedestrian.com/2007/12/30/w-h-audens-a-walk-in-the-dark/