The Art of Touch

The song by Caroline Herring - Tales of the Islander - evokes the work and spirit of the wonderful artist, Walter Inglis Anderson who spent many of his days in nature wondering - and working with watercolors. Caroline and Walter help give us a connection with our home in the larger world of nature.

So-called “protest” songs represent all songs in a way - all songs protest something that stands in the way of human dreams coming true - all our songs summoning and strengthening compassionate response (whether it be for true love or political justice.)

This is a paper I wrote for “The Art of Confessional Poetry” at Texas State University taught by Cyrus Cassells. I am reprinting it here since someone requested to see it. It is a long essay on some selected 20th century “confessional” poets.

A poem on the tragic mysteries of war and the many compartments of the human heart.

A story from an early “initiation” at Chicago’s Brookfield Zoo.

“Frogs don't usually swallow water like we do. Instead they absorb most of the moisture they need through their skin.”

This is not a reflection upon the Stone’ new album

a poem I’ve written in memoriam to Louise Glück, one of the great and most courageous modern American poets

When I was 16 and Bob Dylan 23, he played a concert with my guitar.

In 1972 I lived in Munich, Germany for a year studying music composition with a composer, Wolf Rosenberg. I rented a room in an apartment on Hohenzollern Strasse, where soon a very “bad guy” moved in.