Category Archives: Anthology

My collected writings and those of family members.

When You’re Gagging on Humbug, Remember Someone Fondly

Posted on March 7, 2025 by JMN

The family must have had a matriarchal streak, for I was grandly mothered. Grandmother had a choir-dominating soprano voice in the native stone church. She knew her way around the hymnal. Could coax some harmony from the ivories of an … Continue reading →

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Coda to the ‘Strawberry Roan’

Posted on February 27, 2025 by JMN

Only once before have I presumed to “write a song.” I use scare quotes because I’ve really no idea how it’s done. This latest go-round involves new lyrics for an existing tune. I posted the first version here, and have … Continue reading →

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A Bath of Warm Syrup Cooked from Stalk Cut in the ‘Family’ Canebrake

Posted on February 22, 2025 by JMN

My car radio is newly parked on my local country-western music station. It’s giving me the opportunity to hear music tangled in my ranch roots. The music partakes of both the familiar and the strange. In certain respects I’ve changed … Continue reading →

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Looking and Listening Versus Seeing and Hearing

Posted on February 20, 2025 by JMN

I relish the tension that exists between certain verb pairs often used as roughly synonymous. This isn’t scientific, but here’s how I think of a couple of common verbs: “Look” describes the action of directing the eye to a focal … Continue reading →

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Are You Riding the Strawberry Roan?

Posted on February 3, 2025 by JMN

I assume “Scarborough Fair” is an old melody, though it’s sometimes hard to distinguish what’s echt and what’s ersatz in the matter of “traditional” airs.  Simon and Garfunkle did a defining version of the song for my generation. I like … Continue reading →

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‘I Don’t Belong to Any Religion’

Posted on January 13, 2025 by JMN

In previous posts, I’ve mentioned that I don’t belong to any religion. (Friedrich Zettl) I always read Mr. Zettl’s blog, Zettl Fine Arts, with great interest and profit, no less his latest entry. It takes no more than his first … Continue reading →

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‘When All Three Pounds of Me Came Earthside…’

Posted on January 11, 2025 by JMN

The tiny speaker in Megan Denton’s “A Girl and Her Fireplace” (Poetry, December 2024) is off to a shaky start. Born on a new moon, one minute after my sisterand one pound less, my ribcage was full of roosting songbirds … Continue reading →

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A Poem Is Like an Emergency

Posted on January 4, 2025 by JMN

First responders plunge into scenarios that need to be made sense of quickly. I call myself a first responder to poetry, and not a critic, but the poetry I read is published, so at least one other reader more qualified … Continue reading →

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Three Scholars ‘Explain’ the Kama Sutra. It Doesn’t Go Well.

Posted on January 2, 2025 by JMN

The two male scholars urgently want to talk about what’s dealt with in the Kama Sutra that’s not, um, you know, the sex part.  BBC4 moderator Melvyn Bragg presses them, saying the sex part is why the book’s famous in … Continue reading →

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Manly Love Trumping Other Love for the Moment, But Not in Poetry

Posted on December 28, 2024 by JMN

Cigar this life and light it with the sun. / Breathe this poem in. (From “Gratification to the survivors of daily damnations” by Oladejo Abdullah Feranmi) The rest of Feranmi’s poem says this: […] Own a spot on a cliff … Continue reading →

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