Commentary, Satire & Poetry
Because no one will pay to build His WALL-- Not Mexico, not Congress, not even the Wall Street Journal or Faux News, not anyone-- The PRESIDENT will send soldiers with guns To make sure Mexico does not invade. Nat. Guard will guard the desert (without shade) As long as Trump proclaims that they will stand On…
By John Frederick Kaufman In honor of World Poetry Day Couplets for those who don't betray The verse of stars, the vow of stones And meet the sinking sun alone-- As if a cell can bar a soul ... As if a whale can hide the whole. (Photo: Of Pieter Lastman, "Jonah and the…
By John Frederick Kaufman PEN International is profiling four poets on World Poetry Day now being held either in prisons or under house arrest for dissenting against injustice through art and/or journalism: Aron Atabek of Kzakhstan, Liu Xia of China, Amanuel Asrat of Eitrea, Dareen Tatour detained by Israel. To see what you can do…
Continue reading ➞ To Honor Poetry on World Poetry Day, Help Imprisoned Poets Across the Globe
"Tough Love" Trump will issue tariffs in "a very loving way." (He thinks that we will love him even when we lose our pay.)
[JFK: Here's a poetic perspective on politics some may call cynical, some may say stoic. Jeffers referred to his philosophical distance from people as "inhumanism." This should not, however, be confused with inhumane-ism. Jeffers built a house of stone in Carmel, CA overlooking the Pacific in the days before Carmel was a haven for wealth…
By John Frederick Kaufman Sick of screens that blind with light, I'll sing myself to sleep and let all facts arrive to you undeniably as night. I watch the snow fall silently and do not care to count. I don't want to tell you anymore what it all amounts to.
By John Frederick Kaufman For most of the 20th Century, the biggest political battle in the world of poets and poetry revolved around questions of craft: modernism vs. formalism, free verse vs. meter and rhyme. Sure, a few socially-oriented poets protested against our various wars and marched/wrote for civil rights for minorities while other, more academically-inclined…
By John Frederick Kaufman Speaking of his poetry, here's what Russian poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko, who died yesterday in Tulsa, Oklahoma at the age of 84, told the Associated Press in an interview back in 2007: "I don't call it political poetry, I call it human rights poetry; the poetry which defends human conscience as the…
Continue reading ➞ The “Human Rights Poetry” of Yevgeny Yevtushenko Very Relevant Today
A poet in a bad mood can ruin a reputation, as T.S. Eliot did for April when he called it "the cruellest month", adding an extra letter l for emphasis. I prefer what Robert Frost had to say about April in is his poem "Two Tramps in Mud Time." Mud time is what rural people…
By John Frederick Kaufman Fists and Flags "America first!" the president cried and raised his fist to punch the sky while someone punched a fascist in the head: the fist is first of many lies, grip of welcome weaponized. In my hand I hold a pen to strike out the wall-like words that slam…
By John Frederick Kaufman What better poem to turn to than one recently discovered in England, a poem written by Percy Bysshe Shelley in 1811 when he was just 18 and a student at Oxford University. No copy of the poem existed in the public realm until this month, when Oxford's Bodleian Library made it available online. The…
"International Day of Peace (“Peace Day”) is observed around the world each year on 21 September. Established in 1981 by resolution 36/37, the United Nations General Assembly has declared this as a day devoted to strengthening the ideals of peace, both within and among all nations and peoples. Furthering the Day’s mission, the General Assembly voted…
