Doug Anderson: On the consequence of a failure of imagination
Much of the good work in the world is poorly paid or done for free. Poetry would not be written, hospital and hospice sits would not be done, medical care … Continue reading
Doug Anderson: Sanity
Hands deep in loam. Leaning my face against a draft horse to hear his heart. The molasses smell of dark grain. The smell of a woman’s hair. The meadow quiet … Continue reading
Doug Anderson: After the War
. After the war, some of us had to have answers. Who were these people we’d had a war with? Where did they come from? Where did they learn to … Continue reading
Doug Anderson: The Conservative Mind
1. Believes that it is preserving the old ways, the ways of God and the “Founding Fathers” against encroaching evil. 2. Believes it is entitled to more wealth than others … Continue reading
Doug Anderson: Cyclops
Now a boy leads him by the hand down from the mountain to sit on the docks and listen to the sailors curse. Poor Polyphemus, they say, turning away from … Continue reading
Doug Anderson: Memphis, 1970
Came home from that war trailing death like ground fog. Wandered summers, did trim carpentry in Texas, bartending, landed in Memphis working for a marble mill where with old Thomas … Continue reading
Doug Anderson: The Way Back
. Dear American left (what left? who’s left?): could it be that while we were stamping our feet in righteousness the Right ran off with the store? Could it be … Continue reading
Doug Anderson: Imperfect
What if all the great ones were imperfect: the Jesus who spent his last night in terror and crying, “Could you not stay awake with me for one hour” to … Continue reading
Doug Anderson: The Fierce Economy of Eros
In creative writing classes I often have students do an exercise where they write the most down and dirty sex scene they can. I tell them that I won’t look … Continue reading
Doug Anderson: A Spiritual Practice
The word “spiritual” is problematic and yet we use it as a place holder for those things as yet untouched by metaphysics, and I dare say untouchable, or those things … Continue reading
Doug Anderson: Confessions of a Believer
My friend who hates God so much he doesn’t want him to exist really hates the pimping pastors and the Inquisitorial popes but I don’t argue with him. Atheists have … Continue reading
Doug Anderson: Tucson, 1954
One night when I was eleven, when my mother swung to hit me I reached up and grabbed her hand and was surprised at my own strength. We both knew … Continue reading
Doug Anderson: Rediscovering our world through poetry
Morning rumination: Hive mind, large and small. Some years ago, having been trained in the tight modernist lyric, the poem that adds up to the neat conclusion, usually with an … Continue reading
Doug Anderson: Power
Not the six fingered queen with her drifting eye but the hot-cheeked scullery maid, breasts resting on the plate of fruit she carries. Not the King, head-soft with syphillis but … Continue reading
