Sonnets for Ashley Faye: Sonnet 3

This sonnet has been published online by the Society of Classical Poets. It follows in the footsteps of one of my favorite traditions: writing about the inability to write about something. In this case, the ineffable "something" is a perfect moment one early morning in the Spring after our son, Luke, was born.

How can I write you anything, my love?

How can I write your smile in fourteen lines?

A hundred thousand lines are not enough,

much less to write the splendor of your mind.

How can I write the way I felt today,

when I awoke before the morning sun,

and in the bedside lamplight, there you lay,

smiling, watching me sleep, nursing our son?

How can I write the way your hair appeared,

red in the lamplight, fallen on the bed?

Or how your voice fell softly on my ears

like angels singing everything you said?

How can I write a sonnet true enough
for even one true moment of my love?

Sonnets for Ashley Faye: Sonnet 2

This sonnet has been published online by the Society of Classical Poets. I wrote it after one of our annual visits to her grandmother's farm in upstate NY.

Last year, we watched a million fireflies

at Grandma Bartlett’s farm, twinkling in the trees

as if reflecting all the billion stars

against the treetops rippling in the breeze.

My memory is dim, but in the dark

I think we reached to hold each other’s hand;

and in the moonlight, warmed each other’s heart;

and let out sighs across the glowing land.

That night, I saw my future in the swarms

of swirling lights: the dancing of those wraiths

revealed a thousand fears, a hundred harms,

and yet a hundred hopes, a thousand faiths;

and in the dance, I seemed to see your smile—
love of my life, and mother of my child.

Sonnets for Ashley Faye: Sonnet 1

This sonnet has been published online by the Society of Classical Poets. It was the first sonnet I ever wrote for my wife, Ashley Faye Harris.

I’ve awed at the Atlantic’s bluest depths,

and peered at the Pacific’s deepest blues;

the warm blue summer waters of Key West,

and cold blue winter on the Charles, too.

I’ve watched the moon rise up above the Thames,

the stars upon a Minnesota lake;

I’ve seen the morning sun reflected in

the misty sweep of San Francisco Bay.

But nowhere in the world have I seen blue,

and nowhere have I seen the shimmering sky,

come close to matching what I’ve seen in you

when something lights a smile in those blue eyes.

As if an ocean hides beneath your face,
as if a heaven shines behind your gaze.

Three sonnets published

Three of my sonnets have just been published online by the Society of Classical Poets! I wrote each of them for my wife, Ashley Faye Harris. I'm thrilled to share my feelings for Ashley with my readers, and I hope you will enjoy the poems. You can check them out now on the SCP website, and I will also post them here on the website over the next three days.

Translation of Sappho, Fragment 58, published

My translation of Sappho's Fragment 58 (otherwise known as the "Old Age" poem, or sometimes the "Tithonus" poem) has been published online by the Society of Classical Poets. I have added it to the website as well, in the new section for translations other than the Iliad and the Inferno.

Sonnet published

My sonnet, "Unrequited Love", was just published by the Society of Classical Poets. The sonnet begins like a traditional Italian love sonnet, but ends with an ironic twist. The scenario was inspired by a scene in Dante's Vita Nuova, in which Dante is staring at Beatrice but is thought to be staring at a woman in between them, whom he begins to call the "screen lady".

I won a translation contest!

I just won the 2018 translation contest from the Society of Classical Poets! The award was given to me for my translations of Homer's Iliad I.1-47 and Dante's Inferno I. In addition to the honor of winning the award, I also received a $100 check! Not too bad for a broke graduate student. Many thanks to SCP for putting on the award. Also, please check out the list of winners to see the winners of the other annual contests put on by the Society (original poetry, original prose, and high school poetry), including links to the winning poems. Congratulations to all of them!

The Drunken (a parody of The Raven) officially published

My parody of Edgar Allan Poe's "The Raven" has been officially published by the Society of Classical Poets. You may remember that the parody, entitled "The Drunken", won first place in the long poem category of the Society's "Funny Food Poetry Contest" last year; but the poem itself only ever appeared in the comments section of the contest page (posting comments was how one entered the contest). Now, the Society of Classical Poets has seen fit to give the poem an official page of its own! Many thanks to the Society, to my readers, and to all fans of Edgar Allan Poe. It was a joy to write this parody of one of my favorite poems, and I'm thrilled that it has a proper page now.

Iliad translation published

The first 47 lines of my Iliad translation has been published by the Society of Classical Poets! It is an honor to be published, and I've gotten a lot of generous comments from readers already.