In a writing class last fall, my teacher asked the class to recall a smell from our past. We then followed the memory wherever it took us. I was amazed at how vividly things came back to us. We were made with such a powerful sense of smell, inevitably tied to thought and memory. What […]

Art by Zach Franzen — The Dining Habits of Polonius Wheeler By S. D. Smith THERE was a large giant who lived in the woods, His name was Polonius Wheeler. He mostly was nice, just a singular vice, He sometimes became a sheep-stealer. Wheeler rolled in, nonchalant, to the meadow, And much to the shepherd’s […]

Who Has Seen the Wind? By Christina Rossetti  Who has seen the wind? Neither I nor you: But when the leaves hang trembling, The wind is passing through. Who has seen the wind? Neither you nor I: But when the trees bow down their heads, The wind is passing by. Jamin Still hastily created this […]

[Image by Brook Burling.] My boys and I are spending a year with Emily Dickinson. We read poetry every day together, and she stashed away enough in her boxes under her bed to give us plenty to discover during the coming year. Nothing gets you acquainted with a poet like reading their verses for months […]

If you’re looking to start reading poetry regularly in your family, Robert Louis Stevenson’s A Child’s Garden of Verses is an excellent place to begin. You may be surprised at how some of the poems are already familiar to you! The following poem is one of our favorites from the collection, and it comes first […]