In a Dark Time … The Eye Begins to See

I was struck by Wagoner’s “Thoreau and the Snapping Turtle” because I had just finished my series of essays on Thoreau and was, like most readers, struck by Thoreau’s sensitivity and deep commitment to Nature. In fact, it’s hard to think of the “nature movement” in modern America without thinking of Thoreau. I [...]

Some of my favorite Wagoner poems can be found in the section of Traveling Light: entitled From Through the Forest: New and Selected Poems 1977-87 sections 1-3. My favorite poem is probably still “Getting There,” the first Wagoner poem I ever cited in this blog and, in my opinion, one of his greatest [...]

My favorite poem in the section of Traveling Light entitled “From Walt Whitman Bathing (1996)” is found in “Sequence: Landscapes” and is entitled “Mapmaking.” Like most of my favorite poems it uses nature as a metaphor for exploring human nature. Mapmaking It’s an old desire: a sketch of part of the earth There in your hands. You touch [...]

Although I was disappointed to find that there were only eighteen new poems in Traveling Light, after all I already owned all the other poems, I was happy to find several that I liked. Some like “At the Summit” reminded me of old themes as the poem seemed an update to “Getting There,” but others [...]