Johannes Hofer was a Swiss medical student who coined the term “nostalgia” in 1688. It meant homesickness, and was understood as a real medical condition. This poem came into being because I was thinking about Hofer’s cure for nostalgia, and about other possible cures. “Stay, thou art so fair” is from Goethe’s "Faust."
Donna Stonecipher on "The Ruins of Nostalgia 15" |
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Poetry for Valentine's Day
Valentine's Day is tomorrow and our team has handpicked a batch of beautiful poems from our archive to celebrate love in all its forms—love for each other, for our world, and for ourselves. If you would like us to send a poem to your Valentine(s) at zero cost, just click the red envelope on the left.
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"Moss, Madness and Microcosms"
Dennis James Sweeney talks about his new book, You’re the Woods Too. "The idealization of the natural world, and human aspirations to 'be more like it,' are really a fundamentally human problem, except to the extent that those human problems ultimately cause real-world environment destruction. That’s why, for me, the book is always arriving at nature as a reflection rather than a solution."
viaHARBOR REVIEW |
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What Sparks Poetry:
Evie Shockley on Language as Form
"I found this truism (which seems to readily reproduce itself: 'one sin begets another,' 'one tragedy begets another,' 'one wedding begets another') bubbling up in my brain. If only one vote begat another in that inevitable way, I sighed, thinking of how hard it was to get women’s right to vote established as the law of the land—and of how long it was after that before Black women were able to exercise their 'women’s rights.'" |
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