Author Archive

Peter’s Summer "Job"

Dear Friends,

From the south of D.C. between the curves of the Potomac underneath the shade of a Hickory tree, Greetings! I would like to share with you all some points of interest. I am, for now, technically unemployed; that’s right, I have remained strong, I’m not working at Ruby Tuesday!

I have been “hired” by my father as a Research Assistant for his upcoming book on Hilaire Belloc. So I basically get paid to research and read Belloc – I’m not complaining.
So far I’ve read The Way Out and I will be starting First And Last.
Mostly I attend to the visiting of friends and inns and taverns.
Arrivederci,
Peter

Coffee House at the Quincy House

Playing music at the Quincy House’s Open Mic in Downtown DC with JT Kennelly


Saturday June 06, 2009 (D-Day Anniversary)

Enjoy!

-Peter Bloch

An adventure for a poem

I came across this poem a while back, but it should remind us to have adventures always, no matter how old we get. It is by Mark Van Doren, a devout Catholic and legendary professor of English at Columbia back in the day. He taught Dr. John Senior, and (I believe) Paul Spring’s father. I respect this man as a poet, teacher, and critic. This poem falls under “Adventure” poems; Van Doren has the muse in him, and it permeates his poetry

A Dream of Trains
Mark Van Doren

As long ago they raced,
Last night they raced again;
I heard them inside me,
I felt the roll of the land.
I looked out of a window
And I was moving too;
The moon above Nebraska,
Lonely and cold.

Mourned for all of the autumns
I had forgotten this:
The low hills that tilted,
The barrenness, the vast.
I think I will remember now
Until the end of the world
How lordly were the straightaways,
How lyrical the curves.

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