“Snow was general all over Ireland…” The last paragraph of Joyce’s The Dead

Yes, the newspapers were…

An example of the elegance of clear and simple speech in poetry

When I write a poem I try to keep the words as simple and true as I can manage. The temptation to show-off with language is always there, and the temptation to force meaning will make me pause and doubt the words. I know…

A Poem for Two Trees

Two trees
I studied the topographical map once
To find out the secret of the two big trees
In the lower yard. They were…

Finding the truth doesn’t bring redemption

Yesterday I flew from the east coast to Los Angeles and watched two movies that were uncanny in the similarity of their view of the human condition.

The moral synchronicity was more startling for the cultural chasm between the two…

The act of creation promises Love

Know that it is good to work. Work with love and think of liking it when you do it. It is easy and interesting. It is a privilege. There is nothing hard about it except your anxious vanity and fear of failure.

Barbara Euland, If You Want to Write

The lure of life, the sense of tears: a Pogues classic

There was a time once when the opening bars of this song — almost any by the Pogues, really — would bring the sense of tears to the corners of my eyes, a tightness across my chest. There was so much Love that had been lost, so much…

Tryptophan

The things I couldn’t learn in school: chemistry, physics, other languages. These have become the things that are at the core of…

Shades of blue light

I shared a bus ride in Ireland once with a French man who carried more photo equipment than clothing. It was 1979 and the bus ran local stops up into Donegal from Killybegs. I was on my way to a little town called Glencolumkille, where I’d spent a timeless week in a cottage with six other…

What’s this about Love & Creativity?

If you are writing without zest, without gusto, without love, without fun, you are only half a writer.
Ray Bradbury

Work with love and think of liking it when you do it.
Barbara Euland