Backward Mutters

  • A Golden Shovel: The Sudden Surprise of Joy

    A Golden Shovel: The Sudden Surprise of Joy

    The Day Five poem prompt was to write a poem using the form of the Golden Shovel. I chose Christian Wiman’s poem, “From a Window” as the source for my golden shovel. You may read Christian Wiman’s poem HERE, and you may listen to him read it below. My poem…

  • Humble

    Humble

    The third day prompt for Poetry Pub’s November Poem a Day Challenge is “Humble.” In writing this poem, I found myself caught up in a memory and taken along. That is the way of the mind sometimes. In his collection of essays titled, Wayfairing, Alan Jacobs comments on this phenomenon…

  • The Stinking Bishop Came Today!

    The Stinking Bishop Came Today!

    The second day prompt for Poetry Pub’s November Poem a Day Challenge is “Cheese.” G.K. Chesterton in his essay, “Cheese,” writes, “My forthcoming work in five volumes, ‘The Neglect of Cheese in European Literature,’ is a work of such unprecedented and laborious detail that it is doubtful if I shall…

  • Beginning

    Beginning

    Today marks the beginning of the November Poem a Day Challenge. Today’s first prompt provided by Poetry Pub is “Beginning.” It is hard for me to write a poem about beginning when T.S. Eliot’s lines from “Little Giding” are all I can think about. He says, “What we call the…

  • Just So

    Just So

    October was pastor appreciation month. The congregation I pastor was so generous throughout the month sending words or encouragement and demonstrating generosity above and beyond what I deserve. (The congregation’s name is Grace, so there’s that). Several years back I was with a couple of other pastors who were sharing…