Benjamin Myers

Thanks for playing. Here’s your consolation prize:a mountain capped with fog, the sun behind throwing light circumspectly on a lake, the waya painter lights a lovely face from out of frame. I’m sorry that you didn’t win, but here’syour daughter’s voice at eight floating on breath as softly . . . . Continue Reading »

On feet bare like a desert saint’s, it padsacross the porch and toward the dry cat foodmy wife pours out for strays. It doesn’t scarewhen I stomp, bellow, toss a pebbleat its rump, just hisses at me, geezerly,and keeps on chewing. Eyes like little radiodials and fur like coal snow, smog sky, or . . . . Continue Reading »

Universities stay relevant not by chasing the needs of the moment, but by addressing themselves to the lasting questions in human life. Continue Reading »

My father stopped at every one of them,A need to know that drove us nuts and slowedOur progress toward the lake. We stood in sweat,Lurking like hitchers by the asphalt road. The Battle of the Washita; the birthPlace of Will Rogers; any church or shoot-Out that one might say mattered stopped us . . . . Continue Reading »

A textbook I use for my introductory poetry classes, the classic Western Wind, defines sentimentality as “emotion in excess of its object.” Sentimentality is not simply too much emotion, but an imbalance of it, an over-investment of emotion relative to that in which it is invested. I have never . . . . Continue Reading »