Welcome

My blog takes its name from a line in W.B. Yeats' "The Lake Isle of Innisfree":

I WILL arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,
And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made;
Nine bean rows will I have there, a hive for the honey bee,
And live alone in the bee-loud glade.
And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,	5
Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;
There midnight's all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow,
And evening full of the linnet's wings.
I will arise and go now, for always night and day
I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;	10
While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements gray,
I hear it in the deep heart's core.

The poem is "about" many things, but chief among them is the conflict between the speaker's desire to escape society, connect with nature, and live life on his own terms and his recognition that this process is only possible in his imagination. On the one hand, the poem's message is uplifting; even as we are trapped in an urban jungle of gray pavement, our minds are free to go elsewhere. On the other hand, Yeats reminds us that we carry the burdens of society with us even as we try to distance ourselves from it. We seek solace in the bee-loud glade, but quickly turn it into a construction site and confine the bees to an artificial hive.

This blog is my way of exploring these kinds of contradictions. I'm a poet whose work remains largely unpublished, a country girl living in the city, an animal lover who still eats meat from time to time, a teacher who grades student papers yet would prefer to see all grades abolished, a health-conscious individual who nevertheless suffers from chronic illness, and a socialist who, lacking summer employment, has delved into the world of pay per click, marketing surveys, paid reviews, and other trappings of Internet capitalism. I'll explore all of these topics here from time to time.