Rosa Parks and President Obama - Reflections of History

From the White House description of the photo: "President Barack Obama sits on the famed Rosa Parks bus at the Henry Ford Museum following an event in Dearborn, Mich., April 18, 2012." (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)

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This photo is so powerful. The echo of Parks' struggle, and the respect President Obama shows in sitting one row behind her spot brings me to tears each time I look at this. Pete Souza shot an iconic image here.

This shot can be found on the White House Flickr account.

Wendell Berry - The Peace of Wild Things - read by Doug Lang

Wendell Berry, American Hero - Mark Bittman - NYTimes

National Endowment for the Humanities - 2012 Jefferson Lecture

Leavings - Poems - by Wendell Berry

Norwegians Lead the Way - Children of the Rainbow

Forty thousand plus people gathered in Oslo to sing Children of the Rainbow, made popular in Norway by the singer Lillebjoern Nilsen, in a hearty life response to a madman.

Breivik Trial: Norwegians rally around peace song 

Slow Jam the News with Barack Obama: Late Night with Jimmy Fallon

How cool is he? I love Obama!

Polar Bear - Lincoln Park Zoo - Chicago

Poet Naomi Shihab Nye: Telling a Story Helped Us Figure Out Who We Were - PBS NewsHour

Watch Poet Nye: 'Telling a Story Helped Us Figure Out Who We Were' on PBS. See more from PBS  NewsHour.

What Have You Lost? by Naomi Shihab Nye

Never in a Hurry: Essays on People and Places

On writing...Tales from the Script

Whether you're writing a novel or a screenplay, you have to be able to handle setbacks and rejection, and keep on writing.

Lyrics as Poetry...Joni Mitchell, Both Sides Now

Poetry Everywhere - Touch Me, by Stanley Kunitz

The Makers - Howard Nemerov - Read by Hillary Rodham Clinton (Favorite Poem Project)

Howard Nemerov - The Poetry Foundation

Love after Love, by Derek Walcott

Collected Poems, 1948-1984

Poetry Foundation - Derek Walcott 

Derek Walcott -  Nobel Prize in Literature 1992 - Interview

The Forgotten Dialect of the Heart - Jack Gilbert

by Jack Gilbert: 

Refusing Heaven

Collected Poems

Tracy K. Smith - Life on Mars - Pulitzer Prize for Poetry 2012

Watch 'Life on Mars' Author Explores Humans' Relationship With the Universe on PBS. See more from PBS NewsHour.

Life on Mars: Poems, by Tracy K. Smith (Graywolf Press)

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Interview with Tracy K. Smith, Winner of 2012 Pulitzer Prize in Poetry - A View from The Loft - Loft Literary Center

Poems of Childhood, Grief and Deep Space - Joel Brouwer -  NYTimes

Washington Post Book World: Tracy K Smith's 2012 Pulitzer-winning poems are worth a read by Troy Jollimore

Jane Hirshfield reads "The Envoy"

The Emigrant Irish by Eavan Boland - Favorite Poem Project

Read by Stephen Murphy

I loved the background story on why Stephen chose this poem for the Favorite Poem Project. It speaks to the foundation that poetry provides for all of us.

Saturn's Rings - Compilation of NASA photos by Sander van den Berg

Outer Space from Sander van den Berg on Vimeo.

Photos compiled by Sander van den Berg from NASA shots from Cassini and Voyager expeditions

Music by The Cinematic Orchestra: That Home

Spike Jonze: Mourir Aupres de Toi - NOWNESS

Spike Jonze: Mourir Auprès de Toi on Nowness.com.

Spike Jonze and designer Olympia Le-Tan created this film. An artful way to showcase clutch-bags using stop-motion animation.

What I'm reading...

Quest for the Living God, by Elizabeth A. Johnson

Johnson is a professor at Fordham University. I first became aware of her work after I read this article in the NYTimes:

Catholic Bishops' Attack on Book Concerns Scholars

Imagine: How Creativity Works, by Jonah Lehrer

Lyrics as Poetry... Leonard Cohen's, Hallelujah, sung by KD Lang

Some lyrics rise to the poetic. The lyrics to Leonard Cohen's, Hallelujah, are a fine example.

K.D. Lang's version: MP3 Amazon .99

Quality Education for Everyone - Coursera

This is wonderful: Stanford; Princeton; The University of Pennsylvania; and The University of Michigan came together through an innovative organization called Coursera to offer a quality education, via online courses, to anyone in the world. Let your curiosity be your guide; the courses are provided at no cost to the student. It gives one hope, it does! Brava and bravo (bravi) to all involved in this excellent venture! 

Coursera