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When Denise and Roger Friesen planned a Valentine's Day dinner for their Omaha, Neb., church, they immediately knew their theme: the Song of Solomon -- sometimes called the Song of Songs -- the sexiest book in the Bible. "O, that you would kiss me with the kisses of your mouth!" says a woman to her lover as the book begins. "For your love is better than wine." Later language compares male legs to alabaster columns and female bosoms to clusters of fruit on a tree. The Friesens, both 47, credit the little book in the Hebrew Bible with helping to...

This is a poem that can be found published in my new book of poetry published through Publishamerica called " From The Inside Out " and it shares my view on abortion that I hope I can also share with you good folks here. - See It’s Carried On - Freedoms have no boundaries like our hearts and like our minds. Freedoms they are endless and they have no ties and binds. But I question motives when they’re used to maim and kill. Can you take a life by drinking water and a pill. If your life’s in danger then...

Despite the influence of the west on Iran's popular culture, Hafez, a poet who died over 600 years ago, still gets the crowds flocking, writes Robert Tait The pilgrims could have been on day out at Graceland. Representing the full range of the age and socio-economic spectrums, they came to pay homage to an icon of modern popular culture. But the hero being saluted was not Elvis Presley or any comparable figure from the age of mass communication, but a poet who died centuries ago, and whose messages remain disputed and obscure among even the most literary of his fellow...

Wake! For the Sun, who scatter'd into flight The Stars before him from the Field of Night, Drives Night along with them from Heav'n, and strikes The Sultan's Turret with a Shaft of Light Portland, Oregon -- So begins The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, one of the best-known poems in the world and perhaps the most famous piece of Persian literature. The several hundred quatrains that make up this enduring 11th century work have been translated into dozens of languages and inspired countless readers and scholars with their beauty. At least nine editions of The Rubaiyat are currently in print...

The famous investigative journalist Akbar Ganji is said to be dying. He has been urgently transferred from his cell in Evin to a hospital in Tehran. On July 16 it was the 36th day of his hunger strike as a protest not just against his own and his fellow-prisoners’ illegal detention, but also against the undemocratic Islamic Republic and its unelected Supreme Leader-for-Life, a harsh dictator with absolute power. Ganji’s hunger strike is a scream for the world’s attention for the persistent violations of the most fundamental human rights in his country. And for the fate of the vast number...

WASHINGTON, July 6, 2005 – Pfc. Jamie A. Goldstein so touched Kristin Johnson with his poem about the eagerness of soldiers in training to fight for their country that she dedicated a Web site to sharing his poems and the stories of other poet warriors. "I was just blown away by this wonderful poem," Johnson said. "The voice he puts to the military is so incredible." Johnson said Goldstein's poem inspired her to showcase his words and those of others like him. "The men and women of our armed forces are bright, intelligent and committed - especially those serving now...

HANOVER, N.H. - Richard Eberhart, a Pulitzer Prize-winning poet admired for mentoring generations of aspiring writers, has died at the age of 101. Eberhart died at his home Thursday after a short illness. He wrote more than a dozen books of poetry and verse during a career that spanned more than 60 years. He received nearly every major book award that a poet can win, including the Pulitzer, which he received in 1966 for "Selected Poems, 1930-1965." "Poetry is a natural energy resource of our country," he said in his 1977 acceptance speech for a National Book Award. "It has...

Ukraine apologizes to Russia for vandal destruction of Pushkin monument 23:08 KIEV, June 9 (RIA Novosti) - Advisor to the Ukrainian Culture and Tourism Minister Igor Pristavksky condemned the vandal destruction of the monument to the great Russian poet Alexander Pushkin in Lvov (Western Ukraine). Unidentified vandals broke the monument made by local sculptor Kassel and unveiled in front of the Russian Cultural Center in Lvov on June 8. "I apologize to the great Russian nation for this vandalism," Pristavsky said adding that Pushkin was highly popular in Ukraine. "I am sorry to say this because I was born in...

Mike Dukakis hasn't been governor since 1990, and he's still molly-coddling criminals in Massachusetts. Just ask double-murderer Norman Porter, Chicago's ``beloved anti-war poet,'' who's finally - finally - back in Massachusetts. The Duke commuted one of his life sentences, tried unsuccessfully to commute the other, and then finally let him walk away from a prison so ridiculously lax in 1985 that the warden - excuse me, superintendent - ate dinner every Friday night in the special cell bloc for organized-crime thugs. And the Democrats wonder why they still can't elect a governor. Everybody is afraid we'll end up with another...

Michael S. Dukakis, former ultra-liberal Governor of Massachusetts observed, "Who would have thought he'd turn out to be a poet?" That “who” is Norman A. Porter, also known as J. J. Jameson, one of Chicago’s prominent anti-war figures and a member of the community of leftist anti-war poets.  Jameson, the author of two books, a congregation leader at a church, and named Chicagopoetry.com's poet of the month in March 2004, was the very model of a modern “enlightened” cultural leader.  He is also a man whose two life sentences were commuted by Mike Dukakis. Porter is a double-murderer.  He...

In Chicago, he is one of the city's most beloved antiwar poets, an author of two books and a congregation leader at a West Side church. But in Massachusetts, he is notorious for executing a clerk at a Saugus clothing store in 1960, aiding in the murder of a Middlesex County jailer in 1961, and then escaping from a Norfolk County correction center in 1985.

BILOXI, Miss. - A California investor has paid $820,000 at auction for a Biloxi home named for Civil War chaplain Abram J. Ryan, who was known as the poet laureate of the Confederacy. The previous owners, Dr. Jefferson McKenney and Rosanne McKenney, are missionaries in Honduras. Funds raised from the sale were to be invested in Hospital Loma de Luz, which the McKenneys founded in that country. "I don't have a plan," said investor Henry Lee, who recently returned to Biloxi and learned of Tuesday's auction "kind of by accident." Lee represented Golden Bay Investments, a company owned by his...

Natan Yonatan - Obituary JERUSALEM (AP) - Natan Yonatan, an Israeli poet who won several Israeli literary awards with works that wove together themes of nature and war, died Friday near Tel Aviv. He was 81. Yonatan won the Newman Prize for Hebrew Literature in 2001. His 20 books of poetry have been translated into several languages, including English, Russian and Spanish. In one of his best-known poems, "That Man," Yonatan eulogized Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, who was assassinated by an ultranationalist Jew in 1995. Yonatan was born in 1923 in Kiev, Ukraine, and immigrated to Israel at age two...

Wanted: Conservative Major American Poet A Conservative Major American Poet is wanted to fill the void left by the Modern Poetry Movement and bring back sanity and gravitas to American poetry. Qualifications: 1. Patriotic 2. Christrian 3. Veteran 4. 2nd Amendment Supporter 5. Anti-Feminist 6. Anti-Multiculturalist 7. Family Values Man

Today I learned that FreeRepublic's lost a valued contributor and someone I had come to consider a good FRiend. John J. Lindsay (aka "poet") passed into the Lord's kingdom on the 21st of November 2003 at the age of 70. Not only was he a wise commentator on world events, he also wrote some very moving poetry that I was honored to have periodically posted on the Black threads. I am thankful I got to know him as much as I did and will most certainly miss his participation on FR.com. Utmost FReegards, Mr. Lindsay...Steve/MUD

<p>The 14th century Italian poet Francesco Petrarch left hundreds of letters detailing his life and thoughts. Now scientists plan to dig up his remains to find out more about his flesh and bones.</p> <p>Researchers will open the poet's marble casket this month in Arqua Petrarca, a village in northern Italy where he died in 1374 and that was renamed for him. They will scrutinize his remains for clues on his physical appearance and health record.</p>

Roses are red Violets are blue Oh my, lump in the bed How I've missed you. Roses are redder Bluer am I Seeing you kissed by that charming French guy. The dogs and the cat, they missed you too Barney's still mad you dropped him, he ate your shoe The distance, my dear, has been such a barrier Next time you want an adventure, just land on a carrier.

WASHINGTON - Laura Bush says her husband is a poet even if, uh, Americans don't know it. At a gala Friday night kicking off this weekend's third National Book Festival, Mrs. Bush celebrated the written word in an age of visual media, thanking American authors for their "tales of mystery, history and heroism." "A good book is like an unreachable itch; you just can't leave it alone," she said at the Library of Congress, repository of 126 million books, recordings, photographs, maps, manuscripts and more. She revealed that President Bush had penned a poem for her when she got back...

<p>SHAFTSBURY, Vt. -- The most striking thing about Robert Frost was his eyes. My mother remembers how piercing they were, the palest of blue, and how everyone whispered when he walked in to the Bennington bank where she worked summers as a teller.</p>

In Final Hours, Despair Defeated Poet Indian-Born Writer Apparently Killed Herself, 2-Year-Old in D.C. Home By David A. Fahrenthold and Simone Weichselbaum Washington Post Staff Writers Friday, July 18, 2003; Page A01 A prize-winning poet who used verse to describe her experiences as a child and as an Indian immigrant was identified by D.C. police yesterday as the woman who apparently slashed the left wrist of her 2-year-old son and her own Wednesday and then died with him in a pool of blood. Reetika Vazirani, 40, and Jehan Vazirani Komunyakaa were found lying next to each other in the dining...