Songs of the Sea & Fo’castle

Fiddler’s Green

~Written by John Connelly

The American Folk Experience

Fiddler's Green

by John Connelly (1970) | The American Folk Experience

~Traditional

As I roved by the dockside on evening so rare
To view the still waters and take the salt air
I heard an old fisherman singing this song
O take me away boys my time is not long

Dress me up in me oilskin and jumper
No more on the docks I’ll be seen
Just tell me old shipmates
I’m taking a trip, mates
And I’ll see them someday in Fiddler’s Green

Now Fiddler’s Green is a place I’ve heard tell
Where fishermen go when they don’t go to Hell
Where the weather is fair and the dolphins do play
And the cold coast of Greenland is far, far away

The sky’s always clear and there’s never a gale
And the fish jump on board with a flip of their tail
You can lie at your leisure, there’s no work to do
And the skipper’s below making tea for the crew

And when you’re in dock and the long trip is thru
There’s pubs and there’s clubs, and there’s lassies there too
Now the girls are all pretty and the beer is all free
And there’s bottles of rum hanging from every tree

I don’t want a harp or a halo, not me
Just give me a breeze and a good rolling sea
And I’ll play me old squeeze box as we sail along
When the wind’s in the rigging to sing me this song

If you have any more information to share about this song or helpful links, please post as a comment. Thanks for stopping by the site! ~John Fitz

0 Comments

Submit a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

I am indebted to the many friends who share my love of traditional songs and to the many scholars whose works are too many to include here. I am also incredibly grateful to the collector’s curators and collators of Wikipedia, Mudcat.org, MainlyNorfolk.info, and TheContemplator.com for their wise, thorough and informative contributions to the study of folk music. 

I share this scholarly research on my site with humility, thanks, and gratitude. Please cite sources accordingly with your own research. If you have any research or sites you would like to share on this site, please post in the comment box.  

Thanks!

 

Source: Wikipedia

For other uses, see Fiddler's Green (disambiguation).

Fiddler's Green is an after-life where there is perpetual mirth, a fiddle that never stops playing, and dancers who never tire. In 19th-century English maritime folklore, it was a kind of after-life for sailors who had served at least fifty years at sea.[1][2][3]

In literature

Not all early mentions of Fiddler's Green are positive. For example, Edward Rose's The Sea-Devil, or, Son of a Bellows-Mender (1811) has the following dialogue:[4]

"a seaman never goes to hell—Fiddler's green is the tar's mooring-ground." "And where is Fiddler's green?" [...] "'tis the half-way house. A rare place sure enough, where Old Nick is employed to mix hot grog for sailors."

and a description published in a number of magazines around 1825:[5]

We are informed that there is in the other world, a place prepared for maids and bachelors called Fiddler's Green, where they are condemned, for the lack of good fellowship in this world, to dance together to all eternity.

More positively, Fiddler's Green is mentioned in Frederick Marryat's novel Snarleyyow; or, The Dog Fiend (1837), in a sailors' song with the chorus:[6]

At Fidler's Green, where seamen true,
    When here they've done their duty,
The bowl of grog shall still renew,
    And pledge to love and beauty.

Herman Melville describes a Fiddler's Green as a sailors' term for the place on land "providentially set apart for dance-houses, doxies, and tapsters" in his posthumous novella Billy Budd, Sailor.

Fiddler's Green is the title of a 1950 novel by Ernest K. Gann, about a fugitive criminal who works as a seaman after stowing away.[7]

The author Richard McKenna wrote a story, first published in 1967, titled "Fiddler's Green,” in which he considers the power of the mind to create a reality of its own choosing, especially when a number of people consent to it. The main characters in this story are also sailors, and have known of the legend of Fiddler's Green for many years.[8]

In Patrick O'Brian's novel Post Captain (1972), the character Jack Aubrey describes several seamen living together on land by saying, "We'll lay in beer and skittles – it will be Fiddler's Green!".

Fiddler's Green is an extrasolar colony mentioned in Robert A. Heinlein's novels Friday (1982) and The Cat Who Walks Through Walls (1985).

In Neil Gaiman's The Sandman comic book series, Fiddler's Green is a place located inside of the Dreaming, a place that sailors have dreamed of for centuries. Fiddler's Green is also personified as a character as well as a location in the fictional world, the former largely based upon casual associations of G. K. Chesterton. In the 2022 TV adaption of the books, the personification is played by Stephen Fry. From November 12 to 14, 2004, a comic book convention promoted as "Fiddler's Green, A Sandman Convention" was held at the Millennium Hotel in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Author Neil Gaiman and several Sandman series artists, and others involved in the series' publication, participated in the convention, with profits benefiting the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund.

In music

  • A song called "Fiddler's Green", or more often "Fo'c'sle Song", was written by John Conolly in 1966,[9] a Lincolnshire songwriter. It has been recorded by Tim Hart and Maddy Prior for their album Folk Songs of Olde England Vol. 2 (1968), by The Dubliners for their album Plain and Simple (1973), by The Yetties for their album All at Sea (1973), and by The Irish Rovers for their album Upon a Shamrock Shore: Songs of Ireland & the Irish (2000).[10] The American sailor band Schooner Fare credits the song for bringing together their band. The song is sung worldwide in nautical and traditional folk circles, and is often mistakenly thought to be a traditional song.[11]
  • "Fiddler's Green" is a song from the album Road Apples by Canadian rock group The Tragically Hip, written for lead singer Gord Downie's young nephew Charles Gillespie, who died before the album was released.[12] The track was covered by Welsh band Stereophonics on their 1999 Deluxe album Performance and Cocktails
  • "Fiddler's Green" is a song from Marley's Ghost's album Four Spacious Guys (1996).
  • Fiddler's Green is the title track and name of Tim O'Brien's Grammy Award-winning 2005 album.
  • Fiddler's Green is a German folk-rock band, formed in 1990.
  • "Fiddler on the Green" is a song by German-American power metal supergroup Demons & Wizards, from their self-titled album released in 1999.
  • Fiddler's Green is mentioned in the Archie Fisher song "The Final Trawl" from the album Windward Away, about fishermen whose livelihoods are passing away.
  • Fiddler's Green is also mentioned in the extended version of the song "Hoist the Colors" from the Pirates of the Caribbean films.
  • Friends of Fiddler's Green is a folk music group form Canada, founded in 1971.
  • Fiddler's Green is an outdoor amphitheatre in Greenwood Village, Colorado.
  • "Fiddler's Green" was recorded by the American quintet Bounding Main and released on their 2005 album Maiden Voyage.[13]

In art

  • Statue by Ray Lonsdale, installed in 2017 on Fish Quay in North Shields, England.[14]
  • In the fifth installment of the Monkey Island game series (Tales of Monkey Island by Telltale Games, namely Chapter 5 - The Rise of the Pirate God) Guybrush Threepwood visits the pirate crossroads, which is quoted by character Galeb as being "The stopping point before Fiddler's Green."

In film

In the United States military

The Cavalrymen's Poem, also entitled "Fiddlers' Green" was published in the US Army's Cavalry Journal in 1923 and became associated with the 1st Cavalry Division.[15]

Halfway down the trail to Hell in a shady meadow green,

are the Souls of all dead troopers camped near a good old-time canteen,
and this eternal resting place is known as Fiddlers' Green.

Marching past, straight through to Hell, the Infantry are seen,
accompanied by the Engineers, Artillery and Marine,
for none but the shades of Cavalrymen dismount at Fiddlers' Green.

Though some go curving down the trail to seek a warmer scene,
no trooper ever gets to Hell ere he's emptied his canteen
and so rides back to drink again with friends at Fiddlers' Green.
 
And so when man and horse go down beneath a saber keen,
or in a roaring charge fierce melee you stop a bullet clean,
and the hostiles come to get your scalp,
just empty your canteen and put your pistol to your head

and go to Fiddlers' Green.

The name has had other military uses. Many places associated with the US military have been named Fiddler's Green:[16]

See also

References

  1. ^ Eyers, Jonathan (March 1, 2012). Don't Shoot the Albatross!: Nautical Myths and Superstitions. London: A&C Black. ISBN 978-1-4081-3131-2..
  2. ^ "The Sailor's magazine, and naval journal – American Seamen's Friend Society". Life on the Ocean. February 1898. p. 168. Retrieved October 14, 2011.
  3. ^ Hotten, John Camden (1859). A Dictionary of Modern Slang, Cant, and Vulgar Words. ISBN 978-1164343998.
  4. ^ Rose, Edward (1811). The Sea-Devil, or, Son of a Bellows-Mender. Plymouth-Dock: J. Roach. pp. 24–25.
  5. ^ "Bachelor's elysium". New York Mirror. Vol. 3, no. 2. August 6, 1825. p. 10.
  6. ^ Marryat, Frederick (1837). "Chapter IX". Snarleyyow; or, The Dog Fiend. Philadelphia: E. L. Carey and A. Hart. hdl:2027/hvd.hweec5.
  7. ^ Gann, Ernest K. (1950). Fiddler's Green. William Sloane Association.
  8. ^ McKenna, Richard (1976). Casey Agonistes and Other Science Fiction and Fantasy Stories. London: Pan Books. ISBN 978-0330248259.
  9. ^ When a Loose Cannon Flogs a Dead Horse There's the Devil to Pay: Seafaring Words in Everyday Speech by Olivia A. Isil
  10. ^ "The Irish Rovers – Upon A Shamrock Shore Songs Of Ireland And The Irish". Discogs. Archived from the original on February 23, 2020. Retrieved February 23, 2020.
  11. ^ Blood, Peter; Patterson, Annie, eds. (1988). Rise Up Singing. Bethlehem, Pennsylvania: Sing Out!. p. 201. ISBN 1-881322-12-2. O Fiddler's Green is a place I've heard tell, where fishermen go if they don't go to hell
  12. ^ Rudnick, Natasha (August 19, 2016). "The Tragically Hip: 10 Essential Songs - "Fiddler's Green" (1991)". Rolling Stone.
  13. ^ Fiddlers' Green (September 28, 2019). "Bounding Main". Bounding Main. Retrieved February 29, 2024.
  14. ^ David Morton (April 21, 2021). "The North Shields memorial to lost fishermen - how the striking statue was created". Chronicle Live. Reach plc. Retrieved September 22, 2022.
  15. ^ "Fiddler's Green and other Cavalry Songs by JHS". Cavalry Journal. April 1923.
  16. ^ Axelrod, Alan (March 5, 2013), Weird War: Curious Military Trivia, Union Square, p. 49, ISBN 978-1-4351-4485-9
  17. ^ Curry, Judi (July 29, 2019). "Restaurant Review: Fiddler's Green on Shelter Island in Point Loma". OB Rag. Retrieved July 13, 2020.

Further reading

source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiddler%27s_Green

    Source: Mainly Norfolk

    Fiddler’s Green

    [ Roud – ; Ballad Index FR439 ; John Conolly]

    This sentimental song is so ubiquitous that many people believe it is a traditional song. But it was written in 1966 by John Conolly.

    Tim Hart and Maddy Prior recorded Fiddler’s Green in 1969 for their second duo album Folk Songs of Old England Vol. 2. The record’s sleeve notes comment:

    Written by John Conolly, this is a fine example of the work of this singer/song-writer from Grimsby describing the fisherman’s Utopian concept of the after-life.

    Aly Bain and Mike Whellans sang Fiddler’s Green in 1971 on their Trailer album Aly Bain & Mike Whellans and in 1975 on the Trailer anthology Our Folk Music Heritage.

    The Clancy Brothers with Louis Killen sang Fiddler’s Green in 1972 on their LP Show Me the Way.

    Archie Fisher and Barbara Dickson sang Fiddler’s Green in 1971 on their Decca album Thro’ the Recent Years.

    Filey Fishermen’s Harmony Group sang Fiddler’s Green on the 1985 anthology Sounds of Yorkshire: A Musical Souvenir of Yorkshire and Humberside.

    John Conolly sang his own song on his and Pete Sumner’s Fellside CD of 1998, Trawlertown, and on the Fellside’s anthology Flash Company: A Celebration of 25 Years of Fellside Records (1976-2001). Paul Adams commented in the latter album’s notes:

    John is the most unlikely writer of a hit song I know. It depends on how you define “hit”. There was a time in the 70s when you would hear this song sung every week in just about every folk club in the country. One of its great accolades is that people think it is traditional—doesn’t do much for John’s bank balance, though. It has been recorded numerous times. There are even Fiddler’s Green festivals. Look out for Fiddler’s Green slippers, mouse-pads and woolly hats.

    And here John Conolly with Bill Whaley and Dave Fletcher sings Fiddler’s Green at Faldingworth Live:

    Jon Boden sang Fiddler’s Green as the February 26, 2011 entry of his project A Folk Song a Day. He noted in his blog:

    One of those songs that conveniently became traditional only a few years after being written! I understand John Connolly is gradually recouping some of his lost royalties. Quite right too—a fabulous song.

    Lyrics

    Sorry, I can’t show the lyrics here as I don’t have the copyright owners’ permission to publish them. But please feel free and ask me to send you the song’s lyrics.

    Listen to The Dubliner’s perform Fiddler’s Green…

     

    Performances, Workshops, Resources & Recordings

    The American Folk Experience is dedicated to collecting and curating the most enduring songs from our musical heritage.  Every performance and workshop is a celebration and exploration of the timeless songs and stories that have shaped and formed the musical history of America. John Fitzsimmons has been singing and performing these gems of the past for the past forty years, and he brings a folksy warmth, humor and massive repertoire of songs to any occasion. 

    Festivals & Celebrations Coffeehouses School Assemblies Library Presentations Songwriting Workshops Artist in Residence House Concerts Pub Singing Irish & Celtic Performances Poetry Readings Campfires Music Lessons Senior Centers Voiceovers & Recording

    ““Beneath the friendly charisma is the heart of a purist gently leading us from the songs of our lives to the timeless traditional songs he knows so well…”

     

    Globe Magazine

    Join Fitz at The Colonial Inn

    “The Nobel Laureate of New England Pub Music…”

    Scott Alaric

    Adventures in the Modern Folk Underground

    On the Green, in Concord, MA Every Thursday Night for over thirty years…

    “A Song Singing, Word Slinging, Story Swapping, Ballad Mongering, Folksinger, Teacher, & Poet…”

    Theo Rogue

    Songcatcher Rag

    Fitz’s Recordings

    & Writings

    Songs, poems, essays, reflections and ramblings of a folksinger, traveler, teacher, poet and thinker…

    Download for free from the iTunes Bookstore

    Now Available on iTunes!

    “A Master of Folk…”

    The Boston Globe

    Fitz’s now classic recording of original songs and poetry…

    Download from the iTunes Music Store

    Now Available on iTunes!

    “A Masterful weaver of song whose deep, resonant voice rivals the best of his genre…”

    Spirit of Change Magazine

    “2003: Best Children’s Music Recording of the Year…”

    Boston Parent's Paper

    Fitz & The Salty Dawgs Amazing music, good times and good friends…

    Listen here

    TheCraftedWord.org

    Writing help

    when you need it…

    “When the eyes rest on the soul…that’s Fitzy…”

    Lenny Megliola

    WEEI Radio

    Crows & Swallows Release

    by | October 21, 2017 | Journal | 0 Comments

    There is seldom a red-carpet celebration when a book of poetry is released, so I will keep this a quiet and humble affair. My newest book of poetry, “Crows & Swallows” is now on iBooks, so fresh you can almost smell the ink. My business model is unchanged: It is a...
    Read More

    Quit Your Whining

    by | January 31, 2014 | Essays, Journal, Teaching | 0 Comments

    Anything worth succeeding in is worth failing in~Ben Franklin     "Quit your whining and complaining" is probably a clause that can easily be translated into every language in every culture on earth, for, from what I know and have seen in the world, bitching about...
    Read More

    What’s in a Song

    by | May 4, 2014 | Essays, Journal | 0 Comments

    Every heart sings a song, incomplete, until another heart whispers back. Those who wish to sing always find a song. At the touch of a lover, everyone becomes a poet. ~Plato         Writing a song is not just an exercise in seeking some kind of future fame. It is...
    Read More

    Evolution

    by | August 19, 2014 | Journal, Poetry | 0 Comments

    The coyotes and fisher cats seem intent on striking some new deal with each other to toy with our fears in this gentleman's wilderness— patches of dense woods dotted with overgrown fields, riven and intersected by highways, powerlines and quiet, suburban...
    Read More

    Concord

    by | July 14, 2014 | Poetry, Raccoon | 0 Comments

    The people, the music filledness of rush hour traffic skirting puddles work crews packing in laughswearingmudyellowed slickers lighting candle bombs. My sadness the euphoric detachment. I love this town. It breathes me.
    Read More

    A Hard Sell

    by | November 13, 2013 | Essays, Journal, Teaching | 0 Comments

         As a teacher, I am tired of the word blog, probably because the word “blogging” is incredibly limiting and myopic, especially for someone whose teaching is centered around an online curriculum with blogs front and center on my academic table. I sat through a...
    Read More

    What Christmas Is

    by | December 25, 2015 | Essays, Journal | 0 Comments

      I am not sure what Christmas really is anymore. I am almost afraid to think of what Christians are going through in the lands of the original Christian faith. By dint of place and time, I grew up in the Catholic faith, and try as I might, I can’t ever escape the...
    Read More

    Ghetto of Your Eye

    by | November 11, 2015 | Fires in the Belly, Journal, Songs | 0 Comments

    A Veteran's Day Remembrance I wrote this song back in the winter of 1989 in the dining car of a steam driven train, somewhere along the Trans-Siberian railway, after meeting a group of Russian soldiers fresh from battle in Afghanistan—that poor country that has been a...
    Read More

    A New Paradigm

    by | November 17, 2013 | Essays, Journal, Teaching | 0 Comments

         Sometimes, like right now, I long for a pile of papers on my lap that I could speed through, grade with a series of checks and circles, a few scribbled lines of praise or condemnation, and drop into a shoebox on my desk and say, "Here are your essays!" But I...
    Read More

    Dad

    by | December 4, 2013 | Poetry | 0 Comments

    Moaning like a lost whale the thin ice bellowed behind us then cracked and rang as if spit from a whip. The sharp steel of my over-sized skates etched unspeakable joy into the slate-grey, reptilian skin of Walden Pond. Our mismatched hands gripped together in the...
    Read More

    Diesel Lullaby

    by | July 5, 2019 | Journal | 0 Comments

    I've been spending a lot of time lately writing sketches of songs—some more complete than others. I have found that it takes time for a song to evolve into its final form, so what I have posted here is more the end of the beginning, not the end. Denise gave me the...
    Read More

    Pruning

    by | July 14, 2014 | Poetry, Raccoon | 0 Comments

    These trees have driven so many friends batty, wedged in unstable crotches, embracing hollow, heart-rotted limbs, reaching tentatively, maddened with indecision. From a distance your gestures are very lobsterlike— waving a last embattled claw, as if dueling some...
    Read More

    Dealing with Ether

    by | August 12, 2014 | Journal, Poetry | 0 Comments

    Trying to only see what is in front of me my eyes are continually drawn away from this page and the work left to be done— my labored words etched and scratched away like fleeting mosaics in dry sand. I need a windowless cell to work the alchemy that shapes the...
    Read More

    The Mystery Within

    by | August 15, 2014 | Journal, Poetry | 0 Comments

    EJ wanted a banana tree for Christmas so that early morning brought a plastic bag, a few meager roots and no directions. I bought some potting soil and a square cedar box EJ placed deliberately by a westward window. He gently splayed the roots, pressed the soil, and...
    Read More

    Thinking of My Sister

    by | September 23, 2014 | Journal | 0 Comments

    When Cool Was Really Cool  Life is not counted by the amount of breaths we take,  but of the moments that leave us breathless. ~Unknown             We were coming home from church one morning and Jimmy Glennon pulled up beside us as we approached the Sudbury road...
    Read More

    The Shapes of Stories

    by | July 9, 2016 | Journal | 0 Comments

    While I have always been a storyteller of sorts, I am not much of a writer of stories--but I have always been intrigued by the relative simplicity at the core design level of most books and movies. A lot of it is tied to my love for Joseph Campbell's work on the...
    Read More

    Paris: 11/13/15

    by | November 14, 2015 | Essays, Journal | 0 Comments

    It is a sad day for humanity. Another sad day on top of many others happening every day--many in places we hear about only obliquley and sometimes not at all. Paris is that much closer to home for most of us here and in Europe, but freedom and tolerance has to...
    Read More

    Supermoon

    by | August 10, 2014 | Journal, Poetry | 0 Comments

    Last night the August supermoon reminded me of the fickleness of time and how substance becomes shadow and memories begin to etch themselves immutably into the hardness of what is already lost.
    Read More

    Kampuchea

    by | July 14, 2014 | Poetry, Raccoon | 0 Comments

    I stutter for normality across the river from black men fishing for kibbers and horned pout. Barefoot children rounded bellies curled navels stalk the turtle sunning on a log. lonely in the field grass lonely on the curbstones I stutter for normality. Not a mother...
    Read More

    No Dad To Come Home To

    by | August 26, 2014 | Dawghouse, Songs | 0 Comments

    Rain’s falling outside of Boston—
    Thank God I’m not working tonight.
    I’ve got six of my own,
    And a stepdaughter at home,
    And a momma keeping things right.
    I wonder if they’re at the table
    With their puzzles, their papers and pens?
    When I get off the highway
    And pull in that driveway,
    Will they run to the window again?

    Read More

    The Value of a Classic

    by | November 24, 2014 | Essays, Journal, Teaching | 0 Comments

    “Classic' - a book which people praise and don't read.” ~Mark Twain A note to my 8th grade class:      All of you are supposedly reading a classic book, but what Twain says is true: few of us go thirsty to the well and willingly read the greatest works of literature...
    Read More

    Doing What Needs To Be Done

    by | February 16, 2014 | Essays, Journal, Teaching | 0 Comments

    The rain falls;The grass grows:Nothing is done.Nothing is left undone~Buddha        Sometimes you just do what you got to do, and that never changes from the first time you take out the trash as a kid until the time in life where you are taking care of little chores...
    Read More

    You Are All a Bunch of Punks

    by | February 3, 2014 | Essays, Journal, Teaching | 0 Comments

    Poetry without form is like tennis without a net. ~Robert Frost       Free verse poetry is not, as many assume, poetry without rules. It is a measured and thoughtful crafting of an idea into lines, spaces, and breaks intentionally and willfully crafted to heighten and...
    Read More

    The Enigma

    by | August 11, 2014 | Journal, Poetry | 0 Comments

    Black Pond is not as deepas it is dark, dammedsome century agobetween ledges of granite and an outcropping of leaning fir, huckleberry, and white pine. For years I have paddled and trolled;swam, fished, sailed and sometimessimply tread water in the night trying to...
    Read More

    Chores

    by | May 15, 2016 | Journal, Poetry | 0 Comments

    The day sometimes slip away from me, a huge pine half-bucked in the backyard, the kids old tree fort cut into slabs, a ton of coal waiting to be moved in a train of buckets to the bin. Sipping cold water on the back deck, sharpening the dulled teeth of a worn...
    Read More

    Metamorphoses

    by | August 12, 2014 | Fires in the Belly, Songs | 0 Comments

    It’s something I‘ve hardly ever thought of:
    this simple and rattling old diesel
    has always gotten me there and then some;
    and so at first I think this sputtering
    is just some clog, and easily explained:
    some bad fuel maybe, from the new Exxon,
    or just shortsightedness on maintenance.
    I’ve always driven in the red before,
    and these have all been straight highway miles —

    Read More

    All You Need is Love

    by | November 16, 2013 | Essays, Journal | 0 Comments

        The day grew warm today, as did my mood. I did a couple of shows at my school’s diversity day. It was good to see girls there and the obvious racial differences. It was comforting to see a sea of color with a smattering of white instead of the other way around. My...
    Read More

    The Right Side of the Inevitable

    by | July 27, 2016 | Essays, Journal | 0 Comments

      Like birds of a feather, we gather together, 'Cuz they're feeling exactly like you... ~John Prine   I am not afraid of being a white minority. I had lunch today with a Jamaican drummer, a Ugandan farmer, and a Senagalese potter. I don’t say this out of...
    Read More

    Why Trump Is Not Flipping Me Out

    by | March 18, 2016 | Essays, Journal | 0 Comments

    I wonder why Trump is not flipping me out? I wonder if there is some bigoted, ignorant and right-wing element that lurks inside this folk-singing, poem writing, neo-socialist shell of mine. Maybe it is not that hard for me to make the empathetic reach to feel at least...
    Read More

    Thanksgiving

    by | July 30, 2014 | Poetry | 0 Comments

    I am surprised sometimesby the suddenness of November:beauty abruptly shedto a common nakedness--grasses deadenedby hoarfrost,persistent memoriesof people I’ve lost.It is left to those of us dressed in the hard barky skin of experienceto insist on a decorumthat rises...
    Read More

    A Priori

    by | May 24, 2016 | Journal, Poetry | 0 Comments

    How do I know what I know? The sharp angles of this simple cottage perfected  in every board sawn, shingle split and beam hewn into place goes together placed, splined, slid together, bound more by intuition than knowing.
    Read More

    China Journal: Part Three

    by | July 30, 2015 | Essays, Journal, Teaching | 0 Comments

    III My teachers could have ridden with Jesse James For all the time they stole from me... ~Richard Brautigan, Trout Fishing in America      Today it was a temple built into the mountainside west of West Lake. Mr. Toe drove us out there. In most ways I just follow Rob...
    Read More

    Know Thyself…

    by | September 29, 2017 | Essays, Journal | 0 Comments

    Writing a Metacognition Know Thyself… Explore, Assess, Reflect & Rethink If we don’t learn from what we do, we learn little of real value. If we don’t make the time to explore, reflect and rethink our ways of doing things we will never grow, evolve and reach our...
    Read More

    Wisdom

    by | May 13, 2016 | Essays, Journal | 0 Comments

    Wisdom starts in non-action… The doing and non-doing are the equal balance. Without the luxury of contemplation there would not be a prioritizing of need versus want. Wisdom balances physical reality… Wisdom does not shuffle tasks out of view but finds a way to...
    Read More

    Molting

    by | July 10, 2014 | Poetry, Raccoon | 0 Comments

    I am always molting; leaving my hollowed skin in awkward places, scaring people and making them jump. They touch me and think I’m real; then laugh and say things like “What a riot.” I’m tired of this changing of skins. I’d rather stumble on myself and be fooled; and...
    Read More

    The March Snow

    by | March 11, 2018 | Journal, Poetry | 0 Comments

    An early March snow brought down all these branches Cracking and crashing throughout a long night, Piling them impatiently in the yard Like jacksticks in a child’s messy room. The stepladder I used to rake the ridge Stands like an awkward sculpture draped in white...
    Read More

    Mum…

    by | May 8, 2016 | Essays, Journal | 0 Comments

    Very jealous today of all the folks I see spending time with their respective moms--and sad for those who can't and for those whose wives were taken from their families too early in life... This is my remmebrance of my "mum" who died several years ago.       I ran...
    Read More

    Canobie lake

    by | June 3, 2014 | Essays, Journal | 0 Comments

    Going to Canobie Lake is always the turning point of the year for me. It is like some primal signal that It is time to turn away from the school year and towards the future.  Obviously, it is my hope that you learned some useful skills this year, but, more...
    Read More

    The Most Unoriginal Teacher

    by | February 5, 2014 | Essays, Journal, Teaching | 0 Comments

    Yes, that's me. I am a fraudster, thief, and plagiarizer of the worst magnitude. I copy the very styles of classic poets; I steal from Noble Laureate novelists, and I copy words from every and any source I can. And even worse, I steal from myself. If you even dare to...
    Read More

    Out of the Forge: April 6, 2017

    by | April 11, 2017 | Journal, Out of the Forge | 0 Comments

    Some nights I feel like I am singing in a mall. Tonight--in a fun way--it felt a bit like I walked into the Natick mall at Christmas time and pulled out my guitar in front of the Apple store and started to play, but like every night down at the inn it evolved into a...
    Read More

    Contact John Fitzsimmons...and thanks!