Richard Jeffrey Newman

Poet • Essayist • Educator • Consultant

Take refuge on this path
the page gives you to roam.

Hunker down against
the shadow cast by prayer
and build yourself a line
that won’t efface itself.

Language is not wine.
You cannot pour it freely.

On The Trail of A Tale - Part One: Benjamin Franklin's Persian Parable

Had Franklin gotten his wish...and the Parable had remained unpublished, neither its origin in the work of the 13th-century Persian poet Saadi of Shiraz nor the story I am telling you would have become known, at least not in the way we know them now.

Richard Jeffrey Newman tier-only post 06 Feb

Four by Four #51

Four Things To Read, Four Things To See, For Things To Listen To, and Four Things About Me

23 Jan

On My Desk Now - January 2026: Either Way, You Choose A Side

“That kind of paralysis is perfectly understandable in a rank and file, whether we’re talking about union members or people on the street. It seems inexcusable to me, however, in those who have been charged with leading the opposition...”

13 Jan

The Power We Pretend Not To See - 2

(Read Part 1 here.) When I was an undergraduate, a man I looked up to as a teacher and a

09 Jan

Bodies As Bodies: Fetal Personhood and The Politics of Reproductive Autonomy

Dear Friends, Happy New Year! I hope your holiday season was filled with joy and meaning, and I hope that

paid-only post 02 Jan

Repost - Israel and Palestine: Whose Side Are You On?

I am talking about two very different areas of concern, one that has to do with the oppressive and murderously unjust behavior of a nation state, and one that has to do with an ideology that targets Jews worldwide, regardless of what their position on Israel and Palestine might be.

29 Dec

Maybe I Do

In Memoriam, Veronica McGinley

19 Dec

A Belated Gratitude

It never occurred to me that he might have been telling me those stories because he saw them as a way for us to connect in ways we hadn’t been able to do before...

12 Dec

The Power We Pretend Not To See - 1

"To me...the error is in thinking that the impulse to self-erasure that the nightingale and the dervish feel so passionately resembles love even remotely."

09 Dec

The Ethics of Bearing Witness in Poetry to Violence and Trauma

—Based on a talk I gave on a panel in 2017 at the Western Maryland Independent Literary Festival

06 Dec

Why I Write "It All Connects"

...because it represents the vantage point from which I make the connections that matter most to me.

01 Dec

Four by Four #50