This is Episode 26 of Poems to Live Well By.

Today’s poem is “Weakness” by Alden Nowlan.

You can read the poem here.

Alden Nowlan was a Canadian poet, who died at the age of just 50 in 1983. He was taken out of school at the age of just 10 as his family saw academic education as a waste of time, but he soon discovered the power of reading and hitchhiked 20 miles every weekend for books. It was a secretive pursuit, however. Nowlan once said: "I wrote (as I read) in secret. My father would as soon have seen me wear lipstick."

Nowlan’s father is the central figure in this poem, “Weakness”, which captures a single moment in a complex rural life, when weakness is to be stamped out, but still there is a kernel of love and care.

Music Credit:

Once Upon a Time by Alex-Productions | https://onsound.eu/  | Music promoted by https://www.free-stock-music.com