CJ Woods III’s Story Archive

The Poetry of April: Redux

April 10, 2025 | by CJ Woods III

This column first appeared in April 2024. My friend in Florida sent me a text message telling me to expect an early birthday gift. My birthday is in March, but her gift was delivered to me late in February. She was excited about the present because she knows that I … Read More

The Man Who Plays Guitar

April 3, 2025 | by CJ Woods III

There is a man who plays guitar, and I like the way that he plays. I met him when I heard music coming from the Coal Yard Coffee company on Bonna Avenue in the Irvington suburb of Indianapolis Indiana. I wrote about that experience in “I Run Into Music,” (Weekly … Read More

Spring Has Sprung

March 27, 2025 | by CJ Woods III

“Spring has sprung / The grass has rizz / I wonder where the birdies is?” I don’t remember where or when I learned that bit of doggerel, but it seems to fit with the advent of spring in Indiana, the first day of which was March 20th, 2025. But spring … Read More

Typing For Susie

March 20, 2025 | by CJ Woods III

In circa 1802, the poet William Wordsworth wrote a poem that was determined to be a criticism of the First Industrial Revolution “for being absorbed in materialism and distancing itself from nature.” Wordsworth wrote this: The world is too much with us; late and soon, Getting and spending, we lay … Read More

It’s Not Easy Being Green

March 13, 2025 | by CJ Woods III

This column first appeared in March 2023. Two men were sitting in an Irish bar discussing the shenanigans they were going to get into on St. Patrick’s day. I was shooting pool at a table near where they were seated, and between the cracking sound of pool balls colliding, I … Read More