Years ago I bought some raw land on a slope in Vermont. Hired someone to grade a tiny cleared patch in the woods. Drilled a well. Bought a one-room cabin kit off eBay and hired a carpenter to put it together. Spent many days and nights staring up from the porch and the hammock at … Continue reading Poem of the Week, by Tess Gallagher
Certain moments are burned into your brain and heart, moments that even as they happened you knew would haunt you forever, like the way your little boy nodded and kept nodding, that one afternoon on the couch. Looking back now, through the tunnel of time, there are passages so rough that you narrowed time down … Continue reading Poem of the Week, by Gregory Orr
In my 1000 Words class you could write anything you wanted –poem, essay, memoir, story, children’s book–as long as it was fewer than one thousand words. Does it sound easier to write short than long? It’s not. You have to take an image, a dream, a thought, a burning wish, and hone and pare it … Continue reading Poem of the Week, by Wendy Chin-Tanner
Boiling a work of art down to a few lines feels like an impossible task to me, which is why I dreaded writing book reports as a child (pre-internet, I got around it by writing book reports about imaginary books I dreamed up in my own mind). This is why I avoid book jackets, movie … Continue reading Portrait of a Writer: Rene Denfeld
Last week I tucked myself behind a long black semi, far enough back so he could see me and my rattletrap moving truck in his big side mirrors. I do this sometimes on the highway when I’m tired or troubled or just want someone else to take over a little of the decision-making. Truckers (with a … Continue reading Poem of the Week, by Gerald Stern
Last week, late at night, the fire alarm in my cheap motel began to shriek. Doors opened up and down the hall and men began to emerge: huge men, small men, men in their underwear, one on crutches, one pushing a walker, one carrying a case of beer, one sweating as if just out of … Continue reading Poem of the Week, by James Baldwin
It must be awful to watch TV next to me, the way I constantly put my hands over my ears, or murmur about the specifics of someone’s voice, or the strange way news anchors inflect their syllables, or oh no oh no there’s that song again, where’s the remote so I can mute it. I am … Continue reading Poem of the Week, by Lisel Mueller
On James Baldwin and Diverse Literature
Putting those recalcitrant toddler cancer cells to bed...
your own PDK for writing
a collection of beautiful words.....
Political Tentacles
Objects, Memory and Meaning
If it can't be said in a hundred words, then it can't be said in a thousand.
sewing a handmade wardrobe
"drink from the well of your self and begin again" ~charles bukowski
The Good Things Black People Do, Give and Receive All Over The World
Musings on poetry, language, perception, numbers, food, and anything else that slips through the cracks.
Thoughts on the world around me
the literary asylum
Bipolar is my superpower
