I was a girl, walking along the Charles River in Boston on a sunny day, no one else within earshot, when suddenly a young couple got out of a car next to me, the girl in a tight sundress and heels, big smile, radiating friendliness. Her male partner silent, a half-smile on his face. The … Continue reading Poem of the Week, by Joyce Sutphen
So last week I was talking with this guy at a party, both of us horrified by this country’s lack of affordable housing, the grinding pain of life on the streets or in a tent city. How to make things better? Tiny house communities, with onsite health care and social services? Onsite laundry, a door … Continue reading Poem of the Week, by John Daniel
So here’s the way it’ll go down when I win the Powerball: a million each to my nearest and dearest and three million to me. With the gazillions left, we’ll set up a foundation to make the world better, with the caveat that every penny has to be spent within fifteen years. None of that … Continue reading Poem of the Week, by Joseph Hutchison
It makes life easier to love what you already have, my partner said the other night when we were talking about a friend who is never satisfied. Easier, but not always easy. Sometimes I look back in time and wonder what would have become of me if I’d stayed in Vermont. If I’d studied poetry … Continue reading Poem of the Week, by George Kalogeris
An old plastic solar-powered calculator is one of my most precious belongings. It adds and subtracts and divides and multiplies and I use it all the time. My calculator lives in my travel backpack when I’m on the road, along with its cousins the extra charger, the UBS converter, the external battery, the spare sunglasses, … Continue reading Poem of the Week, by Marjorie Saiser
Garvin, I hear your Queens accent, your quick, quiet hoarseness, your nervous chuckle. Christine, I hear those tiny golden bells chiming in your words and laughter. Zdrazil, I hear your deep tenor, your booming laugh, your fierce and solemn words in that last conversation. My people, I call you back. One after another I conjure … Continue reading Poem of the Week, by Lauren K. Alleyne
The morning after the 2016 election I picked up a friend to do errands. My friend, who is Black, took one look at me and said Alison, what happened? What’s the matter? I looked at his puzzlement and worry with disbelief: What do you mean, what’s the matter? After a minute his face cleared and … Continue reading Poem of the Week, by David Whyte
It is impossible to be a woman, it is impossible to be a woman: a mantra I chant to myself at some point almost every day. This mantra is usually comforting, in a weird way, because it reminds me I didn’t make this suffocating, cruel, abusive system we live in, nor am I alone in … Continue reading Poem of the Week, by Ginny Lowe Connors
The other day I recaulked my bathtub. Razored out the repulsive old caulk, chipped and dug, alcoholed and bleached. Cut the tip off the tube of new caulk but the caulk gun didn’t work and I couldn’t squeeze it out of the tube. So I razored open the tube, spooned the caulk into a little … Continue reading Poem of the Week, by Ada Limon
Most of the time you don’t know, in the moment itself, the moments that will return to you for the rest of your life. The look on your daughter’s face that day, the way his hand felt when he held yours on the train. You don’t know when a moment will be the last time … Continue reading Poem of the Week, by James Laughlin
Goodies from my mailbox and camera
Telling all sides of the parenting story
Waking Up to Your Dreams
On James Baldwin and Diverse Literature
Putting those recalcitrant toddler cancer cells to bed...
your own PDK for writing
a collection of beautiful words.....
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
Musings on poetry, language, perception, numbers, food, and anything else that slips through the cracks.
Thoughts on the world around me
Alison McGhee 