Sometimes I dream that I’m trying to get to Paris. I’m at the airport but I left my passport at home, and I can’t get a cab to go fetch it, and once I’m home I can’t remember where the passport is, and once I’m back at the airport I’m at the wrong terminal, and … Continue reading Poem of the Week, by E.E. Cummings
I’ll rewrite this whole life and this time there’ll be so much love, / you won’t be able to see beyond it. These lines, from the gorgeous poem below, bring me back to childhood and the novel that more than any other book made me want to be a writer. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn is about Francie … Continue reading Poem of the Week, by Warsan Shire
What wearies you? What renews you? Who brings you joy? Who exhausts you? When you think of safety and comfort and happiness, what place or person comes to mind? The answers to these questions are already known to you. They live in your body, in a place beyond conscious thought and its dangerous companions, rationalization … Continue reading Poem of the Week, by John Freeman
The Song Poet, by Kao Kalia Yang. Everything that Kao Kalia Yang writes I read slowly and usually twice, not because there is anything confusing about her sentence structures but because her words and stories fill my heart with emotion. Sorrow, love, longing, rage and redemption – page by page, they all swim through. This … Continue reading Books of the Month, March 2018
Friends, if you’re interested in taking a one-day creative writing workshop with me, I’m teaching two of them in Minneapolis next month. May 5: The Freedom of Form. May 6: Writing through Pivotal Points. Click this link for more information and to register. I’d love to see you there! Long ago I wanted to write a … Continue reading Poem of the Week, by Reiner Kunze
Five years ago this week my older daughter and I were sitting on the porch of a cafe in Istanbul, smoking a hookah and eating mezes and pita bread. Later, we walked the streets of our neighborhood, which was on the Bosphorus. At one point the muezzins began their call to prayer, the sound of … Continue reading Poem of the Week, by Jaime Manrique
Hey there, little guy. It’s been almost a week now. I washed your blankets and hung them on the line. The mats and small rugs we scattered around on the wood floors to help you with traction are stored away. The Painter put your bed in the storage room and washed your food and water … Continue reading Poem of the Week, by Mary Oliver
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
We must have the stubbornness to accept our gladness in the ruthless furnace of this world. -jack gilbert
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
