My new poems podcast, Words by Winter, can be found here. Me to the elementary or high school students I sometimes visit in person or via Zoom: Sometimes does it feel like your feelings are too big to hold inside? Like you might explode because life feels so overwhelming? Heads nod. Hands go up. Maybe you do … Continue reading Poem of the Week (excerpt), by Diane Wakoski
My new poems podcast, Words by Winter, can be found here. Yesterday my parents sent photos of the dairy farm on McGhee Hill Road, in downstate New York, where my father grew up and where my sisters and I spent a lot of time as children. I drove by it last year, after visiting my grandparents in … Continue reading Poem of the Week, by Kari Gunter-Seymour
My new poems podcast, Words by Winter, can be found here. Last week I woke up on a cold and windy day and did my own tiny triathlon: jog, kayak, bike. I did this only for myself, for the hell of it, no time pressure, no expectations, no one watching. The jog went well. The kayaking … Continue reading Poem of the Week, by May Swenson
My new poems podcast, Words by Winter, can be found here. A few days ago I was walking past Lakewood Cemetery when I saw a fresh grave, covered with dirt, through the tall iron fence. A young man and woman sat next to it with flowers, talking quietly. Something about them –their youth, their sadness–stopped me. Was … Continue reading Poem of the Week, by Aracelis Girmay
My new poems podcast, Words by Winter, can be found here. Sometimes I feel so sad for men. All the unspoken rules. All the ways our culture tries to train boys out of their openness, their gentleness, their human need for hugs and touch. I think of the multiple men I know who have told no one … Continue reading Poem of the Week, by Danez Smith
My new poems podcast, Words by Winter, can be found here. First there was childhood, with the woods and the fields and the wondering. Then came college, where the roof of your life disappeared and you found your tribe. Then came all the years of struggle and love and longing –to be a writer, to be … Continue reading Poem of the Week, by June Jordan
My new poems podcast, Words by Winter, can be found here. Most of the furniture in our house is wood, found curbside like the tiny wooden table that caught my eye yesterday a few blocks from home. Polished burled top, slender wooden dowels, sturdy legs, it looked handmade. My backpack was stuffed full of heavy groceries … Continue reading Poem of the Week, by James Richardson
My new poems podcast, Words by Winter, can be found here. Here in the Time of Covid, my younger daughter and I have figured out how to maintain her complicated haircut. She does the back and sides with her electric clippers, and then I take over with my scissors, layering the sweep of black hair we refer … Continue reading Poem of the Week, by Micah Daniels
My new poems podcast, Words by Winter, can be found here. From my porch, which is all windows, people walk by in pairs or threes or solo. Some of them stop by my poetry hut and take a poem. Some keep their heads down and never look up. Some are slow and wandery, holding hands and scuffing … Continue reading Poem of the Week, by Langston Hughes
Small, wooden, stained a peeling dark red-brown, our kitchen table has moved with us from apartment to condo to house. It’s too short, so over the years I’ve glued and re-glued blocks of wood to the bottom of each leg. My little kids did their homework on it while I cooked for them, my teenagers … Continue reading Poem of the Week, by Naomi Shihab Nye
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
the literary asylum
Bipolar is my superpower
