Mr. Kraft and his family lived in the town of 300 I grew up five miles north of. One day when I was about nine, he and my mother stood talking in his driveway. He nodded to me at one point and said quietly to my mother, “She’s got it.” She, meaning me. Got it, … Continue reading Poem of the Week, by Sean Thomas Dougherty
Hiking the other day up a steep and narrow trail, my eyes kept searching for where I should step next. And then my feet kept setting themselves down exactly where I wanted them to be. I didn’t have to look at them; they knew what to do. But how? How does this body of mine … Continue reading Poem of the Week, by Yusef Komunyakaa
This shard of pottery is from a storage container used by an unknown someone who lived on a hill in Lisbon almost three thousand years ago. I imagine her filling the original container with soup or stew or pickles or water, then scouring it out, day after day. Sometimes I picture the potter who made … Continue reading Poem of the Week, by Pauletta Hansel
Before taking the city bus for the first time, I was scared. How much does it cost and what if you don’t have exact change and what are those green cards everyone else seems to be holding and oh crap what about that scanner thingie? Etcetera. “Help. This is my first time ever on the bus,” I … Continue reading Poem of the Week, by Tom Sastry
A few years ago, from my front porch, I watched an enormous, dark turtle labor its way across Emerson Avenue. It was winter. Snow and ice and slush. A giant turtle? Then the scene resolved itself; the turtle was not a turtle but an old man who had fallen and was trying to crawl to … Continue reading Poem of the Week, by Mike White
On the surface there’s little in common between Lucille Clifton and me besides the fact that we both grew up in far upstate New York (which, as all upstaters know, is in fact a deep and powerful bond). But ever since I read The Lost Baby Poem in my early twenties, a poem that filled … Continue reading Poem of the Week, by Lucille Clifton
This past week: the friends in a group discussion admitting they can barely ask what the honorarium is because it feels so selfish. The friend who wonders can I back out of this event in NYC because I just noticed there’s no travel reimbursement and I literally can’t afford it but I can’t stand to let anyone down. … Continue reading Poem of the Week, by Sharon Olds
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
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
