When we were younger, we leveled footprints in the woods—off the path, of course, down deep where the sun could barely find us, where we blended with the trees and hid behind the shrubbery. I found a deer, small, its eyes glazed and wide, still hiding from the storm the night before. Left berries.… Read More A Walk in the Snow
Yesterday evening, I wrote a sort of long-time-no-see post, followed by a post that very well may have opened a huge door for me. I shared how a poem from my earlier writing life had hugely intersected with a specific incident from my day yesterday, and I came to a realization after sharing that… Read More Hey!! A New Feature is Coming to My Blog Very, Very Soon!!
—in response to the 2012 presidential election It is winter, and you become separated, disconnected, resumed—it is winter, and you become a child. It… Read More A Letter to the Candidate
The next time you write about a man speaking to an object, consider whether the object should speak back. Particularly if it is an animal. Particularly if it is a red mongoose who has just defeated two King cobras who learned how to dovetail in the dark. Particularly if it is a woman: try… Read More A Poem About Writing Better Poems
In lieu of e.e.cummings’ birthday—October 14, 1894—I have been reading his poems and wanted to create a found poem of some of his work. I hope you enjoy it. Happy Birthday, e.e.cummings. You were one of my first poetic loves. a found poem, a lost poem into the strenuous briefness: look, my… Read More Reading e.e.cummings (a found poem)
—for Charles Once I had a dream we were all wandering through the dark on a pier, and there was a lone carousel, all… Read More Neutral Colors
“And a man newly dead would really know. And a … Read More On the Outside, There is a Heart—And on the Inside, There is an Old Friend’s Funeral.
MY IDEA OF A POEM What is a poem? A beautiful affected lie. An insinuated truth. Only by insinuating it will a truth not appear a lie. A truth as precious and hidden as anything from a mine. One needs to be a miner of poems to see in its Ethiopias of darkness… Read More Miguel Hernández’s “Idea of a Poem”
from John Ashbery’s “Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror” How many people came and stayed a certain time, Uttered light or dark speech that became part of you Like light behind windblown fog and sand, Filtered and influenced by it, until no part Remains that is surely you. * When I was… Read More A Favorite Snippet of John Ashbery
That morning, you told me you were terrified of poetry as a child. You told me stories of vines, stories of the things that continue to remain. I spent the following days imaging the dark circles left in the woods behind your house, looking in. * They were like tall flowers, bruised… Read More Your Hands, Like Discarded Feathers
