Below you'll find a list of all posts that have been categorized as “Writing”
Here is a simple prompt that can be useful for generating lots of specific detail—memories, images, family history—that can then be mined for creative writing work. I made this list a while back, oh maybe in 2005. Maybe it’s time for me to revisit this prompt again!…
My poem, “Juneteenth,” was published in Scissors & Spackle, Vol., 3: Laundry Lines: An Anthology, way back in September 2013. At the time, it took its title from Ralph Ellison’s second novel, Juneteenth; in the decade since, Juneteenth has (finally) been recognized as a National Holiday! My poem is about a very different subject, however—a vignette from June 19, 1977 when I was a very new, very young mother…
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My poem, “Caesura,” was published by Stirring way back in November 2011. A caesura is a poetic term-of-art that describes “a stop or pause in a metrical line, often marked by punctuation or by a grammatical boundary…
And even the mottled, somewhat raggedy witch hazel leaves become a yellow luminescence against the afternoon and its celebration of sky-blue sky. A day to walk, observe, look up, celebrate the riot of color of the so many neighborhood shrubs and trees. A day to rake more fallen browning leaves, to sweep, to wait for the finches and bushtits to arrive for their before dinner dip
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My disturbingly prescient poem, “Peak Oil Comes Hither,” was published as the final part of my triptych, “Distant Early Warnings,” at PANK back in January 2012. It was written in flexible form called the triversen, shorthand for triple verse sentence. Each sentence is broken into three lines
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Pilgrimage Magazine published “Bird, Flown,” my short poem influenced by Federico García Lorca in the Beginnings and Flight double issue of their print journal way back in Fall 2015…
This afternoon, I learned that two of my poems, “Stoned Soul Picnic” and “The Green Love of the Progress to This Now and,” have been accepted for publication in Thriving, an anthology forthcoming from Exsolutas Press in 2024. According to its website, Exsolutas Press was founded to publish books “that pry open dead questions and give birth to new ones…
It seems to happen every autumn. For some reason—the shortened day length, the return of the rain, the cooler temperatures—I suddenly get the urge to blow money here and there entering what are likely long-shot poetry contests.
My poem, “Ernestine,” has been accepted for publication in the December 2023 issue of kerning—the theme of the issue is “Body as Evidence.” kerning is a biannual publication of writing from women and gender-diverse people published under the umbrella of Toad Hall Editions
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Suddenly, out of the blue, I’ve found myself motivated to gather up a whole passel of my recent poems into yet another book-length collection. Well, it wasn’t exactly out of the blue. I was spurred onward when I saw the notice for the John Ridland Poetry Prize, a new prize open to poets 55 years and older
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