Write out your full name. Research the meaning of your name (which can include any or all of the following: your nickname, first name, middle name, surname, and/or mother’s maiden name if you use it).
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Poetry and the Sound of the Pacific Ocean
I am in Newport, Oregon for the Northwest Poets’ Concord this weekend, a veritable grassroots gathering of the poetic tribes, many who, like me, are not affiliated with academia. …
And so after a month of daily scribbling…
Since last fall, maybe early November, I’ve been drafting (mostly) a poem a day with time off for Thanksgiving…Every day in the short month of February, I posted my thoughts about the process, as well as excerpts from the daily poems, one-a-day like a creative vitamin…
One-A-Day: Poetry as Creative Vitamin
Since last fall, maybe early November, I’ve been drafting (mostly) a poem a day with time off for Thanksgiving, a 60th birthday party, Christmas, and our recent delirious spate of February spring. I’d long meant to tackle such a project…
Cat’s Cradle
As the whole world likely knows, the reclusive author, J.D. Salinger, died at the age of ninety-one last week. I was royally hooked on everything written by Salinger when I was an impressionable teen. Franny and Zooey was my favorite…
Form not Formlessness
One of my resolutions for 2010 is to jump-start what I’ve taken to calling my solo MFA regimen. I know I have many gaps to fill, knowledge-wise…
Deconstructing Rejection
They’ve started to trickle in: the not-unexpected rejection letters from the dozen or so contests I entered a few months back, inevitably telling me that my poetry manuscript has not been selected for a prize or for publication
Dew on the Grass
In March 2009, a dear friend chose to begin the process of dying “consciously.” What does that mean in this culture so notoriously youth-obsessed and morality-denying?…
Dem Bones
It’s been over twenty years since Natalie Goldberg urged us to “free the writer within” in what seemed, at the time, her groundbreaking (well, in some circles) book, Writing Down the Bones, first published in 1986. Yep, Reagan was still President…
Hammering It Home: Poetry’s Nuts and Bolts
Mary Oliver is a beloved contemporary poet. Her work is read at weddings and funerals and by Garrison Keillor on his radio show, “The Writer’s Alamanac.” Even my yoga teacher in Corvallis, Oregon, often began our class with inspirational lines from Oliver’s work…
