Some journals want brief ones—fifty words and no more—and you begin to worry you will somehow be punished if you go over the limit. Others let you ramble on and on, a veritable laundry list of publications and schools attended. Over the years, I’ve tried a number of approaches…
Writing in Form: Syllabic Verse
In 2012, my short poem, “Winter in the Coast Range Foothills” was published in Clatsop Community College’s RAIN Magazine. This poem is an example of syllabic verse—poetry whose meter is determined by the total number of syllables per line …
Publication News: Women Writing Nature in Sugar Mule
In August of 2012, the “Women Writing Nature” issue of Sugar Mule published not one but four! of my poems: “Bringing in the Seeds”; “Keep Napa Glassy-Winged Sharpshooter Free!”; “On the Rare Occasion of an Ice Storm in the Coast Range”; and my prose poem, “Empty Nest.” …
Dusk Upon Us
The wind up, the tenor Gregorian chant wind chime is making its music. The temperature The temperature drops but only slightly, and I hear the horn of inbound (particle board, paper bags, pallets) Willamette & Pacific train…
Epiphanies?
I’m supposed to be searching for some epiphany I can write about in the style of early James Joyce. But instead, today has been yawning. A drive to/from foggy Newport on the Pacific Ocean to retrieve a mattress and a television set from an outdoor patio…
Coast Range Winds
Photo by Dave Croker The weather changes with the setting of the sun here, in this outpost of cloud/sky/tall tree/mud that was once the ocean …
Longest Day of the Year…
Still daylight here in the foothills of the Coast Range in western Oregon. In fact, I think there’s a long way to go. There was a parking lot full of cars already lined up at Bald Hill Park when I drove home an hour — I think there’s some kind of solstice celebration at the top of Bald Hill peak every year…