A couple of weeks ago I had a phone call with my friend Joy and we talked about what we’d planned to talk about quite efficiently and then got into the things we wanted to talk about. Poetry and poems and writers we love and writing we love. Before I hung up, I’d ordered another…
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When I was fifteen, studying at a private high school, I wanted to write an author report on Sandra Cisneros, the most important writer of my young but committed reading life (I was the sort of kid who skipped class to read). I was told by my English teacher that if I was interested in…
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I haven’t posted in SO long, that guilt is like a puppy that won’t leave me alone (and I don’t really like puppies that much). So this poem I’m working on is here to say some stuff–at first I thought, I shouldn’t post this thing I’m working on, what if someone reads it and sends…
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I really love yoga, and I swear it keeps my head straight and I don’t know what I’d do without it. But I’m really irked by pop-performance-yoga culture, it’s so annoying. That said, I definitely do the fuck out of some yoga. I just, like, don’t have the beads or whatever. I like to be…
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If you’re in or around New Jersey this weekend, I’m reading at the Ridgewood Library. What’s really exciting is that my name is misspelled in this headline. This is not at all unusual, I just sent an email asking for a correction elsewhere. How it goes. The lack of symmetry! Why don’t I have two…
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My friend Renee Olander has a gorgeous book that’s just come out, and she mailed me these beautiful cards with the cover on one side and a poem, “Scared of Devils” on the other side. When I was a kid, I was very conscious of my parents’ mortality. Perhaps more than normal. I’d check if…
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In two weeks Community Building Art Works is having our Kickoff Celebration. The board has been hard at work and it’s going to be such a good party. We have things to announce and tacos to eat. Tickets for the Kickoff Celebration are available here. We have a bunch of wonderful programs planned, but we can’t…
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I think I’ve finished the manuscript but I haven’t been able to release it yet. Today. Tomorrow. I often think, when I’m up to my eyeballs in terrible doubt about my poems or my work, that I should learn to do something undeniable and practical instead. Specifically I should learn to build coffins. Everyone needs…
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Friday I’m reading at East City Bookshop with Faisal Mohyuddin and Simone Roberts. They are stunning humans and you should come. A few weeks ago I reread The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera. I first read it some time ago, then lent my copy to someone. Then a month ago I had the…
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A very beautiful, very dear friend of mine asked me to read a poem at her wedding–a poem of my own. She is an enormously special person to me. We have been present for one another in times of excruciating grief and joy. She is someone who I believe, having known her since she was…
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