Very occasionally, I have the impetus to write a poem. And very much less occasionally, I have the impetus to share. It’s a strange feeling for me. Erika and I started this website because we wanted a forum for sharing our writing. And the writing of others. And yet I feel private and protective concerning…
Tag: Poetry
Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” Law: Outlawing Openness
Conversations we Can’t Avoid There are a lot of conversations we have to have about things that are uncomfortable or difficult to talk about. We try and avoid things like sex, politics or religion–we label them as “out of bounds” and find less controversial things to talk about with people, but there are always going…
Where the Sidewalk Ends, Life Begins
Learning To Read I loved books even before I could read. Before I could read, I would demand that my mother read the same book over and over until I’d memorized it. She got so frustrated that she bought me a tape recorder and began recording the books I loved so that I could just…
Unlaced
i learned how to tie my shoes when i was five and i washuddled in my best friend’s bedroom, two houses down and across the street from my house,each of us knew how to do half the job.we didn’t plan it that way, it just happened when they were trying to teach us the whole…
Choosing Love
In the maelstromI always hear a voice asking“Will you close yourself to love?When the pain is too much will you let it open you?Or will you turn your face away and chooseThe tiny withering of the heartThat can someday lead to full soul death?” Should I reject a love that is imperfect?Or should I embrace…
This Poem Feels Finished…?
Sylvia on the Phone —I woke up today thinking “Sylvia Plath had the right idea. She left a pretty interesting legacy; A couple of kids, a bunch of famous poems, And she went out on her own terms.” Depression is like an ex-lover I can’t get rid of, She shares custody of my brain, Owning…
London Letter #5: “Somewhere Beyond the Sea”
Yeah. I’m not in London anymore. I’m not even in England anymore. But I’m still writing these because there are aspects of my trip I look back on, even at the remove of only a few days, with a warm sense of delight and tranquility and joy. And there are parts I am haunted by….
London Letters #4: “That Serene and Blessed Mood”
This was to be my final letter; the one in which I told you what it’s like for me, as a scholar of 16th and 17th century English literature, to visit Stratford-on-Avon, the birthplace of Shakespeare. I hardly mentioned Shakespeare in my dissertation; but my connection with his writing goes back to childhood. Being able…
London Letters #2: “O for a Muse of Fire”
Yesterday I walked past Shakespeare’s Globe Theater. It was intense. Just walking past it. I’ve been in London now for over a week. I’ve seen a bunch of the tourist things you’re supposed to see, and not seen others. I saw the treasures of the Sutton Hoo excavation at the British Museum. I saw all…
Sticking Your Nose in a Book
Do you think books mind when we read them? Here they are carrying on with their lives, being beautiful or terrible according to how they were written, and we come along and literally stick our noses into their business. There are some people—scholars, philosophers, authors—who treat books as if they were alive. I once attended…