The post-rainfall Wisconsin worms were fat, long, everywhere. It took forever to walk to school those days, as I methodically calculated each footstep. To avoid squishing them, releasing even more of the pungent earthy smell I hated. To avoid accidentally cutting one in two, creating two separate worms that would live where there once was […]
Archive for the ‘The Arts’ Category
Dances with Worms
Posted in Animals, Children, Fear, Film, Rain, Youth on April 18, 2014 | 2 Comments »
The 12th Poet: In Search of the Epic
Posted in Community, Football, Poetry, Superbowl on February 6, 2014 | Leave a Comment »
War and soldiering, victory and defeat, belong not just to the troops, the generals, the political leaders. They belong to the Poets. Poets to protest the cost of the violence, Poets to remind that freedom – the touch of the divine – must sometimes be freed from the touch of man.
A Conversation Between Writers
Posted in Isolation/Belonging, Poetry, Writing on January 23, 2014 | 1 Comment »
Writers are not known for their social skills. Even those who write great dialogue do so from the privacy of their own writing space, with endless re-writes and reading it back out loud to determine when they have finally captured something like “real” conversation. You can write a to-do list, or even a family Christmas […]
Writing Assignment II
Posted in Poetry, Relationships on November 17, 2013 | 2 Comments »
I’ve given myself a writing assignment: Write a poem. I argue with even this teacher’s assignment. An inane argument, a stall, I suppose, but my resistance demands its voice. I ask: What is a poem these days? Prose with more line breaks? Ideas uncoupled? Half-written thoughts that trail off? Descriptions that lead […]