I was just over at Salt and saw that they have three poems by Lucille Clifton — a one-of-a-kind human being and poet I was privileged to hear in person a few times. Salt had a Christmas poem by Billy Collins last week (also worth a visit), and in this week’s offering, keeping faith with […]
One of the beauties of my pandemic-long poetry practice has been finding a poem by a different poet each week to use as a model—sometimes more of a jumping-off point—for my own work. This week it’s a poem by Gregory Pardlo who won the Pulitzer Prize in 2015 for his book, Digest. After reading this […]
A friend recently shared this poem by Shirley Kaufman (1923-2016). I wrote it into my morning journal, and I have been pondering it every morning since, wanting to understand how it works its magic. “She is more lost to me than ever,” is such a simple, unadorned way to begin. Then—without ever describing the lost […]
So, about a week ago I thought I would write a blogpost inspired by Steven Pressfield, about…pain. I copied Pressfield’s recent post and linked it (see bottom of page), and I added this passage from the painter Grant Wood: “The public does not realize, perhaps, the amount of work that goes into one painting before […]