Here’s a link to a poem of mine that appeared Santa Clara Review, fall/wtr 2009.

On my first day of classes, one of the things I talked about with students is “how to begin.” We also talked about writing every day. It’s so easy to get caught up in a world of distractions, text messages, TV shows, those handy games loaded onto your smart phone. But what if you could set aside some time to just do what you love to do? I love lots of things — and I’m as compulsive as the next person. But somehow, for me, that thing I love to do is always — writing.

This morning, in the dark, in my cabin, it was my sixth day back at work on the novel. It would have been easy to skip today, but I can put a foil star on my calendar if I work for just 15 minutes, and I really wanted to earn that star. As it turned out, I worked for 30 minutes and I was a little late for school (I wanted to be here at 8:30, and didn’t arrive until 9…no matter, class wasn’t until 10).

In my class, unable to resist, I also bragged about Sparrow. I’m told that it will be available soon, and if you need it sooner you can call Writers & Books. $16.95 plus 3.50 s & h. Let me know if you have a bookstore or another reading venue that you’d like me to visit!

I am getting ready for my Winter quarter classes, beginning on Monday, and wanted to say that I took a few minutes for poetry. So here’s something from another winter. I borrowed the image from The Trumpeter Swan Society website, and it makes me happy simply to know that they exist. TRUMPETER SWANS

cattle in the field       sparrows and winter

wrens the unremarkable crows

then the swans      dropping like hail from the clouds

four of them flying

in a long row of long white necks and white wings

dropping over the barbed wire fence enclosing the brown field

the other birds         the cattle

not stopping their grazing not looking up

docile, unastounded at the swans

arriving like news

of another and not yet diminished world