Poet, Writer, Instructor
When I first encountered Louise Glück’s poetry, I was trying very hard to make a garden out of an overgrown and neglected patch of forest behind my house. Redwoods shaded the area for most of the year, and when the sun finally rose high enough to shine over the trees in summer, its heat dried… Continue reading The Paradox of “Daisies” by Louise Glück
I’ve always had small gardens, determined by the size of my backyard and the amount of sunlight it received. Some years ago, I discovered Mel Bartholomew’s book Square Foot Gardening, which I’ve used ever since. In square foot gardening, you divide your garden space into 12-inch squares, and then cram as many vegetables as you possibly… Continue reading Square Foot Poetry
I’ve been struck by the terminology of the Covid-19 pandemic: Essential workers. Stay home stay safe. Shelter-in-place. Masks, ventilators, hand sanitizer. Tests, tracking, social distancing. Working from home. Zoom. Virtual graduations, weddings, birthday parties. Isolation. None of these words and phrases comes close to describing the state of panic and paralysis we find ourselves in.… Continue reading Plague Poetry
Yesterday, I decided to play The Bookstore Game at home. Due to Oregon’s coronavirus shelter-in-place order, I haven’t been to an actual bookstore or library since March 10, when Claire Graman and I gave our presentation for Women’s History Month at the Eugene Public Library. I realize that plenty of people, perhaps the majority, don’t… Continue reading You Are a Work of Art
I woke up at 3:00 am thinking about bees (it’s one day before my 60th birthday, and I still can’t sleep through the night). The day before, my son and I were sitting in the garden when a swarm of bees flew over our heads and settled in a tree across the street. The sound of… Continue reading Bee-loud Brains
I discovered wordpools in Susan Goldsmith Wooldridge’s Poemcrazy. “I collect…hats, coins, cougars, old Studebakers,” she writes. “That is, I collect the words. Pith helmet, fragment, Frigidaire, quarrel, love seat, lily. I call gathering words this way creating a wordpool. This process helps free us to follow the words and write poems.” When I read this, I’d been writing… Continue reading Dive Into the Wordpool
I admit it. I’m a sucker for books that claim to help me be a better writer. I even wrote one myself. I keep my favorite books on writing poetry, memoir, and nonfiction on the shelf closest to my desk. These books are old friends I turn to again and again: when I'm stuck, or need a… Continue reading My Favorite Writing-Craft Books
I like to tell my friends that I never, ever have writer’s block, and yes, I rarely have the full-blown version. I do, however, experience creative slowdowns, periods where I produce less work than I’d like, or my ideas seem stale, or I feel a lack of interest in writing. This is more dangerous than… Continue reading How I Banish Writer’s Block
I asked writers who’d published their first books of poetry at or beyond the age of fifty to discuss their experiences. Was there any particular reason they’d waited to publish? Did they think there was an advantage to publishing later in life? How had publishing a first book changed their lives? The responses from over… Continue reading Chop Wood, Carry Water: Publishing a First Poetry Book After Fifty
More than two years ago, I started tinkering with a poem about my long drives up and down Interstate Highway 5, drives that began when I was a child and continued, with regularity, until the present day. My first note was an entry in my journal, dated December 15, 2017: “I cross the border going… Continue reading The Making of a Winning Poem: Writing “The State of Jefferson”