I’m an inveterate recycler. I have a compost pile and six chickens so I can turn food scraps into soil and eggs. I love repurposed items: quilts sewn from old clothes, wind chimes made of bent spoons, collages of torn magazine pages. Therefore, I was delighted to discover that poet Eileen R. Tabios has created a … Continue reading How to Create a Poetry Database
Organizing the Field
I’ve been so excited about my new poetry project, Field Notes, that I forgot how difficult it is to organize a poetry collection. So far, the 40-odd poems I've assembled fall into the following themes: Tree, Plant, Weather, Flowers, Seed, Insects, Earth, Grass, Compost, Bird, Stone, Ocean, Animal, Desert My first thought was to put the poems into seasonal categories, i.e., Winter, Spring, Summer, Fall. … Continue reading Organizing the Field
Field Notes
During much of this spring, I’ve been in a creative lull – not exactly writer’s block but a definite slowdown. I wrote a few poems, I kept up with my twice-a-month blog posts and the newsletter, I wrote daily entries in my journal, but the energy I normally bring to my creative writing felt muted. … Continue reading Field Notes
Flowers of Rhetoric: A List of Obscure Literary Terms
I found this list in a 2003 letter from my father. At the time, I was beginning my MFA degree in Creative Writing at San Jose State University. My father was worried that I would succumb to the "tricks of rhetoric, which are the opposite of poetry." In the same letter, he went on to … Continue reading Flowers of Rhetoric: A List of Obscure Literary Terms
The Exploratory Review
I’ve come to realize something about the reviewing process. Every book I review is unique, and therefore, dictates the type of review it receives. I call this style of reviewing The Exploratory Review, which combines elements of narrative, description, and exposition. In the exploratory review, the book leads the way instead of the reviewer. A … Continue reading The Exploratory Review
The Long Poem Project
Recently, I came across an article titled “An Anatomy of the Long Poem”. The author, Rachel Zucker, states “there are many short poems I admire and, of course, too many wonderful mid-length poems to name that I adore. But I have a special love for a good long poem.” This gave me pause. I admit … Continue reading The Long Poem Project
An Appreciation: Terrance Hayes’s “The Blue Terrance”
My first encounter with Terrance Hayes’s poem “The Blue Terrance” occurred in my car. It was the spring of 2009 and I’d been listening to a CD of an episode of “The Playlist,” the Poetry Foundation’s podcast, on my way from one teaching job to another. The drive from Saratoga to Cupertino took about ten … Continue reading An Appreciation: Terrance Hayes’s “The Blue Terrance”
What About X? Writing the Abecedarian
Definition: An abecedarian poem is one in which verses or words begin with the successive letters of the alphabet. I recently wrote my first abecedarian poem, and while I enjoyed the process, I nearly stalled out when I got to the letter X. Hardly any useful words begin with X. My crumbling, 1965 edition of … Continue reading What About X? Writing the Abecedarian
How I Review a Poetry Collection
In this post, I share my method for reviewing books of poetry. My reviews appear twice monthly in my newsletter, Sticks & Stones, which is free to subscribers. I read the whole book several times. First, I read it as if I were not planning to review it. I just enjoy the book. I read … Continue reading How I Review a Poetry Collection
Dance With Me, Part 2
Twyla Tharp’s The Creative Habit Last week I shared my first post about Twyla Tharp’s wonderful book, The Creative Habit. Here is Part 2. Part 2: Deprivation, picking fights, packages of time, anti-social = pro-creative In her chapter “Accidents Will Happen,” Tharp writes “For my first five years, I choreographed to silence. I had no … Continue reading Dance With Me, Part 2
