I have a little game I play in bookstores. First I find the poetry section. Then I run my eyes along the shelf, head cocked to the right so I can read the books’ skinny spines. I’m looking for book I’ve never read by an author I’ve never heard of. I’m looking for something new … Continue reading The Bookstore Game

The first issue of Sticks & Stones went out to subscribers on January 1. It features my very first book review of the year: Jenene Ravesloot’s Sliders. If you’d like to subscribe to Sticks & Stones, send an email to ericagoss@comcast.net with the subject “Newsletter.” A few years ago, I wrote a column titled Sticks … Continue reading Happy New Year

I’m oddly inspired by parking lots. As I wrote in my book Vibrant Words: Ideas and Inspirations for Poets, “Although I’ve written many nature-based poems, I find inspiration in ordinary stretches of asphalt.” Quite a few of my poems began in parking lots – “This is a Wild Place,” “Contemporary Realism,” and "Parking Lot Time … Continue reading Poems in the Parking Garage

I was an impatient child. I wanted everything, all the time, right now. Each year before Christmas, my impatience flared into full-blown anxiety, complete with stomach cramps, shallow breathing, and sleepless nights. Once I overheard my mother telling my father, “Christmas is too hard for Erica.” The anticipation was overwhelming for me, to the point … Continue reading To Those Who Wait

In the December 3, 2017 issue of the New York Times Book Review, I read these words from David Orr’s “On Poetry” column: “Poetry, as everyone knows, is unpopular.” The first sentence in an article about children’s poetry, Orr goes on to state that poetry is so unpopular that critics need to “acknowledge that fact … Continue reading Poetry to the (Young) People