Memory Mural

Still Lifes in our Artists’ Loft

My treasures aren’t worth anything but mean the world to me. The paper-cut oak leaves were collected on a stroll up to the Basilica of San Miniato al Monte last year. I love cutting shapes into dried leaves – so ephemeral, they promise to rip and turn to mulch on the studio floor. I love…

Tumbling Down the Rabbit Hole…

Tonight I was looking for an essay of mine that was published in Cutbank last year, and all these hits came up… I’m so pleased to find so many quotes of my work that have been posted and reposted on Tumblr and various blogs, etc. All night I’ve tumbled into the Tumblrsphere. For instance, a…

A Geography of the Heavens

The working title for my current memoir – a meditation on my exile and love affair – was A Natural History of the Sky – the sky being a running motif throughout the narrative for many reasons (natural history, art history, magical realism, dreams, astrology, etc). With chapter titles ranging from “Miranda Pirouetting on a Zephyr”…

We Two, How Long we Were Fool’d

Whitman always says it best. Whatever it is, he says it best. My dad and I just spoke about Whitman, and coincidentally, the next day, I got my copy of Leaves of Grass out of storage and I found a poem that I don’t remember reading, though I must have read it a dozen times….

Tattoo’ed Maps & Dragons – my Inspiration

My poem Mappa Mundi has been published by The Roanoke Review, The editors asked me to write a little bit about the inspiration behind this poem. Mappa Mundi was inspired by my passion for books of antique maps, some of them so large, I could step through them like doors into imaginary, naively drawn worlds. These…

The Weight of Prayer

I’m excited to announce that my poem The Weight of Prayer has been published by The Roanoke Review, a literary journal that was founded by a Pulitzer Prize winner and one of his students; a down-to-earth journal that publishes writers with no previous writing credits as well as well-known writers. The Roanoke Review editors asked…

Goldilocks on Pilgrimage

Securing a bed each night on my pilgrimage is an ordeal and a blessing. For a faithless pilgrim such as myself, leaving my bed to fate or luck or chance or serendipity or street smarts or the kindness of strangers is a strange show of faith. 

my portion of heaven and hell

I recently found my 2005 interview with Li-Young Lee. It was originally published in my (now defunct) online journal Rock Salt Plum Review. I thought I had lost all of my interviews, but this one remains because it is handwritten.  In a recent post about poetic mentors, I wrote:  “My third mentor was Li-Young Lee…I had…