Does your national identity influence you?

M.E. Walsh, in her Creativity Series interview, asked if my national identity influences me. As I’m in the middle of an interview now for NYC’s Brooklyn Rail magazine – in which we examine the contentious concepts of exile and liminality – it dawned on me that the idea of national identity is integral to this…

The Democracy of Night

  I just came across some old poems of mine in FRIGG and I’m astounded again by the journal’s wispy, dreamy aesthetic. It’s not often that poets have a visual sensibility, which is odd, seeing as metaphors and imagery are our stock and trade.  I thought I’d share a couple of these old (revised) poems…

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. 

little clouds and blind spots

I love Sean’s portraits of self-portraits – he dissolves into a fairy tale, a Little Prince, a Pierrot. He becomes his truest self twice over. When I paint my face I create a self-portrait on the most immediate canvas. The mirror provides me with a portrait, then I paint a self-portrait on its reflection until…