for original writing of self and others
I’ve been thinking of Pablo Neruda recently for a surprising reason. I’m going the Greece. I have this dreamy idea of Greece as a land of lovers and poets. I recalled one of my favorite movies which formed my dreamy image: Il Postino (The Postman), a 1994 Italian language film directed by Michael Radford, It…
Don’t miss the recording of our tele-seminar at Kendra Bonnett & Matilda Butler’s Women’s Memoirs site as they feature our teleseminar conversation on Memoir Moments. Kendra and Matilda introduce the recording like this: If you missed our informative conversation with Janet Grace Riehl, author of the memoir CD called Sightlines: A Family Love Story in…
To make this call a success we need a good sampling of comments. FIRST: June 2nd, read my post on www.womensmemoirs.com SECOND: Comment on the blog after my post. Your comments will be gathered to submit questions for the live call on JUNE 11th. Your questions should cover: 1) memoir writing and 2) the audio…
Yesterday, I received a beautiful note from Madonna Bettit of Vermont, extending her appreciation after she’d read “Sightlines: A Poet’s Diary.” “Indeed, as you wrote: What will you do with this life?/And why do you wish to keep on living?” You have done something very beautiful. Your lonely, poignant poetry is beyond comment. This is…
Radiator by Connie Wanek from Bonfire Mittens are drying on the radiator, boots nearby, one on its side. Like some monstrous segmented insect the radiator elongates under the window. Or it is a beast with many shoulders domesticated in the Ice Age. How many years it takes to move from room to room! Some cage…
The Cure at Troy (excerpt) Seamus Heaney Human beings suffer. They torture one another. They get hurt and get hard. No poem or play or song Can fully right a wrong Inflicted and endured. History says, Don’t hope On this side of the grave, But then, once in a lifetime The longed-for tidal wave Of…
Dusting by Marilyn Nelson from Magnificat Thank you for these tiny particles of ocean salt, pearl-necklace viruses, winged protozoans: for the infinite, intricate shapes of submicroscopic living things. For algae spores and fungus spores, bonded by vital mutual genetic cooperation, spreading their inseparable lives from equator to pole. My hand, my arm, make sweeping circles….
Yes by Tess Gallagher from Moon Crossing River Now we are like that flat cone of sand in the garden of the Silver Pavilion in Kyoto designed to appear only in moonlight. Do you want me to mourn? Do you want me to wear black? Or like moonlight on whitest sand to use your dark,…
Gathering Leaves in Grade School by Judith Harris from The Literary Review, Fall 2008 They were smooth ovals, and some the shade of potatoes– some had been moth-eaten or spotted, the maples were starched, and crackled like campfire. We put them under tracing paper and rubbed our crayons over them, X-raying the spread of their…
A Good List (Homage to Lorenz Hart) Brad Leithauser Curves and Angles Some nights, can’t sleep, I draw up a list, Of everything I’ve never done wrong. To look at me now, you might insist My list could hardly be long, But I’ve stolen no gnomes from my neighbor’s yard, Nor struck his dog, backing…