a poem is a sermon
Sometimes it seems that words are so inadequate to describe the true nature of things. As a poet, I find that lack of expressive ability most trying – particularly when what is being described is seen, but not so much with the organs of sight, but with the entire being. English, I think, is limiting […]
You know when I first realized I didn’t want to be a rock star (yeah, I know, all of five minutes ago, right)? The moment I realized I was not interested in entertaining anyone I didn’t personally know and like (and by entertaining personally I mean like playing the guitar for a friend’s wedding, writing […]
The mind is a muscle, and not a gland that simply filters things inward and out; each conscious movement of a writing hand flexes more than the arm’s tendons; No doubt with each new thought a synapse finds action, and the software is ready for upgrade, while hardware, purring with satisfaction, settles into the new […]
Work on the soul is busy work – it is unstructured, free-for-all work, meaning long stretches of silence, staring at ceilings, talking nonsense syllables to listening walls and trees; it is caterwauling at unseen demons, driving all night to the Devil’s radio, running and stomping and stretching and rolling in a ball in the corner […]
What rough beast…slouches towards Bethlehem, waiting to be born? – W.B. Yeats, from The Second Coming There is a piece of writing sitting inside me now, fermenting and growing. I am pregnant with it – it fills me, making it difficult to walk sometimes; it makes my bones ache and has affected my body chemistry. […]
There is a book by Kenny Werner called Effortless Mastery: Liberating the Master Musician Within that I cannot recommend more highly to anyone who thinks they ever were, ever wanted to be, or ever will be a Musician. The introduction to this book is so personally moving to me; it describes almost exactly what I […]
Sitting here waiting in New Orleans between the weather induced by tropical storm Isidore and hurricane Lili, I am thinking about the negative space, the shadow between events, the silence between the notes that makes a succession of events a melody, the patterns of rise and fall that make a life. The lull between storms. […]