I didn't like Allen Ginsberg when I first read him. I didn't get why those long lines and weird language was necessary. It wasn't until I read the "wrong" book of his--the book that nobody else seemed to talk about--that... Continue reading

My father has been dead for ten years today. I woke up in the dark hotel to a phone call: a nurse saying, “Your father’s condition has changed.” I’d spent the last three days with his second wife watching him... Continue reading

I'm posting this late because I've had no time at all to compose or even think straight. It's the last day, for me, of classes this term. I've ordered pizzas for the two classes, an Advanced Poetry class and a... Continue reading

I’ve been reading again about insects because my poems have been slowly filling up with them over the last couple of years. Until I realized I wanted to be a writer around age 17, I thought I’d be a biologist,... Continue reading

December 7th, as many of us know by heart, is Pearl Harbor Day. It’s also Willa Cather’s birthday (1873). If you want a poetry prompt, I’d say open to page 96 of one of her novels—the closest to hand will... Continue reading

The anniversary of the 13th amendment is today, and it's also the day the Washington Monument finally got finished. Got a project you’re still working on? It’s a little grim in Pittsburgh, although, as my parents always said, somewhere probably... Continue reading

1 Today's the anniversary of the end of Prohibition, General George Custer’s birthday, and the day, in 1945, five navy planes took off from Florida on a routine three-hour mission and were never heard from again. Flight 19’s disappearance still... Continue reading