When I was in college in my 20s at Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville (commuting from my parents land), I was part of the editorial team for their literary magazine “Sou’wester.” My poem “Under Mama’s Yew Tree” (later published in “Sightlines: A Poet’s Diary”) was given some very encouraging words from Galway Kinnell. Because of…
The Avalanche Linda Hogan Savings Just last month the avalanches like good women were headed for a downfall. I saw one throw back her head and let go of the world. No more free soup bones for that one. No more faces of friends at the door with doilies and lace, with ivory charms carved…
Vegetable Love in Texas by Carol Coffee Reposa Texas Poetry Calendar: 2008 Farmers say There are two things Money can’t buy: Love and homegrown tomatoes. I pick them carefully. They glow in my hands, shimmer Beneath their patina of warm dust Like talismen. Perhaps they are. Summer here is a crucible That melts us down…
The last step in producing an audio book is to celebrate! That’s what my Nashville Production team did with me at the Sportsman Bar and Grille this week. It looks like a theme park version of those grand old WPA (Works Progress Administration) lodges in the great parks like Yellowstone and Yosemite. The food was…
These Days by Charles Olson from “Collected Poems of Charles Olson—Excluding Maximus Poems” whatever you have to say, leave the roots on, let them dangle And the dirt Just to make clear where they come from
Bamboo by Jane Hirshfield From “Orion” What exists wants to persist. Even the knock of bamboo on bamboo spilled outward continues. And you who have lived—restless, ambitious, aggrieved. A Walter, a Shirley, a Tim. A Carlos, a Teisha, a Haavo. Do not think it unchanged, this world you are leaving.
I lived in New Mexico for seven years in the 1980s. I recall the Saturday night car parades down the main street of Espanola…and have magical memories of Chimayo. I’m glad our National Poetry Month editor Stephanie Farrow chose this poem for us. It brings back happy memories of one of my heart homes. –Janet…
Last May we began the long journey of making our audio book “Sightlines: A Family Love Story in Poetry and Music.” Here’s the post from that time describing my drive down from St. Louis the Nashville. A year later, it’s still a long drive in the country (albeit on freeways) and a pretty one, to…
A year ago we started the journey of making “Sightlines: A Family Love Story in Music and Song.” It was a long-held dream of mine since “Sightlines: A Poet’s Diary” came out in 2006 to make an audio with music to go along with the book. I happened almost by chance when I decided to…
Early in the Morning Li-Young Lee from Rose While the long grain is softening in the water, gurgling over a low stove flame, before the salted Winter Vegetable is sliced for breakfast, before the birds, my mother glides an ivory comb through her hair, heavy and black as calligrapher’s ink. She sits at the foot…