It takes two, baby

Many thanks to the editors of both Human/Kind Journal and Sonic Boom Journal, who recently published segments of my Sally and Rodrigo vignettes.

I dreamed up these two characters some years ago. At the time, I eagerly jotted down ideas about them. I knew they both like sitting on their attic floor and smoking and that they had a habit of turning off all the lights and pretending they weren't home. I didn't, however, know where to go from there. Then this spring I suggested to my quarantined writing students that they look for inspiration in the fauna in their neighborhoods. I'd seen a mallard pair splashing in a rain puddle across the street and suddenly I knew what the next steps were for Sally and Rodrigo.

You'll find "La Celebración" on page 32 of Sonic Boom. "El Vuelo" is Human/Kind's December 3, 2020 post.

A Teenager's Guide to Feminism

I'm so proud to have a poem in A Teenager's Guide to Feminism, a new anthology from Pear Shaped Press. 

Many thanks to the editors for putting together this powerful collection of  essays, letters and poems. 

To read more about the book, click here. 

The Poetry Box LIVE!

 I'm looking forward to reading and listening!

Some Good News

 Thank you to Shawn Aveningo Sanders and Robert Sanders of The Poetry Box for this honor!

For links to these poems or to check out all the offerings at The Poetry Box, you can click here.

Hope is a thing with feathers...*

         

or wrinkles

                        

                or threads

           

                                                                                 or bold letters  –                                  

                                                                            

                     hope stands tall

                            

or waves,

               

                           flaps and folds

                                                    

then squares its shoulders

                                               and winks,

                                                                                                         

                                                             

                                                hope fills its lungs with love,

sets sail

                                         flies like veined wings

                                                                                                                                and seeds.

* Apologies to Emily Dickinson

Imagine All the People

If art nurtures empathy, maybe we should all be creating stories and poems and paintings all the time. 

Here's a Halloween story that was published a while back by Imitation Fruit Literary Journal. 

In this piece, I write from the points of view of two people who are very different from me: The Japanese widow of a music icon and her son. I was inspired by Yoko Ono, but the main character here is fictional. In my imagination, I created a link between me and a woman I’ll never meet, a connection that feels as real as the sidewalks and curbs and trees that run along my street.

For Annamarie

Here's a poem I wrote for my best friend from sixth grade. Many thanks to Randal A. Burd, Jr. for publishing this piece in the August 11, 2020 issue of Sparks of Calliope: A Journal of Poetic Observations.