I’m surprised I’m attempting this at all, but since I’ve heard the suggestion so many times, I decided I should at least get started on my own poetry anthology (or canon, as Katie calls it). In my anthology, I’m re-typing each of these poems into my own Word documents. Typing them out (or writing them …
The school nurse called me the day before the all-school walk around the neighborhood (a fundraising event), “Do you think Claire will be up to it?” Claire is new at this school and with a diagnosis like cerebral palsy and the way her purple brace and slight limp sort of draw some attention to her …
I Instagrammed this image of Macy’s homework a few weeks ago. After she had carefully traced the outline of this word she was searching for, she asked me if they would let her do it this way. I said no. She sighed and declared, “Well, they should,” even as she flipped her pencil over to …
And in this particular class (meeting on Mondays from 5 to 9 p.m.) let’s pretend we’re focusing on The Sentence. That’s right. I’m in graduate school and I’m spending 8 weeks just studying the sentence. This information either thrills you or makes you feel very, very sleepy. If it makes you feel sleepy, your work …
My twelve year-old son plays tackle football. He loves it. I hate to love it. But I do. I read the articles advocating a quick retreat from the sport of American football based on its “culture of violence” and I get it. I click every headline on CNN that mentions a tragic football injury. I …
A little over a week ago I was in Chicago, walking the downtown streets from my hotel to the various STORY Chicago conference events. It was perfection. One night it rained, but I was safely inside already, and by the time I ventured back out again the night air was temperate and the rain had …
This week I’ve been reading A Poetry Handbook by Mary Oliver (she’s the poet famous for the line, “what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”). Here’s one of my favorite sections: Writing a poem … is a kind of possible love affair between something like the heart (that …