poetry

The setting sun fills the darkening blue-purple sky with pink and orange streaks, vivid enough to catch my attention through the kitchen window. I step out onto the deck and the cool air on my face reminds me: It’s all still here. The sky, the air, the trees, the space around me. Nothing has gone […

in the train windowa flock of black birdsagainst the indigo skyand like ghost birdsthe reflections of streetlights

3-0 game  in the blue sky  above the goalkeeper  a turkey vulture  turns and turns

the shadow moves gently across the engine and I realize the plane is rocking very slightly as the captain’s hands on the controls — or perhaps it is the autopilot so it is the hands of the engineers who typed the code — are just barely rocking the plane  and all of us within it […]

I was reluctant at first: A friend had taken the ModPo poetry course — twice — and she’s now pursuing an MFA at Columbia, living in a 4th-floor walkup while her wife remains here in San Francisco. I don’t need that kind of hassle in my life. Eventually the draw became irresistible, thanks to my frie

Vox just dropped a 12-minute master class on prosody featuring some amazing rap lyrics. Rhyme, beats, metrical motives … this really covers some ground. Super cool.

I made a short, clickable Tapestry story out of an old poem I wrote but had never published. I hope you like it.

Poet and publisher Dave Bonta spoke to me on the phone awhile back for his “Woodrat” podcast. He got me to talk about everything from how I handle submissions to tinywords, what my publishing philosophy is, why haiku is important, and what I learned from studying poetry with Louise Glück. We also ta

Frank Bidart: What to make, how to make, what does making mean in our lives? What do we make, why do make, when are we making? How important is making? What is the life of a maker, what is the life of an artist, what’s left when you’re not making anything? From Bidart’s amazing 2006 […]

deep night– after the neighbor stops yelling at her children the mockingbird begins to warble Published in A Handful of Stones, September 6, 2010

inside the tight curlof the yucca leafa wood spider haiku published on A Handful of Stones, 19 August 2010

3 floors above the alley where 2 young men examine 1 paycheck a window box of geraniums and a gray satellite dish and– what made me look– wind chimes ringing out 6/1/2010 published in A Handful of Stones, Oct 2, 2010