Welcome to my web home!

Poetry. Visual Art. Random thoughts.

What I've been WRiting...

I've been fooling around with discovering "poems" inside my poems. .

Learning Cursive/We Live for Each Other
 
Sister Dorothy’s chalk wand
dolled up the alphabet
just like mascara
and ruby lipstick
decorated our mothers’
party faces. 
 
She taught us to fuse
our clodhopper
marks into molten
loops and, a girl’s
best friend,
curlicues.
 
I wanted to kiss
each fluid swipe
of those joined letters,
touch my tongue
to the steady spaces
between each word.
 
Even the peril 
of capital letters –
the complex sweeps
and ragged turns –
didn’t keep me
from paper and pen. 
 
I uncapped my blue,
crystal-throated BIC
and rehearsed
every sigh and whisper,
every consonant and vowel
of my new liquid name.

what editors say ...

You have a lovely, clear voice that rings true for the reader.

I love this poem. My girlfriend and I will only wear black when we eat out.

-- Michelle Hartman, Editor of Red River Review

Your poems show a side of and take an angle on Ritual that is unique among our submissions, and we think they would be an excellent addition to the Issue.

-- Troy Payne, Editor of Lantern Journal

These concrete details are lovely; their settings stronger still. Your understanding of how to move a piece forward, how to give it motion, is a true strength.

-- Judge from Sustainable Arts Foundation

Thanks for sending us your work, and we’ll be very pleased to include it in one of our poetry issues.    I’m thrilled to be able to include your work.

-- Dr. Christopher Todd Anderson, Guest Poetry Editor, The Midwest Quarterly

wHAT i'VE BEEN DOING...

Here's me and an American Elm I donated to the Riverside branch of the Urban Ecology Center in honor of love. Her name is Lovely. She is located south of North Avenue west of the trail and she hopes to kill invasive plant species with her shade.

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what readers say ...

Lyrical and sensitive …

-- Jayshree M. Tripathi

I really enjoyed this uplifting poem which celebrates the power of the perfect shoe.

-- Pamela Newham

I love this, and I really relate to the torn feelings you so eloquently shared.

-- Stephanie Gagos

What I've Been Stitching...

I Need Your Help -- I'm Collecting Wisdom!

I'm collecting the wisdom daughters have received from their mothers. Then I'm stitching the wisdom on vintage handkerchiefs and I'm still not sure where it will take me but it's fun to do while I listen to a Great Course about How to Write Great Sentences. Shoot me a line from YOUR mother. Here's one I started stitching...