Month: January 2015
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Working one day, alone in my tower—er, office—I listened to Loreena McKennett singing “The Lady of Shallot” (lyrics from Tennyson’s poem) and it struck me how the good Lady and I have more than a few things in common. We even share a first name— she’s based on the Arthurian legend of Elaine. Modern technology…
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I recently heard Pauletta Hansel, a wonderful Cincinnati poet, read some of her work. A series she read introduced me to a form I’d never heard of before: the 7 x 7, also known as a “49-er” by some. The form is simple, 7 syllables per line, 7 lines. I really loved how her 7x7s…
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To the churning of the world How my brain flares as I dream of you, electric spark illuminating songbirds fast asleep, hidden in branches dark a single egg met a particular sperm in warm depths and became you a miracle like every seed sprouting green from the loam now your eyes widen at the whispered…
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From Rebecca Solnit’s essay called “Woolfe’s Darkness, Embracing the Inexplicable” found in her book, Men Explain Things to Me. “Feeling emotional upheaval is not a spiritual faux pas; it’s the place where the warrior learns compassion.” –Pema Chödrön, From The Places That Scare You “When it is dark enough, you can see the…
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Wednesday night is writing circle night for me. I write with some amazing, inspiring women, and look forward to it all week. In tonight’s fastwrite, we were invited to take a line from the poem, “Hunger” by Gunilla Norris, and write for 12 minutes to see where the line might lead us. The title is…
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To the pond Yes, I’m boiling over I’m stirring the pot, I walk, listening for the howler monkeys their silence echoes across the silver sky A red-tailed hawk and a flock of sparrows whisper in my muffled ears: to the pond, to the pond, to the pond words skipping like stones across water like a…
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Alive like a stream When I was Lainey I played with iron shavings— scattered them all across the Formica countertop Mama handed me the big magnet, lucky horseshoe-shaped. I gasped as the slivers danced, alive like a stream, drawn to me I felt magical God-like, even. Delighted, oh so powerful, but then: I developed a…
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Influence Early stargazers coined the word influence to describe how ethereal fluid ‘into us flowed’ changing destiny: starlight, steering us think of starlight flowing, think of it with me: a glimmering river of it flowing, washing into black velvet voids filling the endless emptiness changing darkness to insight— pixie dust of healing invisible oftentimes but—…
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This morning while reading and reflecting, I came across a favorite Lucille Clifton poem: i am running into a new year i am running into a new year and the old years blow back like a wind that i catch in my hair like strong fingers like all my old promises and it will be…
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