I can only begin with advice I read (and re-read) from Rebecca Solnit‘s Facebook post, Nov 6th at 4:25 am, “Things you do not have to do today. –Join the frenzy of what/who to blame. –Take in a bunch more media. –Feel like you’re ready to face the next five years and have to planContinue reading “a little self comfort for the tender poet”
Tag Archives: Empowerment
The Price of Energy
I collect money. Collect it in a mason jar. Collect coins and bills and hand-written IOUs on Post-Its. I charge five dollars per bad attitude. I began this transactional system when my sons were younger, say eight and ten and two. The price lower back then. A quarter for an eye-roll, a dime for a,Continue reading “The Price of Energy”
Bookmarks – Empowering and Essential Tools
The other day, in a workshop with Sarabande Books, someone shared the story of a librarian discovering a taco in the center of a book.
A taco.
Squished in the pages.
A taco.
Why Bother Re-Printing Published Work?
Every time a poem is set or read alongside another body of work, including music and visual art, it shifts, altering the way we observe and absorb the words. It transforms how the poem enters the world and our hearts.
Takes Me Years to Complete 30-Day Challenges
Through this gradual absorption, there is an ingraining, a re-blueprinting on a cellular level.
Meta Disabled Me & I Survived
I ended up in my inner rabbit hole instead. I sorted my “why” on social media.
How Remodeling My Kitchen Helped Me Revise My Full-Length Poetry Collection
This type of restructuring transferred to my writing in, well, structure, especially helpful with poetry. Poetry is both a visual and a literary art. The shape and structure and form inform the work as much as word choice and language.
The Birth of an Essay
Power surged into me, something electrical, and I realized I was given a piece of me back, the piece taken from me over and over in my youth. The piece used to control me, overpower me, keep me in my place. The piece that should have belonged to me and only me all along, that should have been guarded, protected, like the world’s greatest diamond. The piece diminished to the point I never thought about it, didn’t look at it, never talked about it. The piece I felt ashamed of, the one I blamed myself for all that went wrong. The piece that guided my babies into this world and helped push them forth into their first breath.
Me. No More.
Me. Me. December 2008. Me. One month prior to downloading my youngest. Me. One year prior to fleeing my home, three sons in tow, one duffel stuffed with medical supplies and a handful of diapers. Me. Looking un-terrified, flexing, posing. Me. Living in duplicity. This image is not about body-beauty or suface-pretty. This was anContinue reading “Me. No More.”
Writing “Me”
I found, through the use of third-person, I could write the hard stuff, the stuff that damaged me, that changed me, that shamed me. I could write as if I were writing about somebody else.
