Updates on a Free-Verse Life
Book prices are a funny thing, except to your wallet. Alcoholics may suffer from cirrhosis of the liver; bibliophiles' wallets and pocketbooks may suffer from cirrhosis of book purchases. Where do pricing decisions come from? My first book, 98 pages of poetry, goes for $15.95 retail, which is publish-speak for $16, thank you (consider gas …
Continue reading Wanna Buy an Overpriced Book?
As a poet, I'm not shy about sharing my own poems for teaching purposes in the classroom, and if you teach, you shouldn't be, either. Yes, my work is published, but that doesn't matter. I shared my poems before I was published, and you can, too. Students like seeing their teacher's own work, and it's …
Memorial Day Weekend. It gets quiet around here. People leave for the Cape. First, for the stop-and-go traffic heading to the Cape. Eventually for the stop-and-go traffic returning from the Cape. All this for sand in your bathing suit and a sunburn. Nota bene: You can get sunburned on your back patio. No gas, no …
Continue reading Random Thoughts: Memorial Day Weekend Edition
When you first begin the task of choosing poems for a poetry reading, it's like walking into a grocery store's cereal aisle where the choices are so vast they overwhelm the shopper. In the case of poetry, do you choose funny poems or contemplative poems, fancy poems or simple poems, poems with sound devices or …
We all know the joke by now--the sign on the road reading MEN WORKING. It's how we learned the word "oxymoron" as the car sped past workers in hardhats leaning on shovels, sipping Dunkin Donuts coffees, chatting each other up. "Work in Progress" is another matter, one with greater meaning and impact. As my third …
I almost forgot, but it's National Poetry Month. How I ever went a full week without realizing it is beyond me, but here we are and here I am, apparently unscathed. What the heck does National Poetry Month mean, anyway? Is it more inept political meddling on the part of our Do-Nothing Congress led by …
Continue reading What Does “National Poetry Month” Actually Mean? I Found the Answers.
It stands to reason, if you read poetry as much as poets do, that sooner or later famous poets will enter your poems. The cameos are not restricted to poets, however. Prose writers rise to the occasion as well. It's a reimagining of their imagined worlds in your own imagination, if you will. In my …
With poetry, inspiration often comes from small, unexpected sources. And ironically, it often comes when you are actively engaged in doing nothing, which speaks to the wisdom of leaving the race to the rats, the type personalities to the A's, and the technology to the phone addicts. Exhibit A: Last summer, while lying on a …
Maybe the Bible was on to something. There's something elemental about snakes, after all, and their reach into our psyches. Why do 97% of people fear them? And why do the 3% who don't rub the 97%'s faces in it by picking them up, fondling them, and bringing them closer for a little cold-blooded interaction? …
It wasn't too long ago that I thought "Rupi Kaur" was a semi-precious jewel or a monetary unit from a faraway, exotic island. Then, wandering lonely as a cloud through the poetry section of a bookstore, I saw end caps with little books titled The Sun and Her Flowers and Milk and Honey. For some …
