April 22, 2015
What’s Got Away: Niedecker, Takuboku, Wabi-Sabi
I’d like to discuss two short poems about objects, specifically, objects remembered, in light of the Japanese concept of wabi-sabi; however, this consideration must occur in a slant light, because […]
March 26, 2015
Beknowst & Un-
(Part 2 of 2 on the fragment) Scripted mostly on used envelopes, or the odd chocolate wrapper, the collected fragments left by Emily Dickinson comprise some of the most famous […]
February 26, 2015
Kinds of Listening, Kinds of Light: He told me he saw more subtle cycles there
“When spring came, when every crow announced its arrival by raising his cry half a tone…” – Sans Soleil Last week, deep into California’s wildflower season, I made a new rule: […]
February 11, 2015
Nerve Games, Love Notes
…for they had begun the rare epistolary communication that seems, somehow, more real than bodily contact, with its averted eyes and fidgety hands, its blushes and shuffling feet. –Brenda Wineapple […]
January 30, 2015
The Art of Losing
Recently, I exhibited a collaborative sculpture with a few of my young students in a show about the human relationship to landscape, as inspired by Rebecca Solnit’s essay “The Postmodern […]
December 10, 2014
Earl Sweatshirt’s Bookshelf, and Time
Bookshelves do funny things to time. In a recent clip, rapper Earl Sweatshirt lets FADER TV tour his Hollywood bachelor pad. In a Cribs send-up, he guides the camera through […]
November 18, 2013
Spam Poetry
Creative writing training rebuilt my eyes. One workshop leader told me to watch what the person in line ahead of you buys at the grocery store, and take note of […]
September 27, 2012
Mix Tape: Do the Right Thing
“Two questions: 1) Do you submit work (poetry, fiction, or nonfiction) to literary journals? 2) Do you subscribe to any literary journals? If the answer to Question 1 is ‘yes’ […]
September 20, 2012
Mix Tape: Supermodel Novelists and Politician Poets
There is, in Vogue’s September issue, an 18-page photo feature “depicting a handful of actors, artists, models, and writers posing as [Edith] Wharton and her circle.” So why are male […]
September 13, 2012
Mix Tape: Mindful Writing, Mindful Submitting
An interview with Dinty W. Moore on being a mindful writer. “There is nothing wrong with wanting a career, some recognition, a steady salary, and, most importantly perhaps, the access […]
September 6, 2012
Mix Tape: Inventors, Masters, Starters of Crazes
Will the old writing you’ve disowned—the poems full of mixed metaphors, the stories you never knew how to end, the essays that seem to fall flat—follow you around forever? And, […]
August 30, 2012
Mix Tape: Ignore the Man Behind the Curtain
A look at the gratuitous-by-nature acknowledgments page—from “faux-modest self-promotion” to name-dropping to the ubiquitous list of friends and colleagues. “Is it really so gratifying to be recognized in print when […]