July 20, 2011
Materials Wednesday: should have been a rock star
When I was in high school, my English teacher Kathy Puhr demonstrated that most Emily Dickinson poems could be sung to the tune of “The Yellow Rose of Texas” — […]
July 13, 2011
Materials Wednesday: lightning above, fire below
In his book The Triggering Town, Richard Hugo gives, more or less, the following advice to poets: leave your hometown. Drive to some other town. Learn little or nothing about […]
July 6, 2011
Materials Wednesday: are belong to us
Contrary to those who believe that the Internet is slowly but surely murdering the written word, I feel like blogs, Facebook, Twitter, forums, and all the rest are a significantly […]
June 22, 2011
Materials Wednesday: the voltage of narrative
“The baby hit the button again and again on his electronic cigarette: no nicotine. Nothing. It was freaking unbelievable that they would let this happen. What was he supposed to […]
June 15, 2011
Materials Wednesday: like as simple as playing snowballs
About a year and a half ago, I had the good luck to be invited to Beijing University by professor and poet Jiang Tao, and with his letter of introduction, […]
June 8, 2011
Materials Wednesday: raw and refrain
In 2008 I moved from suburban New Jersey to Hollywood, California, and spent about six months feeling completely overstimulated and unable to cope with all of the helicopters and green […]
June 1, 2011
Materials Wednesday: free to a good home
This is the first installment of a weekly experiment in which I share materials which I attempted — and in most cases, utterly failed — to turn into poems. Here’s […]