August 27, 2020
In
On Writing
On Words That Matter #3: Patricia Smith’s Blood Dazzler
"books by poets of color I most admire"...
Anne-Marie Oomen | On Writing
ANNE-MARIE OOMEN, Award-winning Michigan author, writer, poet, Interlochen Arts Academy, Writing Workshops, Poet in Residence, Writer in Residence, Writing Residence
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July 31, 2020
In
Lake Love Letters Project
“Only Water” published in Seiche ways, limited edition chapbook for FLOW
This poem was written for a collection of ten poems collected from poets all over Michigan, celebrating water and published for FLOW's annual recognition event. Only WaterHow do I explain this?Something kestrel-like and light, yetdoused. He wanted us to rise as kites, fall like rain.How do I explain him wading in to his thighs, me followingto my chest, him lacing his fingers,me facing...
July 31, 2020
In
Lake Love Letters Project
Water Gratitude, for “Water Studies”
Performed with Ari Mokdad and Elizabeth Schulman (choreographers) at Detroit Dance City Festival, August 2019. Water Gratitude Listen beyond your ears. Listen inside the bowl, from the cradle of the Niagara Escarpment.Listen. The voices of five lakes, five senses. Beings. Listen to the thrum of our Deep Time,to the words inside the wet journey,to the knowing inside our waves. Listen to the molecular change—What...
July 19, 2020
In
On Writing
Words that Matter #2: Stepping Back into March by John Lewis
I urgently turn the page of March (book two) by the late congressman John Lewis (with co-writer Andrew Aydin and artist Nate Powell). I’ve come to the pages that depict the explosion of the Freedom Riders bus in 1961. I’m trying to escape the burning bus with them. I’m absorbing their faces as I “read” the panels, and I tear up for their terror and...
June 30, 2020
In
On Writing
On Words That Matter #1: Ross Gay’s “catalogue of unabashed gratitude”
As a small gesture of what I can do in this time, I want to share a joyful book, yes a joyful book of poems that at the same time doesn’t deny the active sorrow of this world or the current crisis of race in this country. I offer up the power of Ross Gay’s “catalogue of unabashed gratitude.” Published in 2015, these poems...
June 10, 2020
In
Lake Love Letters Project
A Tree Poem: The Riddle
RIDDLEYou can hear our voices in the wind but we are not the wind.We lean into the earth, always filtering what is left.We hold the spirit of tallness, of all things impossible with balance.Even though we belong to the sun,we are the ocean of green.You can count our yearsinside the rings of our hearts.We do not die easily,though we can die quickly.We are tender of...
April 21, 2020
In
Lake Love Letters Project
Pandemic Poems for Us All #7: Faults
Found Poem asking this: if we are truly quieter, what do we hear? Based on notes taken from an article by Robin George Andrews in the New York Times Faults the anthropogenic hiss of us has for years masked words made by our tectonic plates the planet’s shifting terrains now in our collective wills not just the neighbors but the millions who have hunkered down seismometers hear and record a lexicon of earth clearer in this...
September 29, 2019
In
On Writing
How Does Writing Work: An Interview
At risk of self-aggrandizement, I’m posting this interview I did for Millicent Hill. Well, maybe it’s a little self-aggrandizing, but I hope there is substance enough here to offer some insights along with the ego. For several years, my friend and brilliant poet, Arra Ross, who teaches at Saginaw Valley State University here in Michigan, has set up interviews between her students and the writing community. She usually emails, asking if I am...
June 3, 2019
In
Lake Love Letters Project
Lake Love Letters Project
Dear Friend, I love our waters: lakes, rivers, wetlands, little sinking ponds, remote swamps. If it’s wet, I’ll probably like it. And of course, I’m worried about all of them, as I know many of you are. I often wonder what I can do. I’m not a scientist, politician, lawyer, not even a very good journalist. I often feel inadequate, a “fish out of water” when...
May 2, 2019
In
Lake Love Letters Project, On Writing
Launch Fun: Notes on Small Scale Book Launches
Recently, a former student from the Solstice MFA program where I teach, Jenifer DeBellis, wrote me that her first book, Blood Sisters, had been accepted. She was excited but uncertain how to shepherd it into the future with that “human touch.” Then a similar question from T.J. Harrison on the acceptance of her book, The Fruit of Love and Grief. Both of these women had worked hard, weathered rejection, triumphed over...