This question came from a dearest spirit sister, Katey Schultz, writing instructor extraordinaire, author of the award-winning Flashes of War and Still Come Home. https://kateyschultz.com/We’re both capable teachers but we often turn to each other when we aren’t sure about theoretical responses that rise from specific student questions. I’ve turned to her more times than I can count. But in this case, here’s her
The once-a-year life writing class will held be next Tuesday (26th) at the beautiful new Interlochen Library. The class is so much fun if you are interested in tell-your-story writing--especially at this time in our lives! Call the library, 231-276-6767 to sign up for the limited in-person class (so we can distance properly). The reading is open to the public and masked. Please
"books by poets of color I most admire"
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
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
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
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
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
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
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