I got home from Wally Camp on Saturday with the worst lower back pain I’ve experienced in some time. I mean, up until this morning I could barely put on my own damn socks. Partly the result of sleeping in the dorm at Macalester College on a mattress that felt like it had rocks insideContinue reading “Feeling the Love: A Post Wally Camp Dispatch”
Category Archives: Writing and Reading
#583: The Forgotten Watch (Three Haiku)
Did you know that the plural of haiku is haiku? You’re welcome. Arrived safely and happily yesterday at Macalester College in St. Paul, Minnesota for the annual Warren Wilson MFA Program for Writers alumni conference, otherwise known as Wally Camp. One of our intrepid emcees of our nightly readings of poetry and fiction and memoirContinue reading “#583: The Forgotten Watch (Three Haiku)”
Two Days Until National Poetry Writing Month: Ekphrastic Fest?
On this 30th day of March, we find ourselves only two days away from National Poetry Writing Month, during which we creative types are encouraged to compose a poem a day every day for the entire month of April. I can safely (but humbly) brag about the fact that I have completed this task ofContinue reading “Two Days Until National Poetry Writing Month: Ekphrastic Fest?”
On Finding a Routine
Embarrassment of riches: retired guy has enough time on his hands to do any thing he wants, has a list of such things at the ready, and yet, some of the things he wants to do he doesn’t do–or, more accurately, doesn’t do enough of to satisfy his own self-critical assessment of his productivity. HeContinue reading “On Finding a Routine”
On the Twenty-ninth Day of 2025…
…I discover that Jim in Percival Everett’s retelling of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is fully literate. He’s read Voltaire, Rousseau, and Locke when he’s alone in Judge Thatcher’s library, and on Jacksons Island, after he gets bit by a rattlesnake, he has conversations with these literary and philosophical giants in fever-induced hallucinations, and isContinue reading “On the Twenty-ninth Day of 2025…”
On the Twenty-sixth Day of 2025…
…Outside of walking the dogs, I didn’t leave the house. I didn’t drive anywhere. I did very little. Meditated. Completed a few domestic chores. Communicated with my bandmates about rehearsals and rock and roll outfits. I set up a YouTube channel and vented my frustration into the ether. I took a nap. I made tacos.Continue reading “On the Twenty-sixth Day of 2025…”
On the Eighteenth Day of 2025…
…I have broken the record from January 2024 by writing eighteen days in a row toward the goal of blogging every day during the first month of the new year, attempting each day to string together a few hundred to a thousand words that form coherent sentences and ideas. I’ve tried to vary the shoeContinue reading “On the Eighteenth Day of 2025…”
On the Sixteenth Day of 2025…
…you replace the batteries in your blood pressure machine and almost first thing in the morning, as everything is pretty much chill, you get the highest reading you have seen since that New Year’s Eve gig seven years ago when, against all common sense, you took a reading while you were fuming about how yourContinue reading “On the Sixteenth Day of 2025…”
On the Fifteenth Day of 2025…
. . .You decide to write about yourself in the second person. You realize that’s an odd thing to do, even though, as most things a writer can do, it’s been done before hundreds of times. You’re mostly curious about how it feels. You’ve tried the first and the third, the first being the mostContinue reading “On the Fifteenth Day of 2025…”
On the Twelfth Day of 2025…
…I finish Earth to Moon, the memoir by Moon Unit Zappa. Minutes after finishing, I will attempt to sum up, to share the experience in miniature. First, I must confess it took me a flipping long time to finish. I think I started reading this fall, maybe in September or as late as October, andContinue reading “On the Twelfth Day of 2025…”