Chartreuse. The color of your creativity. That phrase pinged around my head this morning. I wrote it on an index card, attributed it to L.L. Barkat, and pinned it to my bulletin board. But then I wondered, “Did she really say that—like that?” Laura Barkat has unofficially mentored me for several years. Last spring I hired her as my official life coach, and we spent an intense month together while she helped me uproot and replant my writing life. She saw abilities in me … [Read More...]
Commit Poetry: Committing Romeo (and other stuff)
Here we go again. I swear—I can’t seem to resist a good dare, especially during National Poetry Month and Tweetspeak’s “Year of Shakespeare.” This time, it’s to memorize three sections … [Read More...]
Dared: A 30-Mile Bike Ride and a Request
I've gone and dared myself again. Back in December my cardiologist told me I needed to lose some weight. Sigh... I know that, but he's the first doctor who ever called me out. In the past … [Read More...]
Commit Poetry: Ozymandias, Breaking Bad, and a Duck
I read a Facebook post on January 11 of this year announcing that it was the 200th anniversary of the day The Examiner published Percy Bysshe Shelley’s poem, “Ozymandias.” Ozzy who? I … [Read More...]
Dared: Hobnobbing With Alligators – and other Adventures
. . . Hosanna to the alligators in the highest: Glory be to their Maker. —Diana Woodcock, “In the Company of Alligators” We have lived here now for a whole year. Our … [Read More...]
A Most Shocking #OneWord for 2018
The man, wearing a burgundy Florida State University t-shirt emblazoned with the words, “Lethal Simplicity,” nodded as we approached each other on a recent walk around the neighborhood. “And … [Read More...]
Commit Poetry: Edgar Guest – and My Uncle Edgar
For Edgar Gilmore with congratulations and the best wishes always of another Edgar. Sincerely, Edgar A. Guest June 17, 1939 That’s the inscription inside Edgar A. Guest says: It Can Be … [Read More...]
Commit Poetry
Commit Poetry: The Road Not Taken By Robert Frost
The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, And sorry I could not travel both And be one traveler, long I stood And looked down one as far as I could To where it … [Read More...]
Commit Poetry: Prufrock Complete And Worth It All
I grow old . . . I grow old . . . Who starts memorizing poetry at my age? If someone had told me a year ago that I’d be memorizing swaths of poetry now—on purpose—starting with a 131-line T.S. … [Read More...]
Dared
Dared: Bikes, Lanterns, and Mary Oliver
After I took that spill on a hill at dusk into a pile of Mackinac Island horse manure some years back, I was afraid to climb back on my bike. But when we moved into this neighborhood carved from the … [Read More...]
