I lifted this from a friend’s blog, The Poetry Department…aka The Boynton Blog For some reason, I especially needed to hear it today. Funny how the universe can respond. “I prefer the absurdity of writing poems/ to the absurdity of not writing poems.” Wisława Szymborska (July 2, 1923 – February 1, 2012) . . . […]
I can thank Robert Reich for introducing me to this poet, Clint Smith. I’m just beginning to explore his work, but in this poem, he reminds me of Naomi Shihab Nye in the way he looks at both sides of a controversy and asks us to rise to a new level of empathy, to reconsider […]
I decided two weeks ago that I would read some poetry each morning–searching for peace & justice there, if lacking elsewhere–and write something of my own. My general feeling is to put more into the world of what I want to be there. For the last two days I’ve been reading Koon Woon‘s Water Chasing Water (Kaya Press, […]
I met Lucille Clifton the first time, I think, in 1991 when she came to the University of Washington to read for our Watermark series. Her larger-than-life personality and her brash honesty about being black, about being female, swept me away. I was in the MFA program and I thought I had something to say. […]