Today Poetry Northwest published my poem, “Bone Above Our Heart,” as their weekly online poem. My heart is running around its living room, waving its arms, smashing into things, getting up, and running around some more! This was the first of the long poems I started writing a couple years ago. I drafted it during one summer’s travels in a little homemade notebook made for the purpose, alternating verse fragments with overheard bits of speech in Martha’s Vineyard, Paul Smith’s College, Block Island, Hartford CN, a home recording made by James Tate, a Costco parking lot, Lowe’s Lawn & Garden, and my own backyard. I hope you’ll enjoy it.
With new year’s fast approaching, I thought I’d take a moment to reflect on the writing I’ve had accepted or published in 2025. It’s been a fortunate year for me, and I thank every one of the wonderful editors who made these publications possible! And thank you to the awesome poetry collaborators I’ve been lucky enough to write with!
Hot golly! The new issue of The Glacier has arrived, containing 3 of my poems, and a seriously impressive roster of poetry, prose and art. Here’s one of my poems. I hope you’ll read the others online. HUGE thanks to David Dodd Lee and all the lovely people who make The Glacier.
I’m giving a reading at the BCAC Artisan Gallery in Binghamton, NY on January 24, 2026, with Jenn Powers and Jen DeGregorio, as part of their Triple-A Reading Series! Yippee!
Any Southern Tier NY friends out there? Mark yer calendars!
How delightful to close out this blizzardy Thanksgiving weekend with an acceptance from -ette review for my prose poem “A Bee Lands a Yellow Violet Sags.” Thank you to co-editors Beth Hahn and Nora Maynard!
Hot golly! Bellingham Review just accepted my poem “Set Before a Feast We Lift a Fork” Huge thank you to Sam X Wong and everyone at BR! It’s, um, another poem of mine set in a grocery store. So thank you also to Wegmans. đź¤
This will be my second appearance in the awesome Bellingham Review. They were kind enough to publish my lyric essay “Licked by Our World We Get Licked by Our World” in 2021.
In the Landscape of Contemporary Poetry.Wednesdays, 6:00-8:00 p.m. ET. 6 weeks, starting December 3 (skipping December 24 and 31). We’ll read recently published poetry from literary journals and books, generate new poems with the help of prompts that I create, and spend the bulk of each class in a fun, inspiring poetry workshop. In this course participants will write and receive workshop comments on five original poems. Writers at all levels are welcome. I teach In the Landscape of Contemporary Poetry often, and every time the readings are all new, so you can take it again and again!
Participants will receive:
6 two-hour live Zoom classes
weekly pdf packets of sample poems from recent literary journals and books, focusing on craft elements and themes
original writing prompts written by me inspired by each week’s sample poems
workshop comments from the class and me on your five original poems
This is a live online writing workshop. Registered participants will receive a Zoom link prior to the beginning of classes. Registration will close when full (12 students). The class requires a minimum of 6 registered participants. Register early, as spots fill quickly.
Hot golly! My contributor copies of the new Water~Stone Review arrived with my poem “Why Our Bathtub Sparkles” and thank you again to Jose Hernandez Diaz, Kayla Knoll, and Meghan Maloney-Vinz. This happy arrival in the mail helps take some of the sting out of having to go on…somehow…now that Halloween is over for another year….
What a joy to spend this morning Zoom-visiting John Howard’s Studies in Nonfiction class, where they have been reading and responding to my lyric essay “What You’re Thinking Now Is a Chunk of Marble” published in the Southeast Review. Thank you to John and his students for their insights and generosity!
The Southeast Review has made the entire essay available to read online: