Category Archives: Writing

Blogging My Summer Classes: 2b or Not 2b? (Part 2)

One of the more interesting discussions that my students and I had while reading David Crystal’s essay was about the “Txt laureate” poetry contest that T-Mobile held in the UK to celebrate World Poetry day in 2007. Contestants sent their … Continue reading

Posted in Education, Writing | 2 Comments

Blogging My Summer Classes: 2b or Not 2b?

I am teaching two classes this month, Literature of the Holocaust and Freshman Composition. It’s an interesting combination, since the Holocaust literature class focuses on the use of language to make art, and therefore a kind of beauty, out of … Continue reading

Posted in Education, Writing | 11 Comments

This Is Too Good Not to Post: How a Book is Born, from WeldonOwen.com

This is a great, mostly true and very funny info graphic from WeldonOwen.com: A tip o’ the hat to CavanKerry Press.

Posted in Writing | 2 Comments

A Response to AMM’s Comment on My Publishing a Poem at The Good Men Project (Along with the Full Text of the Poem)

In a comment on my post announcing the publication of “For My Son, A Kind of Prayer” at The Good Men Project (TGMP), AMM wrote: I visited the place a year or two ago and read a number of the … Continue reading

Posted in Feminism, sexism, etc, Men and masculinity, Writing | 41 Comments

My Interview on Tiferet Talk

Just 90 minutes ago I finished a lovely interview with Melissa Studdard, contributing editor at Tiferet Journal. It was a good interview because Melissa asked good questions. Give a listen: Listen to internet radio with tiferetjournal on Blog Talk Radio … Continue reading

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My Poem “Light,” from “The Silence of Men” Selected for Best of the Web by LoveLifePoems.com

I’ll be honest. There was a time when I would have looked askance at this honor, though that time is far enough back in my youth that the possibility of a website like LoveLifePoems had not even been imagined. What would … Continue reading

Posted in Writing | 4 Comments

Saleh Noh Mobarak! Happy Persian New Year!

Eid Moborak! Norouz Pirouz! I am a little late this year in putting up a post for Norouz. Here is a lovely video of translations of poems by Hafez, one of Iran’s most important poets, that I found on The … Continue reading

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Vida’s 2011 Count is Up…

…and the results are not much different from last year. Women are still profoundly under represented in literary magazine publishing. This is not surprising, since as Erin Belieu writes: [W]e know that significant cultural change takes time. We also know that … Continue reading

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Why Am I a Poet?

I’m reading two books right now, Roger Rosenblatt’s Kayak Morning and Venus Khoury-Ghata’s She Says (translated by Marilyn Hacker). The first is a meditation on grief; the second, a book of poems the first section of which, “Words,” is basically a mythologization … Continue reading

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from “Ruminations/Reflections,” by Sonia Sanchez (1984)

The poet is a creator of social values. /// [P]oetry is a subconscious conversation, it is as much the work of those who understand it as those who make it. /// The power that the poet has to create, preserve, … Continue reading

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