Tuesday, Januay 7th. My son Charlie called. He was breathless. He had barely escaped the Palisades. The sky had been clear, he said when he took the actor John Goodman’s retriever, Miss Daisy, to the vet. But when he returned a couple of hours later, black clouds of smoke and flames blotted out the sun. A hurricane strength wind had ignited the brush in Temescal Canyon north of Sunset Boulevard. The fire now engulfed the Palisades, a neighborhood on a bluff overlooking the Pacific Coast Highway. Sirens wailed, police and fire engines raced up Sunset. … Continue reading Wild Fires by Trudy Hale→
Photo by Johannes Plenio on Unsplash. I. a. This morning, I saw a creature standing in the road. The size of a small dog with rust-colored fur. But even from a distance, I could see electricity shuddering just beneath its skin. A taut wildness that disappears with domesticity. b. For years now, I’ve lived in the West, in places that once were desert. Where the air is dry, and the bugs are few and no one cares quite so much if you graduated from one of the Ivies. Sometimes, I return East in August and … Continue reading Fragments From Returning to the Suburban Neighborhood of My Youth by Sharon Gelman→
We never know when it will be the last time, do we? If I had known, I would have paid closer attention to the story mom shared about her acquaintance’s daughter’s friend. I usually listened half-heartedly to these stories she often told. I probably wanted to tell her more about my own life. But that time, the last time, I would have listened, maybe asked a question or two. I’d have leaned into my mother, given her a smile, and taken the time to be completely and fully present. We would have been standing side-by-side … Continue reading The Last Time by Cheryl Somers Aubin→
My vocation is writing, but my avocation is painting, mostly portraits. I belong to a Facebook group dedicated to showing the work of artists who are trying to create loose watercolor paintings. Members range from people whose pieces could be displayed at a prestigious museum to beginners who are asking for comments and helpful tips on their first attempts. A self-avowed beginner posted several portraits online. Using vivid colors and bold strokes, her paintings portrayed purple bruises, blood flowing, and anguished expressions. Each portrait revealed the artist’s compassion for the difficult lives of her subjects, … Continue reading Don’t Let Anyone Break Your Creative Heart by Deborah M. Prum→
Autumn is officially over, leaves finally cleared, trees naked, winter sky a show of planets that begins early with Venus glazing the western sky. It’s time to dwell briefly at the door between the old year and new one, beginning with the month (January) named after the Roman god Janus. In mythology, Janus is depicted with two faces, one looking forward into the future, the other looking back into the past. Often shown holding a key, he is the protector of thresholds, gates, and openings. I spend New Year’s Day flipping back through my calendar, … Continue reading New Year by Sharon Perkins Ackerman→
If I do a search for poems with the word light in the title, I get 12,600 hits. For dark, I get 6,000. This doesn’t scratch the surface of how many times “light” appears buried within stanzas. Can it be that we poets, blackly contemplative as we’re perceived, are at least twice as obsessed with light as darkness? After the leaves fall and days shorten, we begin to make our own light. Red and green and blue twinkle up and down my road, colored stars sprinkle rooftops of barns. We offer this glow to the … Continue reading Mehr Licht by Sharon Perkins Ackerman→
Through a dimly lit haze, I see myself in my adult son’s psych ward room, gathering his things into a paper bag so we can check out. I place his clothes, extra pair of shoes, personal items into a grocery sack because the beautiful twilight iridescent duffle bag (mine) that they arrived in seven days prior has now gone missing according to the nursing staff. On the flat wooden rail atop the half wall separating the wash sink from his sleeping area is a tiled, rectangular trivet sort of thing. “Nick,” I say, “is this … Continue reading The Trivet by Nancy Halgren→
“It is true that one can write nothing readable unless one constantly struggles to efface one’s own personality.” —George Orwell “Why I Write” (1947) Several months ago (23 September 2024) Miles Fowler wrote a Street Talk blog titled “The Thinly Disguised Autobiography” which provoked me to reflect on this “courageous or foolhardy” activity. Naturally, many writers entertain the notion of writing about themselves; personal experience being a writer’s primary resource. Autobiography differs from biography in that the author is still alive! I say this flippantly as biography can be of a person alive … Continue reading A Bragging Humility by Fred Wilbur→
When have you been convinced to change your mind? How did it happen? By negotiation? By beauty? By lament? By shock or threat? By what? The question and poem prompt by the Irish poet Padraig O Tuama from Poetry Unbound intrigued me. But nothing came to mind. Certainly not any dramatic on-the-road-to-Damascus, ‘see the light,’ kind of thinking. Until last night. But first let me set the stage. Nov. 6 I was in Memphis with my daughter to attend my godson’s wedding and visit old friends. Outside the Peabody Hotel the sky was overcast, low … Continue reading On the Edge by Trudy Hale→
My photography employs minimalist classical shooting techniques which offer a throwback alternative to computer driven modern photography. This approach carries the label Forensic Foraging in a nod to the plodding techniques of early crime scene pictorial work. Forensic Foraging is not in direct competition with any other shooting approach. It is only a carefully considered recognition that the basic techniques which made photography great in the first place can still have considerable relevance in today’s digital world. I seek to lift everyday subjects up into pleasing eye candy by recording them in a visual … Continue reading William Crawford’s New Photography→
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