I’ve forgotten how hard moving is. Not just the organizing and packing but the time spent in small details; the time spent on the phone and mad-dash trips to the store for tape and bubble wrap. My husband and I have lived in our current house for just over ten years. We had moved to Harrisonburg as an escape from Washington DC, where our work commutes into northern Virginia were beginning to feel impossible. Not wanting to prolong the move by taking the time to buy a house, we rented. And on moving day we … Continue reading The Storm Before the Calm→
I wrote these poems to capture and preserve real events. They depict shifts from isolation and loss to connection and love—the dance of relationships in unexpected places, with unexpected dance partners. I witnessed two men, so clearly from different worlds, collapse together in a moment of grief and compassion. The second poem tells the story of a friend’s struggle to remember who is familiar and who is foreign, as early onset dementia takes hold. And the third shows the dance of freedom that comes from the structure of love and belonging. —Kate Bennis … Continue reading Three Dances by Kate Bennis→
I recognize that I may be a tad more sensitive to the prospect of police state behavior than the average Jo but I come by this extra helping of unease naturally. Because of his liberal politics my dad, Marcus Raskin, earned a permanent spot on J. Edgar Hoover’s radar. Bigly. Dad was the frequent object of surveillance and dirty tricks. (He even had his own covert agent assigned to him when he worked as an adviser in the White House—something I discovered in college when I accidentally dated a guy whose father was that agent.) … Continue reading Push Back, Breathe, Repeat: A Brief Bio by Erika Raskin→
In his slightly madcap, secretly serious, mystery novel, I Shot the Buddha, Colin Cotterill, on the very first page, describes three types of “cinematic plot devices” that his protagonists find annoying: coincidences, which he labels as “coming in third,” behind first (or second?) convenient amnesia, and second (or first) the sudden appearance of an identical twin. Somehow my attention got snagged on that last (but possibly first) objection, sufficiently not to notice that he slyly went on to say, “but after all this was real life.” I was ready, as it were, to debate the … Continue reading The Sudden Appearance of an Identical Twin→
In my almost 80 years it seems as if I have lived numerous lives because the world has changed so swiftly under my feet. My world now as a mother, grandmother and great-grandmother, pastor’s wife and poet could not be more wildly different than my first world as a child in the near wilderness of rural Michigan. But as crooked and wandering as the path was, those early days are instrumental to who I am now. The first house we lived in after moving to rural Michigan from Chicago in 1942 when I was … Continue reading A Vast Bloom of Light→
For most of my youth, I lived in a secure blanket of belonging. I belonged to the groups of people that surrounded me at my school and church: white Christians, married couples with children (children like me), and suburban homeowners. I learned from my parents and other adults who the “bad” people were. I knew that when adults lowered their voice to talk about somebody, it indicated disapproval. As a child, I could never have imagined that one day I would become the very person they were disparaging. Yet that’s exactly what I did. Since … Continue reading Open-Mic Poetry Night→
Dimithry Victor, a junior at South Plantation High School in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, continues to create original and intriguing images, now inspired by personal dreams and Pop art. He draws with pen and ink and digital tools, combining them with media sources. “Recently,” says Victor, “I have been exploring collages and Pop art from images I see in my dreams. I usually write down what I see in my dream, then I cut out figures from magazines, and get digital backgrounds online, or any source I can find, to recreate the dream … Continue reading New Dream Works by Dimithry Victor→
In my old age, I have become an artist’s model. Every couple of months, I remove all metal adorning my body, enter a radiation-proof inner sanctum, climb up on a conveyor belt that carries me into a cavernous machine and a radiation artist makes images of my brain. The images are preserved in the Cloud, potentially for posterity. *** How terrible is nostalgia for one’s former self. There I am dancing down city streets like Gene Kelly in Paris. Healthy and fit. Ready for adventure and new friends. Oblivious to clouds floating up over the … Continue reading Excerpts From A Life: Margaret Klosko→
You have stalked about fifty agents and know what they like with their toast and where their poodles get their haircuts. The ten minutes you got to spend with some of them at writers’ conferences bought you nothing but sweat. Your queries have been answered with one-liners by robots: “Thanks, but no thanks.” You’re likely wondering why me! as you wash and dry an ice pick before you plunge it through your ear. Wait, don’t do that yet. Put it down. Let’s talk. I must note that I have the credibility of a divorced marriage counselor … Continue reading Resources for Writers Series: How to Bubble Up to the Surface of the Slush Pile→
I first read Elizabeth Bishop’s “The Fish” when I was in college. Five American Poets was the course, taught by a ruddy-faced Midwestern professor who began class by reading aloud a poem, often reciting it from memory. We were to sit and listen, book closed, before discussing anything. His sonorous voice hung in the air, like a small plane flying low over crops on a hot summer afternoon, his words trailing like a lazy line of smoke across the sky. The physical pleasure surprised me, the low hum of language a warm breeze on my … Continue reading “The Fish”, A Love Story by Mary Esselman→
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