Growing up on a dairy farm in Northern New York, in Southern Jefferson County during the 1960’s meant, for my family, doing most of the work with our physical bodies. With a maximum of 25 dairy cows, one t […]

Later, when asked to speak about what happened for the second time, Harlen recalled that it was in fact a single object, faint and blurry one second, close and vibrant the next. It hovered overhead: two blazing […]

The premier poetry event of this year’s Festival of the Book in Charlottesville was “Shrines to Longing,” the March 20 reading by Charles Wright, America’s current (20th) poet laureate, and Mary Szybist, who was […]

In 1995 Kay Redfield Jamison published her ground-breaking memoir, An Unquiet Mind, A Memoir of Moods and Madness.  For my husband who was diagnosed with bi-polar disorder in 1987, and myself living through his m […]

“Nothing stays long enough to know.
How long since we’ve been inside
anything together the way

these birds are inside
this tree together, shifting, making it into
a shivering thing”
 

—Mary Szyb […]

Imagine for a moment an American family collected in a cozy living room and gathered close for the evening’s entertainment. But instead of gazing expectantly at some oversized TV screen while battling the c […]

January is upon us and with it the start of several weeks of bone-rattling cold and snow-cancelled classes erroneously dubbed “Spring Semester.” For me, it heralds the beginning of a poetry class I teach at the […]

I don’t know why I believe that I’ll find the truth about America in Mississippi. It’s a dreamscape, really. So overlaid with lies, oppressions, and Faulknerian legend that to expect anything authentic about the p […]

In second grade, I was assigned the role of a Pilgrim woman in the Thanksgiving play.  I wore a dull, gray dress with an itchy, starched white collar and I had only two sentences to say: “Look, look, the Gov […]

 
When I first moved to Qatar ten years ago, I was disappointed to find that the desert of the Qatar peninsula (on the northeastern coast of the Arabian peninsula) was not as lush as that of Arizona, where I […]

As I write, Halloween is upon us.  Not that I need to say anything.  Signs of its approach have been around for a while.  It is unlikely to slip by unnoticed.  Depending on how you measure such things (pu […]

Like many other people, I have had Ferguson, Missouri on my mind in recent weeks. I have been thinking most directly, of course, about Michael Brown, his parents, family members, friends, all those who feel […]

It wasn’t until a government agent called me that I realized I was somebody else. Not an impostor exactly, but something like that.

Since birth, I had been Jane Coffin Bradley, a moniker I bore through jibes a […]

The other day I walked out to my mailbox. There was an official letter from the City of Los Angeles parking violations bureau. Hmmm. I know what this is about. My daughter has not paid a past due traffic […]

BEYOND THE PULPIT

The Dreaming

I am a retired minister. That is what the umbrella title for the occasional pieces that may appear in this space refers to. It is fair warning that what I write about may have […]

                                                         Home Schooling

“What are you doing?”  Juliana’s voice drifted in around the corner of the living room, coming to rest finally in his willing ear.  He […]

It was just about a hundred years ago that Martha dropped dead. She was found on the floor of her cage at the Cincinnati Zoo and that was that – the end of the last known passenger pigeon on the p […]

I wasn’t a natural writer but I always wanted to be one. Born in New York City, I soon moved to Providence, Rhode Island with my family and then to Washington, D.C. where my father began working for the C.I.A. A […]

In 1983 I gave up on acting. I was a sophomore in college. It was not an easy choice.  Since junior high, I had been convinced I was going to be America’s answer to Laurence Olivier. I had chosen to atte […]

A Writer Retreats

I was on a quest. A quest for a room of one’s own to finish my draft, far from the hurly-burly of New York City.

A lucky Google search led me to The Porches Writing Retreat and a photo of a […]