On a drizzling November day our poetry group gathers around the workshop leader’s kitchen table. Before we begin the critique of our poems that we wrote during the week, our workshop leader, Sharron Singleton gives us a writing prompt to free the writing self. We sit with our loose-leaf paper, yellow pads, our pens poised. I always feel a little like I used to in school before a pop quiz. “I want you to write “How Big Is No in Your Life,” Sharron tells us. We laugh and groan, oh, no. … Continue reading How Big Is No In Your Life?→
I had a fantasy when I began volunteering for the International Rescue Committee (IRC) in Charlottesville. I would help newly arrived refugees document their identities, tell their stories and illustrate them with family photographs brought from their homelands. We would talk, become friends and I would save their stories. Naively, I didn’t understand that many arriving refugees spoke little or no English. Those who did land with language skills were eager to go to work as soon as possible. Getting acquainted and discussing their pasts was not their top priority. I signed up to assist the teacher … Continue reading A Common Language→
I grew up in a house bustling with artists. We had extra bedrooms that my mother kept filled and a grand piano that was always in use. To this day she hands out her number to people she picks up at bus stops and airplanes and the rapid transit. But mostly, she’s lived with musicians who come from abroad to study at the Cleveland Institute of Music; young people who have been given scholarships for their studies, but no money on which to live. My mother fills the refrigerator and her artists fill the house … Continue reading The Cottage: A Womb With A View→
HELP, I’m roiled in moil, chaos on every side of me. My life flashes before my eyes, although the only thing I’m drowning in is the sorting of minute particulars. It’s a cautionary tale. Some time ago (has it been weeks?) I bought a copy of a benign looking little book called the life-changing magic of tidying up. It had occurred to me, on numerous occasions that this is something I ought to be doing, tidying up, I mean, and so this looked like the answer to if not my prayers, probably somebody’s. Marie Kondo, … Continue reading Cleaning Up→
“Just meet me at my internist’s office,” my mother texted. “Oh, ok. You have an appointment?” “Yes, I’ve had some internal bleeding.” “Oh, ok. I can be there by 4:30.” I was going to visit my mom for a night on my way back to Virginia from Maine. Change of plans I guess. It was a couple of days before my birthday and I hadn’t spent a chunk of time alone with her in a while. But instead of driving to her apartment, I headed for the hospital. Typical of my mom to announce off … Continue reading Birthday At Rite Aid→
For photographer Andrew Shurtleff, the goal in covering sports and political events is “to report the story — whether winning or losing — through photographs. I look for moments that reveal what’s really going on.” Shurtleff, as director of photography for the Charlottesville Daily Progress, has photographed the competitors — UVA sports teams as well as visiting titans of politics — from President Barack Obama, to Justice Anthony Scalia, Republican contenders Paul Ryan, Ted Cruz, and front runner Donald … Continue reading Winning and Losing: Andrew Shurtleff Photographs→
3rd place winner of the Streetlight 2015 Poetry Contest. Flowers in a Crystal Vase – Manet, 1882 At the members only showing of flower paintings, we old folks dress for comfort. Women in flats and boutique slacks, light sweaters, conservative colors, but still striving for a sense of style. We men—not so much. A leather jacket seems to be the best we can do. As if somewhere in the back of our memory, a whisper tells us this makes us debonair, perhaps a little dangerous, walking among still-life flower arrangements. The young guards herd … Continue reading Flowers in a Crystal Vase by Les Bares→
2nd place winner of the Streetlight 2015 Poetry Contest. Rubble The water found a home in our wreckage. Our city, once a bastion of high times— colored lights on strings, avenues smiling all year churches, bars, and streets filled with strutting horns, jerk sauce and hips— now choked in trash bags whistling like reeds on a wade-through, snaring limbs, dragging us down. Remain calm, we say, dragging strangers from the rubble. Our founders, rebels, saviors in bronze and silver toppled. Straight-backed stoics fighting silent acid tears, reduced to river-street ruck floating alongside bright orange … Continue reading Rubble by Pernille Smith Larsen→
1st place winner of the Streetlight 2015 Poetry Contest. Hum Out of the blue, he gave her a recording. She thought there was something wrong with it, but they had only slept together once, she wasn’t even divorced yet: she didn’t know how these things worked. Do you tell someone there is something wrong with what they’ve given you? She didn’t know Glenn Gould how he hummed what was in his head as he played. Maybe the recording wasn’t very good or she was not listening well. She couldn’t really tell much but that … Continue reading Hum by Julie Ascarrunz→
While sitting with Lena at their kitchen table the Sunday before, Carl Mobley had experienced the annual burst of optimism that marked the beginning of bowling season. But not now. With the Thursday Night Classic Bowling League only days away, he’d found out somebody was after his job as League Secretary. The very thought of it transformed his face into a billboard of betrayal, hurt, and worry. Carl couldn’t understand why anyone would want to take this from him–and he didn’t know what to do about it. At fifty-two he was a worn-down, vague looking … Continue reading Keeping Score by Lawrence Farrar→
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