17 Mar From a Sandstone Ledge
Preorder Shelley's new book, From a Sandstone Ledge, today from Finishing Line Press!...
26 Jan Habit of Landscape: Out Now
Order the new book, Habit of Landscape, today from Amazon or Finishing Line Press!...
15 Jun Remember: The Poet is Not Necessarily the Speaker in the Poem
Alert: the pre-pub sale period for A Habit of Landscape began June 12 and lasts until August 13 with discounts on the book and a chance to help the writer establish the number of copies to be printed. Please know this is not publish on demand but small, independent presses--particularly of poetry-- need to be able to project a reasonable run of books. You can order now at www.finishinglinepress.com. Click the menu for Products on the left, then select Advanced Copies and you will reach my page for...
01 May The Sacrality of a Moment
Years ago I read an essay by Annie Dillard in the Atlantic. I wish I could remember the title, the date. But the point is one of her lines (and Dillard's essays were always poetic) has stayed with me all these years. The line went something like this: I felt like a bell just before it is struck. She was standing in a field--a simple act--when she experienced seeing in a new way. When I first read this line I immediately flashed to a collection of small bells,...
01 Apr What is a poem, anyway?
Years ago, when I was trying to write a memoir about landscape, place, homeland, I worked for a time in my garage. The house I lived in was small--two bedrooms--and there was no study. So I put some plywood pieces together, rescued my great aunt's old Formica kitchen table, and moved to the garage. One of the advantages of having a garage for a study is the large walls. (One of the disadvantages is that it is cold in winter and hot as blazes in summer.) In the spirit...
03 Mar What’s in a Title
Sometimes they come like padded cat's feet, sometimes crashing down in a sinus headache before dawn. Some writers think of them first (they become guides) and for others they're an afterthought. I remember when an artist friend of mine did me the honor of naming one of her pieces. It was made of hog gut--twisted, stretched, dried into a provocative elliptical form now dangling from her Kailua (Hawai'i) home ceiling. This was the same house she had to tent and treat because of the pervasive termites that plague the...
09 Feb Please Judge a Book by its Cover
Never mind, for now, who will read it. We are seduced by a book's cover--or not. I hope you will like this one which features two photographs by Rick Dingus. No, this is not his "blue" period (note the sky) but work from the twenty years in which he created "photo drawings." With graphite or silver colored pencils, sometimes colored crayons, Rick challenges the notion that photographs are objective, real, true. He calls them incomplete "quotations" rather than facts and uses the drawings to blue the distinction between...
02 Feb New Book Coming Soon!
Preorder begins on June 12, 2023. www.finishinglinepress.com "Crisply vivid, witty, and at once far-seeing and a-whisper with intimacies...
11 Oct Return(ing) to Landscape
Sometimes I feel the old house calling to me through its almost 100 years of existence. Through its builder, Jess Giles, its subsequent owners, my great Aunt Alice and Uncle Vern. Through the no doubt mice ridden electrical system and sputtering toilet, the kitchen's hot water barely warming the dinner dishes as it makes its way from the basement water heater upstairs. Nighttimes there I can sometimes hear something in the old chimney (the red foxes occasionally spotted? a squirrel? what?), a comfort rather than a scare. This past...