What I learn on the orange couch: how to create boundaries for the first time
His shoes are almost always brown. Sometimes, like last week, his socks match his bright green jacket, which I think is worn on days with rain. But I can’t be sure; my evidence is sketchy, inconsistent, and random. I sit across from him, on a nubby burnt orange sofa that feels …
Trust yourself
It is by logic we prove. It is by intuition we discover. -Henri Poincare Recently, I was asked to speak to a class of seniors at my alma mater, Guilford College. After the class convened, we set out across campus and hiked a short distance into the woods on campus. …
She had me at “cow town”
Oh, my. I love to shop on Etsy. Real artists making art. I’ve made a conscious commitment to buy handmade. My dream is to create a small shop at 37day.net that will include only handmade objects that relate to my blog and book (did I mention I’ve written a book?), …
Unplug the phone
The first principal of nonviolent action is that of noncooperation with everything humiliating. – Cesar Chavez I was in my early 20s, in graduate school studying literature (mainly American) and art history (mainly the figure of the artist in fiction). There’s a huge employment market for people who have studied …
Poets explore infinite inwardness
A Table in the Wilderness I draw a windowand a man sitting inside it. I draw a bird in flight above the lintel. That’s my picture of thinking. If I put a woman there insteadof the man, it’s a picture of speaking. If I draw a second birdin …
Poets take us out on the bridge
With thanks to the poet, another poem you’ll find in Life is a Verb: Undressing the Muse When Sonny Rollins walked onto that bridgeto play his saxophone to the windhe was stepping off the stageand into the woodshed.It wasn’t a failure of nerve, of course,nor was it only a deepeningof …
Poets help us inch forward
A Measuring Worm This yellow striped greenCaterpillar, climbing upThe steep window screen, Constantly (for a lackOf a full set of legs) keepsHumping up his back. It’s as if he sentBy a sort of a semaphoreDark omegas meant To warn of Last Things.Although he doesn’t know it,He will soon have wings, …
Poets teach us that darkness is a gift
It is the job of poetry to clean up our word-clogged reality by creating silences around things. -Stephen Mallarme This one is for Trudy. Before you read today’s poem, I want you to do something for me. I want you to find a small box in your house or office, …
Poets teach us to look with our own eyes
Poetry should…should strike the reader as a working of his own highest thoughts, and appear almost a remembrance. -John Keats We are a nation of seekers. We look outside ourselves for salvation, for what our perspective should be, for how and what to think, when turning the looking glass inward …
Women give up their light – Mileva Mari?
A hip hip hooray out to little Albert Einstein on his birthday today. As he knows better than anyone, age is relative (har-de-har-har). So let’s send a shout out to the man whose name is synonymous with genius. And let’s remind him that he owes his first wife, Mileva Mari?, …
