There is a line from the group poem “I Am Not A Juvenile Delinquent,” in my newly published book of the same name, that declares “I am happy turned to sad.” I read that poem in my hour-long Zoom launch interview sponsored by our wonderful local bookstore, Oblong Books in Millerton, New York on Thursday June 18, to which many of you listened. Thank you so much. The link to the interview is here for those of you who missed it:
Read moreSmooth Pain
“I’ve been wanting to talk to you about a few ideas I have with all the things going on in our country,” Tarray messaged me yesterday while I was thinking about what I would write this week, knowing no white woman’s words could be as important as hers and theirs---my Touchstone girls, their poems and stories about violence and abuse in their black and brown lives, my passion to get them out into the bigger world. How I’d wanted the privileged milieu I inhabited to grasp what labeled these young women as delinquent—I wanted them to understand what led them to do the sometimes lawless stuff they did, the drug use and selling, the prostitution, the truancy, the assaults. That’s why I’d brought them to so many reading venues, started the joint group with The Hotchkiss School girls, tried so long and hard to get I Am Not A Juvenile Delinquent published. And now, why I’m rejoicing that it has been, especially now.
Read moreWaiting
I was waiting to do this post until I got my books and could write about how I felt when I opened the box and actually saw them—the real thing—not the copied pages, the ARC, the digital version—but they haven’t yet arrived.
As I was sitting outside for a brief respite from the computer, dreaming a bit in the sun, all the other things I was waiting for flooded my mind—the arrival of those books, a haircut appointment, word from Politics and Prose about a hoped-for Crowdcast video for I Am Not A Juvenile Delinquent, for the overgrown lawn to be mowed, for the grass seed in its bare spots to sprout, for my puppy Stella to finish her heat, for the time and energy to clean up my thousands of emails, to write a new poem, to put together another poetry collection.
Read moreMAY IS THE CRUELEST MONTH
I was going to tell you about the great Zoom re-creation of my women’s writing group last Sunday, when seven of us joined for the day to express in words the many feelings and thoughts prompted by poems I shared, but I’m not going to do that.
I debated writing about the powerful virtual mindfulness retreat I sat (in front of my computer) last week, given by renowned meditation teachers Joseph Goldstein and Sharon Salzburg to 2300 others all over the world. I thought I’d quote Ajahn Chah,
Read moreTRUE CONFESSIONS
I was walking Stella, my dog, who we’ve trained to sit when a car goes by. This one stopped. It was my neighbor, going for a drive to get out of the house.
“I just read your blog,” she said. “It’s so depressing. Can’t you write a happy one next time? Something inspirational?”
I thought, but didn’t say, that’s not my style. How many times have I heard people say things like that to me? Just a recent email from an old friend declared, “I have read your poetry and wondered at your gift for writing. It is wonderful to read but so full of sadness. I look for the hope! “
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