Workshop magic

Our speculations about Shakespeare are almost as multifarious and foolish as our speculations about the maker of the universe[…]. The itch for personally knowing authors torments most of us; we feel that if we could somehow get at the man himself, we should obtain more help and satisfaction from him than from his chosen self-revelation. […]

We can do it

I’m reading The Answer to How is Yes, by Peter Block. It’s been on my “pick it up” list for a handful of years now, so when my fingertips brushed it while shelving, I did so. It’s good stuff. The section heading I just passed is “Committment without Barter.” I’m going to skip over my […]

Off the beat

Today, evidently, was about being face-to-face. Listening, and sharing… and if I’m lucky, in equal parts.  Hasta mañana!

The call you hear may not be your own

With apologies to Flannery O’Connor So it’s almost 9pm on Sunday. If today was Sabbath I batted about 65%, I just tried to store a folding chair in a table-leaf box, and since I didn’t write BEFORE Sabbath (the preferred approach) my writing remains to be done before I can crash go to bed. Rather […]

Sibling vision

David asked the men standing near him, “What will be done for the man who kills this Philistine and removes this disgrace from Israel? Who is this uncircumcised Philistine that he should defy the armies of the living God?” They repeated to him what they had been saying [about Saul’s promise of reward] and told […]

And-ing the beloved

There’s a pastime among partnered women, where we vent steam and recalibrate by recounting exasperating things our partner has done. Usually “lately,” though some are fond of bringing the whole kitchen sink in if the contents fit the theme du jour. It is, for the most part, a harmless or even useful practice. One retelling […]

Hymn / A.R. (Archie Randolph) Ammons

I know if I find you I will have to leave the earth and go on out over the sea marshes and the brant in bays and over the hills of tall hickory and over the crater lakes and canyons and on up through the spheres of diminishing air past the blackset noctilucent clouds where […]

Responsible person

Yesterday turned into another sabbath as I decompressed from Glen. You likely figured that out, though! Which means today you get to meet Dennis. So yes, this is a rosary, and no, as a Presbyterian I don’t use one in my religious observances. On our off-day last week, my workshop instructor and her husband went […]

Sound (but no) fury

These are part of a class exercise (game). We pulled pre-portioned texts and used them to make ‘erasure poems.’ Then, piling found on top of found (as in: ‘found poetry’), we were to leave them in places around campus for others to discover. 

Camp friends

Here at the Glen I’m listening and talking all the time. In and out of class, particularly out of class. They’re the conversations one had at 3 a.m. in college, that shift from mysteries-of-the-universe profound, to profoundly silly, then over into practical problem-solving, and back around again. Except we have them all day… and into […]