Stop this day and night with me and you will know the secret to poetry – Walt Whitman In 2019, months before the Pandemic began, my husband and I moved to Costa Rica to take a little sabbatical. After almost three years here the sabbatical has taught me more than…
poetry
As a poet, and full-time poetry teacher from California, I sometimes take for granted that poetry is everywhere, that it is for everyone, and that it can be used to help us all communicate with one another during difficult times. Interviewing the brave, incisive poet Kai Coggin about her newest…
Brian Sonia-Wallace has one of the more unique writing careers of any poet I’ve ever known. At an age when most people are getting their first jobs, flipping burgers or interning at XYZ company, Brian parked himself behind his typewriter on the sidewalks of Los Angeles. He began busking for…
It is hard to overstate the effect that working with Kim Addonizio had on me as a poet. I was a lonely young adult. I had found the enthusiasm to write, but no technique, no structure. After work I sat in a bean bag chair in my one-room studio and…
“Even singing a sad song requires an absolute happiness.” – Galway Kinnel Can you make poetry fun, even when it is about serious subjects? I’ve been reading Cameron Morse’s sixth book of poetry, Far Other (Woodley Press, November, 2020). It focuses on the questions of mortality, spirituality, and the…
This month at The Poetry Salon we are focusing our attention on the work of Sonia Greenfield, author of Boy With a Halo at the Farmer’s Market, American Parable, and Letdown. Sonia is also the editor of Rise-Up Review, a journal that is self-described as “a landing site for the…
I just finished reading Nancy Lynee Woo’s book, Bearing the Juice of it All (Finishing Line Press), and I’m in love. Her language is visceral and gripping, her work honest and probing, her structure both sharp and layered. When she agreed to be on The Poetry Saloncast with me and…
Welcome to the next in our NaNoWriMo series of reflections on this poet’s experience trying to write a novel. So is there a best time in the day to write? Probably not. If there is, it’s different for everybody, but here’s how I experience it. I like to write. Especially…
We are here to help one another get through ‘this’ whatever ‘this’ is. – Kurt Vonnegut One of the things I find so intriguing about living through this pandemic is how I feel both overwhelmed by all the rapid changes of the world, at the same time I…
