A Poem Miasma
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Picking mushrooms at the edge of dread
November 14, 2016
The shock of the recent election can't be ignored. I've spent the past week in grief. Still, "the sun shone / as it had to" on the half of the country that's...
Holding the living
August 31, 2016
We have this dog now. His name is Basil and he is the most perfect being ever to lick his own butt. Having a dog has made me more attentive to the texture of...
The slump experiments
May 30, 2016
Lately I've been in a writing slump. Nothing strikes me as poem-worthy; I struggle to get started and seek out as many distractions as possible. Recently, I...
In a word, a world
April 19, 2016
The week that David Bowie died was also the week that C.D. Wright died. Maybe you had this experience, too: going into public spaces and being surprised at...
Bad poetry, oh noetry
January 17, 2016
The only time I was ever called out in a rap battle, I was wearing a Toothpaste for Dinner t-shirt with the little wobbly guy shouting "shut up shut up shut...
Loss and surprises
December 17, 2015
My beloved email address (erin (at) ibiblio dot org) is sending spam. Having this happen feels to me like a great loss — a disaster. So I'm thinking often of...
Keep telling me what to do
November 14, 2015
I like poems that tell you what to do. They satisfy my inclination to speak in the second person when I write poems, talking to a "you" that's always partly...
entwined / little red knife
October 13, 2015
I'm having a hard time being in my head lately which means I have a hard time writing. (Which is to say: this will be a short message.) Still, I made a poem...
In other homes
September 21, 2015
I have a story in Story Club Magazine. It’s about where I’m from. I hope you’ll read it; I’d love to hear what you think. Without drawing any sort of...
A speck of white paint, off to the side
August 11, 2015
Just as songs can get inexorably linked to a season or a feeling, so can poems. There are poems that are tied to rooms and smells and people in my memory....
May I never be afraid
July 14, 2015
This poem arrived in my life with the force of a benediction. More prosaically, I kept seeing Alice Notley as a tag on things I liked on poetry Tumblr. Alice...
"could do without this"
June 15, 2015
It is considered corny to like Billy Collins. His poems are as easy to read as your standard airport bestseller paperback. This makes them less important...
Dragging a dead poem up a hill
April 11, 2015
For the past eleven days of April I have been writing a poem every day. It’s a challenge that I’ve heard called the grind or a 30/30. I am learning a lot...
You are publicly listening
January 14, 2015
Long ago in Internet Time (which moves much faster than Everyday Life Time) I sent an email where I recommended this prose poem by Claudia Rankine. The poem...
Recent work; future hangs
December 15, 2014
I don’t have a long letter this month. I have a few links to other things I’ve written and done, and one thing I will be doing. If you like reading these...
Beyond all this fiddle, what’s useful
November 10, 2014
At the end of this month, on November 30th, I’m doing a reading here in Chicago. There’s more information on Facebook. I’d love to see you in this mysterious...
A theory of muchness
September 26, 2014
Here’s my latest review for the Volta, of a new poetry collection called Interrobang. In it I keep returning to “muchness.” Google reveals that I...
Baba Yaga and sky every day
August 18, 2014
First: my third review for the Volta, of Aram Saroyan's Complete Minimal Poems, is online. This is some of the most fun critical writing I've done this year:...
Poems by heart, and an exciting reading
July 14, 2014
I am so excited to tell y'all that I'm a semifinalist for the Gwendolyn Brooks Open Mic Award. If you're in Chicago, please come out to the Chopin Theater at...
What is it about April?
April 22, 2014
I remember the tones of my father's voice reciting scraps of "The Waste Land" more immediately than anything else about that poem, like a melody stuck in my...
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