Metta, 4.30.2017
May Neeta be happy. May Neeta be peaceful. May Neeta be liberated. –Dr. Neeta Shenai has been my student, friend, and teacher since 2005.
Month: April 2017
The Truly & Exceptionally Ecstasy-Inducing Good News, 4.29.2017
Last September, Brendan, and Jen, friends whom I had in Social Justice class years ago at SLU, told me that he had been diagnosed with malignant metastatic melanoma. The other day, Jen sent me the…
While Walking on Telegraph Avenue, It Hit Me
Thy eternal narcissism shall not fade, Alas –from novel-in-progress, Our Heroic and Ceaseless 24/7 Struggle against Tsuris
Cultivating Avidity
Books of poetry will teach you more than your mentor or professor or the well-known poet you have traveled to a conference to work with. Reading is like food to a writer; without it, the…
¡Ray Pruitt, Presente!
I just found out that a classmate died last year in Japan. Ray Pruitt studied two years at Bellarmine (1978-80), then eventually finished his Bachelor’s at Harvard before doing law at Yale. Ray, Anne Walter…
After Cheese Cake
You spoil me, Maestra One visit with you in French patisserieland And I want a weekly dose of your thirty-four-year-old company: You tango philosopher You kinesthetic sage You brunette buddha But I can’t … Always…
The Endless Net
Ten years ago, I read Eliot Weinberger’s anthology, World Beat: International Poetry Now (New Directions, 2006). Looking back, I’m grateful, because that volume (re)introduced me to Israeli Aharon Shabtai, Iraqi Dunya Mikhail, and Chilean Nicanor…
Share the Wealth with Cami Kasmerchak: The Hidden World of Vivian Maier
Vivian Maier’s work was first discovered about 10 years ago when a man named John Maloof purchased a trunk full of negatives at a Chicago storage auction. Maloof did not know it then, but he…
Reading Leads to Writing
1. Yesterday I was rereading Chilean poet Nicanor Parra’s After-Dinner Declarations, which I first read in 2013, and came across this page with my scribbles: 2. In Dear Layla Welcome to Palestine, these scribbles became…
The Good News of Resistance, 4.22.2017
1. A while back, I was sitting outside at RISE with a young Irish-Jewish American friend who asked me, when I showed her a particular chapter in Dear Layla Welcome to Palestine, “Who is Abbie Hoffman?” …