For ZG
Poetry as no big dealPoetry in 2 1/2 minutesPoetry to send to yr maPoetry as an escape into realityPoetry the realest it getsPoetry better than falling in lovePoetry the universal tribePoetry made of tears of…
Category: Writing to Wake up
Ginsberg Variations
“Catch yourself thinking.” —Allen Ginsberg, “Cosmopolitan Greetings” Catch myself gossiping. Catch myself kvetching. Catch myself zoning out. Catch myself sneering. Catch myself smirking. Catch myself looking away. Catch myself signaling. Catch myself signing off superciliously….
Share the Wealth with Annie Cosby … When Writing’s The Easy Part: Lessons from Writing, Publishing & Loving Novels
Writing is difficult. Really, really difficult. Growing up, I always thought that would be the hardest part of my dream of becoming an author. Actually finishing a book, a book people would want to read,…
The Reading Life/2
By the Blue Light of a Cell Phone by Katie Consamus Dr Chmiel, I just flipped on CNN after getting home from rehearsal and immediately thought of our encounter on New Year’s Eve as I…
Writing to Wake Up 2020: A Winter Course in Creativity and Community
Writing is essential to my life, like breathing. I can live without a husband but I cannot live without writing. By writing I become one with the world and with myself. —Nawal El Saadawi What…
The Writing Life/1
At My Wake, Someone Will Hear Someone Else Say… “He was always telling me to share my writing…” “You, too? He said that to me, like… weekly!” “Weekly? He’d badger me daily for a fortnight…
Blasts from the Past
Hold It All It must have been 1983, springtime: I asked former classmate Ray Pruitt what he’d been reading. “Last night, Kierkegaard, Proust, and Phil Berrigan.” Things Have Changed It was back in 1982 We…
A Time of Sacred Confusion by Michèle Shimizu-Kelley
My house is a thin-feeling place where I sit witnessing the fog roll in on a time of Sacred Confusion. I’ve been reading The poems, The prayers, The mantras of The wisdom-speakers Reminding us of…
Lauren Shared with Me, and I Now Share with You
“So easy in the woods to daydream and pray to the local spirits and say “Allow me to stay here, I only want peace.” –Jack Kerouac, Big Sur Listen here. If you find yourself laying…
The Firstfruits by Sarah Hartmann Burkemper
Sarah shared this writing in our Facing the Future class this autumn, and I am happy to share it with you! I generally am not a mindful eater. I eat breakfast standing at the counter,…