A Draft of Your First Book
Dear Ramona, Thinking of Ko Un and last week’s theme, it occurs to me that your first book could be a collection of short “meditations.” 600-900 words. Like that brilliant “Open Hands” you sent me…
Category: Correspondence
“I Have Some Wonderful News…”
I recently received the following letter from Robert MacArthur, who studied with me in fall 2005 at Saint Louis University… Dr. Chmiel! Hello! I hope this letter finds you well. I have some wonderful news…
Dear Layla, Dear Mark by Abbey Fox
Dear Mark, Per usual, I devoured your latest release. YOUR WRITING INSPIRES ME SO DEEPLY. It inspires me to take a moment and notice the tiny things that are the fabric of life and how…
Please Let Me Call You by Your True Names
Someone recently sent me the following note… “Mark” I rarely call you this But you feel like a Mark right now A mark upon my life A mark of brightness in a grey background A…
Announcements
Laura Weis shared this with me from a class we had 12 years ago at SLU; this led to her going to hear Dan Berrigan at Cook Hall. I’m not the only one who keeps…
Walt Whitman and Dear Layla
Dear Rebecca, Sarah, Matthew and Patrick, Joanie French and I took the Amtrak train to Texas in the summer of 2005 for a family wedding. Along the way and back, I read the Library of…
Dear Isabel (Letter/11)
Wednesday 1 July 2015 Dear Isabel End of page 12 and all of page 13 You WERE paralyzed with fear. Fear comes and goes. You can write anything you want. You can go outside the…
Dear Isabel (Letter/7)
Friday 26 June 2015 Dear Isabel Happy Friday, you’ve finished one week at the new job. Page 8, top paragraph I take back what I said yesterday about boycotting the word “solidarity.” That first sentence…
Dear Isabel (Letter/6)
Thursday 25 June 2015 Dear Isabel And so I continue…. Page 6, paragraph 1 The needs you mention here (arising from your journalistic writing in a specific place) aren’t peculiar or idiosyncratic—all humans have the…
Dear Isabel (Letter/5)
Wednesday 24 June 2015 Dear Isabel Page 5 Ah, claridad in El Salvador, because it is (seems?) so black and white. Your description of what living there, amidst violence, gives you is powerful; e.g., “vulnerability is…