I am glad to have read The Ink Dark Moon, Jane Hirshfeld’s translations, with the aid of Mariko Aratani, of the Heian Court’s poets—Izumi Shikibu and Ono No Komachi. Several of Kerouac’s writing maxims came to…
Dear Bella Levenshteyn Let Emily Dickinson reassure you– Much Madness is divinest Sense — To a discerning Eye — Much Sense — the starkest Madness — ‘Tis the Majority In this, as All, prevail —…
How I long for supernatural powers! said the novice mournfully to the holy one. I see a dead child and I long to say, Arise! I see a sick man I long to say, Be…
In time for National Poetry Month, Andrea Scarpino will do our next Share the Wealth on her new book of poetry, What the Willow Said as It Fell. Andrea shared with us in September 2014,…
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…
“Neighbors, friends, colleagues, students, fellow poets, and artists all came to her home where they were greeted with exuberance, shared in her bursts of full-bodied laughter, and were sent off with her signature Buddhist bow….
What you have to do, I believe, is to believe that there is a reader, a listener, a needer, within yourself, who corresponds closely to those readers out there, and you have to satisfy that…
Poised like an aging bear climbing a tree, hanging on tightly, I collect my breath. Poised like a bird stretching its neck out and pecking at food I collect my breath. Heaven and earth are…
Come, come, whoever you are. Wanderer, worshiper, lover of leaving. It doesn’t matter. Ours is not a caravan of despair. Come, even if you have broken your vows a thousand times. Come, yet again, come,…
Interviewer: Later this month you’ll be reading at the poetry festival, Split This Rock. Do you have an expectation for what you want the audience to take away from your reading? Alice Walker: A clearer…