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…

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?” …

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?” …

The Good News of Puck, 4.21.2017

Today I saw Puck Vlaskamp play her last tennis matches as an undergraduate at Maryville University.  She has given her all to her studies and her sport, and has touched and inspired many of us…