She thought it was old-fashioned, in a way, the way they married. There they were, a hip couple of Baltimore artists, Billy a musician and she a painter, living in the eclectic neighborhood of Mt Vernon. They were not the type, she thought, who got married because of an accidental pregnancy. And they did not do it because it was the right thing to do, though their Midwestern upbringing could have arisen something ingrained in them. They did it because, at the time, it "felt" right.
A Man of His Words; Walking Bayside; No Man Is an Island
Dissolving in another’s joy, Open to another’s hurt, reaching out…. yet he stays on ease of soil, Hard of head, tender of foot.
Suburban Hell
Do authors still care what readers think? Are they writing for an audience? Is this “novel writing business” still about entertainment? I guess. Whatever. Consider me entertained, just make it Cormac McCarthy dark. If I ever meet the man, I’ll thank him for his contributions to the literary canon and like Mr. Franzen remind him it’s not his fault Oprah picked him.
Courtship; Proposal; On My Morning Walk It Occurs to Me that My Name is Similar to Billy Collins; Mr. Hollands Explains His Tattoo to His Students; The Great Poet Said
I have a stack of unfinished poems in my drawer – many there for years, decades – some missing just a word, one perfect word. Nodding undergraduate heads.
The Golden Stairway to Heaven
“This is radio station WAST, the wackiest station in the nation blasting out at you with a zillion megawatts of pure rock right here in downtown Little Falls and I’m Don Zingo your favorite DJ here to zap you and zing you with the sounds of tomorrow today.
Reading Life
After a particularly bad week, I sat at my kitchen table and read George Saunders’ Lincoln in the Bardo. It turned out, farting ghosts and a grieving president were just what I needed. The book’s elevated vocabulary and shifting POVs are demanding, but what I found the most challenging was that it asks the reader to just be. To watch. To listen.