Writer’s Island

Does an embarrassing clutter of markers make you draw more? In a way, yes. If you’ve ever read this blog, you know that I love me a writing ...

All the postcards I received this year, plus a bonus Buckley. The poems are written, the cards are mailed: The 2021 Poetry Postcard Fest  is...

I got an early start on NaPoWriMo by writing Instagram poems in March. Let's just say there was a theme. It’s April 15th, which mean...

I keep the guidelines of journals I'm interested in on my desk. That way they're right in my face and I can't avoid them. ...

This one’s in the public domain, so I’ll put it right here. After Apple-Picking by Robert Frost My long two-pointed ladder’s sticking ...

Read “Poem Written in the Sixth Month of My Wife’s Illness” in the literary journal Rattle here. This poem, to me, feels like a master cl...

Read “A Blessing” on the Academy of American Poets site here. People, I warned you about the horses. Sometimes you need pure happiness. ...

Read “Fences” on Poetry Daily here. Just look at these muscular words: scolded, driven, lean, forced, march, swallow, taut . Austin Smith ...

Read “On the Death of Friends in Childhood” on the Poetry Foundation site here. I developed a crush on Donald Justice in my 30s, when I ha...

Read “Artifact” on the Poetry Foundation site here. Claudia Emerson may be my favorite modern poet, and this poem is a prime example of wh...

Read “Gloves” on Ted Kooser’s American Life in Poetry series here. I first encountered José Angel Araguz and his work at a writers’ confer...

Read “There Are Birds Here” on the Poetry Foundation site here. A couple of years ago, I was in a workshop group that had a great holiday ...

Read “Thanksgiving” in the online journal Literary Hub here. This is a recent poem; it came out this past November in Literary Hub , and ...

Read “A Brief History of Mine” in Cider Press Review here. Nancy Carol Moody is an Oregon poet whose work often leaps between everyday la...

Read “Emergency Haying” on the Poetry Foundation site here. This is one of my all-time favorite poems, easily in the top 10. Maybe the to...

Read “Mermaids” on Sundress Publications’ online poetry series, The Wardrobe , here. Disclaimer: Angela Decker and I have known each ot...

Read “Invoking the Muse in Cell Block B” in the literary journal Rattle here. This poem is from Nancy Miller Gomez’s chapbo...