Last month, I led my first poetry workshop. The focus was neither revision nor editing. The focus was on beginning and writing a poem, specifically the genesis of a poem with the use of a source text—a generation I managed to explore with a group of children. I was welcomed to engage with the upper […]
Pareidolia and poetry
November 29, 2013 by
I thought I would share my thesis proposal, originally written in spring 2013. … The thesis shall be a poetry manuscript, titled “Pareidolia has landed.” The manuscript will contain various explorations into constraint-based poetry, including erasures and other author-created constraints. The emphasis, therefore, shall be that the methods of poetry-making are just as significant as […]
My MFA Poetry Thesis Defense
November 29, 2013 by
Back on Tuesday, November 5th, I had my thesis defense. My thesis was a manuscript of some of my early constraint-based erasures (a term I use to denote erasures created through specific methods/constraints, such as making use of every page from a source text), written during my second and third years of the program. As […]
Region and Poetry, Part 3; or, Questions of Writing on Place
August 21, 2013 by
I recently spent five weeks in Ireland, the majority of the time in Cork City. I did write some while there (as can be seen in previous posts shared), but I write of it mostly now that I am gone. After exiting Gougane Barra, I spoke with a peer. I said that I tend to […]
The Shamrock: Bar/Lounge, Part 2; Roundstone; August 3, 2013
August 6, 2013 by
Poinsettias on the fireplace in August. The bartender says red after the black stuff will be heavy. The accordion player switches to guitar half the time. The two men with strings on their fingers. The pelvis a gathering point, a bowling, stirred. I am neighbored by Connemara whiskey, wet heat that starts in the mouth […]
The Shamrock: Bar/Lounge; Roundstone; August 3, 2013
August 6, 2013 by
I become stooled customer, foamed black at the bar. The bartender neat, pale red shirt, buttoned-tucked. Couples at tables, three girls at a vertex. A perimeter-man wants my eyes. I turn peripheral. His slur is a welcome I recognize but do not take. You could join us in our corner if you like… Selves double, […]
The Oliver Plunkett; July 27, 2013
July 28, 2013 by
Oliver Plunkett Pub pillars teach me Irish. Irish Coffee. It is wet. Pig. A lovely day. Salami and bacon in the greenery plate. Ribs reddened with sauce. Children game with appropriate boards and pieces. Three musicians are the sort who use hands: strings and then an accordion. Sound drenches the pub. The rain of singing […]
Gougane Barra; July 17, 2013
July 19, 2013 by
I enter Ireland’s award-winning water closet. Hut of orange innards. My skin a rind the midges suck. Mirror of panels of mirrors. I reflect incomplete, looking at my camera’s eye. Two dried teabags lie outside. Omens of heated thirst. Moss as brittle as the steep-less. The sound of sheep but they are miles across. The […]
Beach at Kinsale; July 12, 2013
July 15, 2013 by
After a bridge and hairpin path, the sand seeps into shoes. I am not good with such estimates, but probably 80 people. Barebutt babes led into the sea by their fathers. Barefoot in the water: crabs approach toes. Seaweed that pockets air floats. Seaweed that has alligator skin on its swim bladder. The green drying […]
Making poetry go beyond oneself
May 13, 2013 by
When we think of immaturity, we think of a type of self-contained system. We find a poem to be immature when it is too limited by the writer’s self or experience (and when the poem lacks a density, but this will be for another time). There are many ways that poets try to make their […]