Comma comma comma comma comma chameleon, redux
Commatology? What’s that? In case you’ve ever wondered where this blog got its name, this post from January 2014 spells it out. I edited a dissertation…
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A plea to the gods of lost causes
All knots have their purpose: Reef knots bind, sheet bends join, A bowline is a rescue knot For unclaimed souls and haunted minds. Yet no saint protects the maker of knots When…
To have and to hold
When a book is also a vessel ♦ one is able to wait for thought. ♦ Think: what do candles know? ♦ Sometimes it is the…
These are the song-lines I will walk
What kind of stories do we need right now?
Tightrope walking as if there were no net
Where is home?
Each year a word
Each year I choose a word, or it chooses me. My purpose in doing so is to remind myself to live with intention. In 2024 my…
She was the house
In the wake of Alice Munro’s departure, I was talking with some writer friends about her impact on us and our writing. I called up a…
There is a change ahead
The notice at the southern entrance to the Granville Street Bridge portends change ahead. “No Teardrops” the bulletin seems to instruct. I disregard the directive. My…
Mind the gap
I attended a workshop once—no, twice—with writer and poet Betsy Warland. As one of the exercises, Betsy asked us to sketch a public place where we…
12 insights from the year just past
My word of the year for 2022 was a number: twelve. I didn’t choose it; it chose me. I didn’t know what to do with it…
Ashes of love
I own precious few family heirlooms. One I treasure is a worn black leather-bound pocket-sized ledger filled with poems. It first belonged to my great-aunt Nan,…
I used to be the sun
This mound was once a valley filled with bird song, footfall, the persistent running cascade of the river weir. I used to be the sun. Changes…
Proof of existence
I see hair as proof of existence, a souvenir. A mourned dog, a dreamlike state, a snippet of conversation. The line of light has held. You…