writing practices

  • Against Genre

    The concept of genre—a defined category of writing, like poetry or novels or plays—isn’t currently fashionable. Many people find such categories too restrictive or fussy. Much of the energy of contemporary literature is in crossing and mixing various genres in single pieces of writing. Yet when it comes to poetry, it can help to think…

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  • The New Year

    First, this post owes a big debt of gratitude to Kelli Russell Agodon. A few months ago, Kelli tweeted about “the old days” when poets blogged widely and regularly. I, too, missed that spirit of community, and in the tweets that followed from others, a movement took back its shape, and many, many poets committed…

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  • Get LOST

    LOST returns tonight! I got season 4 for Christmas this year and already caught myself up on the past season, since it was such a short (but intense!) one. I like the turn the show has taken in terms of how the narrative is unfolding. I think the writers had to do something like that…

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  • Why Do I Write?

    Beats me. But Dustin Brookshire might know.

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  • There’s nothing quite like a holiday, complete with eleven hours of travel (door to door) to get you feeling rejuvenated and ready for work again. Especially when you start that first day back with a parking ticket and some really disconcerting news at the office. But I’ve shaved today, a semiannual ritual of sorts, and…

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  • Tuesday night I was bored. I was so bored I could no longer justify ignoring my unrevised poems any longer. I sat down and read through my Dorothy Gale poems, my Dorothy Eady poems, and my one Joseph Smith poem (yes, that Joseph Smith). As soon as I wrote my post about not writing, I…

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