The Sublime Passage

“…what I’ve come to learn is that the world is never saved in grand messianic gestures, but in the simple, accumulation of gentle, soft, almost invisible acts of compassion.”
Chris Abani
From a TED talk recorded February 2008 in Monterey, California

I’ve just gotten home from spending 4 days at the largest poetry event in the known multiverse. I was sure I would have so much to say, but surprisingly I don’t.

Maybe it’s because I worked the event, and I’m still feeling exhausted. Or perhaps its because I’m still blissed out on what I did hear.

I feel like I’m still assimilating and absorbing some of what I heard.

I will say this. (more…)

My brother has always provided the comic relief in my family. He still makes me laugh like no one in the world can. Even now, in adulthood, he is not above the teasing, jokes and sheer silliness we all love so much. My brother is responsible for every nickname and made up word in my family’s lexicon. The nicknames range from the obvious which come about by a shortening of a name or a rhyming variation perhaps. Others are less easily understood by the rest of us. None the less, they all stick. I have many, but one of my favorites, which he still uses, is Stu (pronounced STEW). Sue became Stu , and sometimes for an a little extra variation I am Stu-ya -ya. (more…)

Big news. The woman who has catapulted many a writing career into the stratospheres of success is getting ready to do it again with the announcement of her latest Book Club pick, The Story of Edgar Sawtelle by first-time novelist, David Wroblewski. (more…)

“Art is man’s constant effort to create for himself a different order of reality from that which is given to him.”