My Writing Day

 

A big thank you to Rob McClennan (whose work I've long followed) for including me in his new project about how writers spend their days (click the link to read my piece). As you know, I've long been interested in process...but it's so messy and unconsolidated for me in my current life. And that's not a bad thing.

Have you ever recorded and shared how your day goes down? Or analyzed the changes in your own creative rituals and schedules? It's bizarre and very revealing.

Paint the Cake With Fire

"Surprise Party," by Frederic Belaubre

Paint the Cake With Fire

For the first days weeks of a baby’s life all
we say is Look how tiny he is and beautiful
And then within a month or two it starts
Look how big she’s getting
How is time moving so quickly
Invent a new creature
and through him time emerges
At first you are the new creature
and then you can only marvel at the small
ones emerging from it seems nowhere
And the new ones make us old and uncool
which means we know the unendingness
of time has ended
And no one declares at our birthdays
Look how old she is
and still alive
except for ourselves

New poem up in Matter--"Also Me"

Happy spring, everyone! I'm really pleased to have a new poem up at Matter, which bills itself as "A (somewhat) monthly journal of political poetry and commentary." You can read the poem here.

I really love what the editors, Virginia Konchan and Glenn Shaheen, do with this space, and I'm honored to share an issue with some other wonderful poets (including my pal Leah Umansky, who has beautiful collages in the issue!).

Family Vacation

Family Vacation

I am on a beach
I am in a poem
I write to you from the inside of it

On vacation it will be 3:30
and you will have done nothing
except for nap

and turn the bed into Beach, Jr.
with the sand you wore
and keep finding

A family is a nap
is a door we close to chaos
a quiet room not always quiet in a loud house

One night it came to me
as I listened from the balcony
The ocean is the world’s pulse

The beach will teach us
dishevelment and disorder
and how to hang onto light

Fellowship

Fellowship

Don’t count your chickens before they are hatched
and don’t count your kitchens if they are unlatched
and if you do count your unhatchlings call them eggs
and know that they are real as they doze in their shells
and if you count a dozen you can either have a feast
or twelve new pets or twelve porcelain water balloons
or a dozen marvels of biology and construction
built to shatter by chisel of innermost agitation 
Don’t count your mortifications to be or to come
but if you do search your pocket or pillowcase
and locate this card which I have placed there
for you my fellow fallible being It is embossed
With one finger feel the tiny skyline of its inscription
which reads Member of the Mere Mortals
since Birthday (Membership included with being born)

"One," by Dunja Jung

"One," by Dunja Jung

1

1

Candle rising to its feet
fed by cake of snow
and calendar Pioneer
numeral Glyph of self
Bookmark to place
within memory Here
the first smile Here
the first step First
word First school First
remembered loneliness
First good kiss One
a visitation A thumb
Freshly downed arrow
A lamppost to circle
If all else goes to crumb
look at this pillar this
elevator shaft with open
doors Read the plaque
that says You invented
a new way to invite air
into body You were bark
trunk birdhouse bird worm
You are flight You are
flying Here is the place
you whispernamed Liftoff