TIME & TIDE

"Time and Tide wait for no man" is how the saying goes. It is a recommendation against procrastination and as I am reading Patrick O'Brian's naval novels (for the third time) I understand the reference. However . . . We waited for the tide to turn so that we might have our walk. It was …

TWO DEER

A few days ago Gary was out on the road when he saw the first deer. He backed up against the garage door while she passed. He felt sure there was another. He didn't want to spot them, though they had passed him before—running straight past as if he were not there. There have been …

REVISE

written yesterday: I should be weaving just now, and I have fabric pulled for a quilt of ordinary cotton, other block-printed fabric waiting for my attention, and an impressive stash of batik cotton. If I put my mind to it, I could have a couple of quilt tops done before summer. I could do three. …

LONG WALK HOME

Rain is pouring down and the stream that runs under our neighbor's house is not running. A bad sign. We will not get our walk this morning. I watched a movie the other day about an eighty year old woman climbing what passes for a mountain in Scotland, Edie. In my world mountains have snow …

ARCHITECTURE + CHOCOLATE

My dad used to tell a story about his first job at a California aircraft company. The new head offices had a problem. The roof leaked on the President's desk and the famous architect who designed the structure refused to address the problem. "It's a work of art," he is supposed to have said. The …

ORAL HISTORY

I was reading an article in Time magazine about oral histories, how we should all be keeping coronavirus journals because such personal stories add texture to historical accounts. Katherine Sharp Landdeck is the author of The Women with Silver Wings: The Inspiring True Story of the Women Airforce Service Pilots of World War II, and found …

Assignment #5: weird revision [last]

During April, I gave my students poems. Poetry was one of the fatalities of the misguided school reforms of a couple decades ago which insisted English teachers toss most of our curriculum in for a focus on nonfiction. Don't get me wrong, I had always included nonfiction in my curriculum, but we all deserve poetry …

Assignment #5: color poem

This last assignment is poetry. Below are two 20-minute poem prompts. Choose. IMPORTANT: My 20-minute exercises were inspired by prompts provided in the back of Dorianne Laux and Kim Addonizio’s marvelous craft book, The Poet's Companion: A Guide to the Pleasures of Writing Poetry (W.W. Norton, 1997). Their original exercises are much better than mine. (You …

ART STUDENT

Back when I was an art student, I thought I might earn money, if not actually a living, from my art. I envisioned a dramatic difference in my life compared to how I was raised. I was first a Ceramic Art major at the University of Washington. In the clay side of the Fire Arts …

assignment #4 revision: Idyll

Hello. Before the revision strategy, a confession. I have been in a bit of a muddle lately. I "turned off" the news two days ago—tossed the email updates unread, and stopped checking news sources online or Johns Hopkins statistics. I think it did me some good to take a break. For example, I noticed I'd …