Virginia Woolf wrote that it was her “shock-receiving capacity” that made her a writer. I think writers, particularly poets, have a perpetual déjà vu, remembering bits and pieces of experiences, usually nondescript, that harbor images that repeatedly cry out to be cast upon paper. Continue reading “The Shock-Receiving Capacity”
Tag: Mary Oliver
The Writing on the Wall
Once I was walking around Boston and stopped at a brick building that had some chalked words written on it. The words were “The Writing.” I kept walking and then I got it. I laughed out loud. What is the writing on your wall? Continue reading “The Writing on the Wall”
Ending with “Life”
Yesterday morning, I realized a lot of poems I like end with the word “life.” I even have one I wrote years ago that ends, “and hurriedly—so I wouldn’t be caught—I began to make my life.” There is an innate appeal to a poem that ends with “life.”
Rural Oklahoma Museum of Poetry 