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Voices in my head
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Hawthorns, bogs, & undersongs
The BurrenSometimes you bring pain along like a walletof funny-colored bills or a mobile phone.Here’s a knotted neck for the Burren. A spirit-fissure to echo the limestone grykes. Karstpavement matches you: riven grays, white lichen,sky pale with tiredness. Stand on a clint and becomeinvisible, perfectly camouflaged by pain.Yet in the watery gaps tiny pink flowers…
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A D.C. reading, ghost pipes, & more Dickinson
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Dickinson’s fungal weirdness
This Thursday, 7/17, at 6 pm Eastern, I’m reading with Nadia Alexis in a virtual series, Phosphorescence, hosted by the Emily Dickinson Museum. (Nadia’s great book Beyond the Watershed launched on the very same March day as my Mycocosmic so it’s been a pleasure to pair up a couple of times.) The reading is free…
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Itinerant Poet with Toadstools, Witches, & Shame
Mycocosmic is now three months old. Since it sprouted, I’ve done twenty events, recorded a few podcasts, received some nice notice (here’s the latest lovely review, by K.B. Kinkel). Meanwhile I taught very-full-time and kept working to set up summer and fall events, although they’re scheduled more calmly. “How are you feeling about the launch?”…
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Dark corridors
For the past few years, I’ve thought of this time of year as a lightless tunnel: from late April, when my mother died in pain, till Mother’s Day, after which grief shrinks back to a manageable size. This year, I see my sister suffering through this passage, but somehow I’m okay. Maybe it’s because I’ve…
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Shimmer, steam, somatic, sciatica
A happy thing that happened a week ago Monday, the day before my Personal Pinched-Nerve Apocalypse (more on that soon). Adroit published my short essay “Mycelial Mind.” As far as maintaining the mental habits the essay describes: well, I’m still a seeker, and I guess that’s the point. The past week and a half brought…
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Role model, mycelium
Spring’s little revolutions are flaring in small-town Virginia. It’s been unseasonably warm, so on the streets around my house, the daffodils’ signage was rapidly outshouted by tulips, azaleas, and lilacs. We took a couple of walks in the woods, one at Brushy Hill where redbuds headlined, the other on back campus, where the news included…
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Rustle like old women’s laughter
This week, in my “Modern Poetry’s Media” course, I told my undergrads about poet Helene Johnson‘s success during the Harlem Renaissance, subsequent disappearance from the literary scene, and rediscovery late in the 20th century. “Rediscovery” is a funny term, of course–she knew where she was the whole time, although other poets and the critics weren’t…
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Mycocosmic is in the field
My book-spore have been released! Like all wild things, they’re not as calendar-driven in their dispersal as an author might pretend. Tupelo people and I agreed that the official launch date would be March 4th because Tuesdays are traditional in the industry and “march forth” sounds cute–that’s when the local party happens (Downtown Books, Lexington…