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Mess, noise, static
“The derecho felled my father, I mean my maple tree”: that’s a line from my forthcoming book, Radioland. My desk at home faces a large old maple, and beyond that Myers St., and beyond that House Mountain. A storm cleaved the tree, however, during the summer of 2012, about a month after my father died. Half the…
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Ruthlessly pruning the overstuffed closet of a poetry book manuscript
After a shopping trip for school clothes on Saturday, my daughter, a rising high school senior, spontaneously cleaned out her drawers and closet to make room for the new. I cannot emphasize enough how out of character this was, but then again, she’s on the verge of so many changes. All summer she’s been doing…
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“Douchebag” and other rude, not-seasonally-festive epithets
The one time I tried to smoke a cigarette, my friends mocked me: “Cut that out. You look totally ridiculous.” By common consensus, I couldn’t pull off foul language either. I thought the problem might have been some crisp Englishness lingering in my elocution—my mother’s British and allegedly I started kindergarten with an accent. I…