We buy a couple of corn dogs and head over to the free stage. My eyes wander off and I see a teenage girl standing on the back of a motorized wheelchair, lurching left and right, while her driver zig-zags across Main Street like a Hollywood stunt driver. I’m thankful city planners have shut down the streets to car traffic. Not just for the jazz festival.
But so people can move, for four days, any way they choose.
Karen Swallow Prior considers the poetry of the tree, from Joyce Kilmer’s ‘Trees’ to ‘The Dream of the Rood.’
Jazz is what happens to all of us — when somebody jumps out of her box.
Jazz great Art Blakey #once said, “Music washes away the dust of every day life.” With a pair of drumsticks, he did just that, uncovering a new style of bebop drumming. He gave music a new shine.
Poetry scrubs us down with a back-and-forth hygiene, too.
Like many writers I know, I keep a taboo list. Nothing too long or formal, this is simply a list of words I must not write—at least at first, when beginning a new piece. Trees are there on my taboo list right now.
The best in poetry, (and poetic things), this week with Matthew Kreider.
May Play began with a chance conversation with the owner of a candy shop.
There was nothing like roses. I was addicted.
Light pours through the west end and floods the wooden floors of our home. James is in the front room, dancing. His clunky, horse-like heels stomp to a syncopated rhythm, following the dizzy-eyed direction of his four-year-old vision, rather than my music.
The best in poetry (and poetic things), this week with Kimberlee Conway Ireton. 1 Art I’ve been reading Emily Dickinson’s poetry to my kids. I love her simple, spare, evocative verse. So I was captivated by The Little White House Project, brain child and love labor of a 17-year-old boy. The 5-acre art installation is […]
She requires a choice with every chapter. Will I sit with the pelicans and snag the easy fish, or let the current take me clear to the ocean?
Eric Roberts, on how to make book love and The Whipping Club.
With all the upheaval in the publishing industry because of ebooks, at least one positive development has resulted: we have the opportunity to read things we might not have otherwise. A case in point: my Kindle version of Wessex Poems and Other Verses by Thomas Hardy. Kindle price: free, part of the volunteer project to […]
Sometimes we start poetry with a history of strains and tight muscles. For many of us, this month’s May Play felt like therapy, a chance to purge ourselves of some lactic acid and develop more elasticity.
I want her in front of my lens I realise as we drive away. She is poetry in a body.
The best in poetry, (and poetic things), this week with Matthew Kreider
One of our chief needs as creative beings is support. Unfortunately, this can be hard to come by.
Carlos Fuentes died last week, a writer with a poet’s heart who didn’t write poetry.
Leah wasn’t quite ready to play. Sharing her poetry still felt like a risk.
A few months ago she discovered Every Day Poems and began clicking around. She spent $2.99 on our poetry daily subscription. She found intriguing writing prompts and colorful features. Most importantly, she encountered conversations.
My interest in roses took a turn three years ago, however, when Sharon and I lost our home to a wildfire on the outskirts of Santa Barbara and temporarily rented a place in town near the old mission.
