Photo by Whitney Schlander It’s Good Friday, and I’m reminded of John Donne’s sonnet, “Death, be not proud”: “Death, be not proud, though some have called thee/Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so;” Donne was a seventeenth-century poet and priest who also wrote in his Devotions that “affliction is a treasure, and scarce any man … More “Nor yet canst thou kill me”
Then Peter said, “Silver or gold I do not have, but what I do have I give you.” Acts 3:6 My girls and I just returned from a 12-day trip to Ndola, Zambia as guests of a Zambian university called Northrise—a private Christian university in the region. There, we worked alongside Northrise students and other … More
I am super pleased to have a flash non-fiction piece featured in today’s Beautiful Things column, published by River Teeth: A Journal of Non-Fiction Narrative. I admire this journal and this column very much, so being included in it is a thrill for me. This is a reminder to all you writers and poets out … More beautiful things
Unlike my mother, I’m not always one to keep my kitchen sink clear of dirty dishes. And this week was no exception. Valentine’s Day came and went, and the plastic heart dishes I used to serve the girls breakfast that morning were still waiting to be washed on Friday night, stuck together by dried syrup … More dirt
Christmas is complicated. Our worship leader said this today at church. We need no reminder that, in the midst of this holiday season, we face a deeply divided world where people close by and far away are suffering. We are not all right. Hurting people hurt people, I once read. The hurt has been flung far … More Christmas is complicated
George Eliot once said, “It’s never too late to be what you might have been.” Last week I heard the marvelous news that The Cumberland River Review nominated my poem, “When the moon tells us of losses” for a Pushcart Prize! I couldn’t be more humbled and more thrilled. It’s more than I could have … More October
Originally posted on the stanza:
my list of packets or mini-manuscripts Those of you who’ve been reading along know that I’ve declared this summer to be the Summer of Submissions. Just for fun, let’s call it the S.O.S. Did you know that S.O.S. doesn’t really stand for anything? It’s just an easily transmitted and identified…
I woke up on Sunday to the news that two of my poems, “Extinction” and “The Vision” were accepted for publication by Kentucky Review. Joel 2:25 says, “I will give you back what you lost to the swarming locusts, the hopping locusts, the stripping locusts, and the cutting locusts. It was I who sent this … More Sunday Morning
I am a single-mom and a professor. In the midst of a cartoonishly hectic schedule with my girls, I want to cultivate a life of gratitude. And few things on earth bring me more gratitude than poetry. It facilitates an engagement with those micro-moments of daily life that might otherwise pass us by. Someone once called this the “gift of noticing.” … More The gift of noticing
