The good folks at The Maynard just published a poem that emerged from a writers workshop I found myself in this year. It’s a form of some kind, where I write one stanza then attempt to rewrite/reconstruct it until I find a good place to stop.

Nomadic Press is now taking pre-orders for my first poetry collection, Black Steel Magnolias in the Hour of Chaos Theory. I have no real second sentence after that. My bad. I’ve been mulling over it for days since the green light clicked on, and I’m still stuck. I am stunned and humbled. Its not … Continue reading “Pre-order –Black Steel Magnolias in the Hour of Chaos Theory”

No snarky stories or comments, as it was just a good, solid night of poems from every direction. My co-feature triple-kindly picked me up after work in the city for the long ride out to the café, fed me, then dropped me off safe at home. Thank you, Bruce. And big thanks It’ll be a … Continue reading “About That Poetry Reading In Half Moon Bay Last Night…”

WHEREIN THE AUTHOR CREATES FANTASY EPISODES OF AN UNPRODUCED SEASON OF THE 1970’S SERIES ‘GOOD TIMES’ WILL SUCCESS SPOIL JAMES EVANS? James gets caught in a surprise blizzard and is interviewed by a local weatherman, Gordon Howard, in that evening’s newscast. James asks: How’d you get a job like this? Is this all you do? … Continue reading “Ain’t We Lucky — The Good Times Project (Season 7)”

Part of drafting a poem is reading it aloud. Until its been read, it remains unfinished. * Midway through reading a poem I liked, I realized it was too long. I felt different about it as it was coming out of my mouth. Wrong room perhaps? Different kind of listeners? This morning I took that … Continue reading “Ways Of Looking At A Poetry Reading”

“No one can put a style on me. I’ve learned from many people. I change all the time. I experiment to keep up with what is going on, to hear what everybody else is doing. I even keep a little ahead of them, like a mirror that shows what will happen next.” —Mary Lou Williams … Continue reading “Mary Lou Williams”

This is the third blog I’ve had in about 20 years. With those first two, every February I’d challenge myself to write a biography or history one day for a month. It could be a fun exercise as a writer, especially when I’d get a day or so ahead of myself, and could post and … Continue reading “Black History As A Living Document”

Robert Hayden was one of the first poets whose work I was introduced to. Back in college, I wrote a paper on his poem, Those Winter Sundays. The Poem hit me close to home because one of the things it does successfully is underscore the tension between father and son, which I was experiencing a … Continue reading “Robert Hayden”

WHEREIN THE AUTHOR GETS LAID OFF WITHOUT GETTING LAID/ AND SCREAMS I BEEN IN THIS PRISON FIFTEEN YEARS Two days left before the office shuts down for good. After 80 years the firm where I work will be shuddered and left to history, though no one in the future will look back on this place … Continue reading “The End Of Our Elaborate Plans”

*WHEREIN THE AUTHOR WORKS OUT HIS TRUE FEELINGS ON CHRISTMAS **WITH THANX TO THE OTHER JIM ***SET TO THE TUNE OF … OH, YOU KNOW On the First Day of Clinics My True Love Gave To Me Chronic Hepatitis C On the Second Day of Clinics My True Love Gave To Me Genital Warts And … Continue reading “The Twelve Days Of Clinics”

Though I hate Saturday night readings, I agreed, mostly because my friend T was also asked to appear and she would drive me there and back. She texted me that she was picking up one other guest who lived near me but she would come get me first. I packed several poems in a business … Continue reading “Mouth Of The City”

IN WHICH TEEN ENVY FROM THE MID 80’S SET MY SUMMER AFLAME SENDING ME ON A PATH OF SELF DESTRUCTION… HOW HAIR CAN KILL… HOW SOMETIMES THE ONLY THING THAT CAN SAVE YOU IS A MUSIC VIDEO… HOW HAIRSTYLES CAN SEPARATE FAMILIES… HOW NEW NOMINEES FOR THE ROCK AND ROLL HALL OF FAME CAN BE … Continue reading “The Saturday A Song Saved My So-Called Life or The Nappy Virgin”

My friend and I met as if on cue at the convergence of the taco trucks. He attends Fridays at the Oakland Museum regularly on his way home from work and agreed to meet when I told him about the poetry reading. We made a brief lap through the modest community of neighbors here at … Continue reading “Working With White Noise or What It Means As A Performer To Have Social Anxiety”

Seizure: being grabbed and tossed to the ground. In an instant, I became a bucking horse, forgiven everything except this moment. In exchange for a mouthful of blackened bacon sweating grease, here is a chaser of carpet and the hail of a table’s debris. It is unusual, to say the least, to awaken face down on a carpet, … Continue reading “Shaken”

Egon: Don’t cross the streams. Peter: Why? Egon: It would be bad. Peter: I’m fuzzy on the whole good/bad thing. What do you mean “bad”? Egon: Try to imagine all life as you know it stopping instantaneously and every molecule in your body exploding at the speed of light. *** During workshop week, I sat … Continue reading “Page Vs. Stage / Us vs. Them (or Don’t Cross Streams)”

Its been years since I last went to a writer’s retreat. Squaw Valley came at just the right time offering me a healing I’d been long in need of. There’s a unique community offered by artists gathered together all struggling to write the next thing and to keep working. That creative energy feeds me like … Continue reading “Workshop Week & Wild Mountain Dreams”

The nice folks at Two Hawks Quarterly have published my story Madagascar, my first attempt this year to send out something else besides Poetry. (Not That There’s Anything Wrong With Poetry). I sent it out on a lark just to gauge what would happen– what happened next was a huge surprise to me. It was … Continue reading “Creative Non-Fiction at Two Hawks Quarterly”

Last night I itched to write something and had nothing to say. I’d fallen behind, not writing much of anything last month, set aside usually for National Poetry Writing. What I did do though, was rescue and edit work I’d paused on. Word Camera is a webpage that converts photographs into text. I had three … Continue reading “The Motor of Voice”

On the train coming into Sacramento, I spent the time shuffling back and forth through my notebooks, trying to come up with something of value, something deep to say, to a room full of 200 strangers about writing. And not just writing, but the hardest of all: Humor Writing. I’ve been fortunate with much gratitude beyond all … Continue reading “The Notebook”

I feared I would be late to the lounge for the 7pm reading, but as usual I was compulsively early. I sat at the end of the bar, not recognizing the friendly couple next to me until they spoke, we all but arriving together, and me knowing them from a reading in my neighborhood a … Continue reading “Gorgeous Ceremonies”