A sonnet for my mother ~
This week, coming up to Mother’s Day, I’ve been reading poems on and about mothers. Forgetting that I’ve written several myself, for my own mother. Many address her gradual spiral into the darkness of Alzheimer’s, but this one less so. Instead? It’s an ode to her love of sweet Southern tea, iced or hot, with…
Cooking bubbles (or boba, for the precise!) ~
I made boba tea this week. A first for me! Growing up in Thailand, we called it ‘bubble’ or ‘fish eye’ tea (apt, I still think!). It’s one of my favourite ways to drink cold tea. This first foray wasn’t an unqualified success: despite following the directions to the letter, my boba turned out crumbly,…
Tea, & Beginner’s Heart ~
I sometimes (actually, often!) hear my friends, colleagues, & acquaintances say they don’t know what they want when I offer them tea. Oh, I’ll just have what you’re having, they answer a query about what they’d like. I really don’t know anything about tea… Intimidated by what they think I know about tea, my friends revert to the…
Poetry Marathon 2021 ~
Today is the 7th Annual Poetry Marathon (24 poems in 24 hours!). I’m a bit of a slacker: I only do the Half Marathon — 12 poems in 12 hours. Poets from all over the world (6 continents!), more than 500 of us!, write together. It’s one of my favorite creative endeavours! I haven’t been…
Hope is the thing ~
This is the Summer issue of one of my favorite magazines (& not just because I have an essay in this issue, on p. 42!). It consistently features Oklahoma, in all our messy past, present & possible futures. It’s won so many awards that if my dear friend (& excellent editor) Carla Walker wore them…
In the rear view window ~NaPoWriMo day 29
Today’s NaPoWriMo prompt almost wrote the poem by itself. That’s perhaps the best thing about prompts: they somehow tap in to images/ experiences/ memories et al that otherwise might remain subterranean. Here’s the prompt: “Imagine a window looking into a place or onto a particular scene. It could be your childhood neighbor’s workshop, or a…
Conversation with a wren ~ NaPoWriMo day 28
Today’s NaPoWriMo prompt may not seem like the impetus for the poem that follows, but it was. Here’s the prompt: “write a poem that poses a series of questions. The questions could be a mix of the serious (“What is the meaning of life?”) and humorous (“What’s the deal with cats knocking things off tables?”),…
on the occasion of the pink moon ~ NaPoWriMo day 25
Today’s NaPoWriMo prompt was another that, while it initially stumped me (an occasional poem? what occasion??), ultimately worked for me. Here’s the prompt: “…write an “occasional” poem. What’s that? Well, it’s a poem suited to, or written for, a particular occasion. This past January, lots of people who usually don’t encounter poetry got a dose…
The common heart ~ NaPoWriMo day 24
Today’s NaPoWriMo prompt was a gem: “Find a factual article about an animal. A Wikipedia article or something from National Geographic would do nicely – just make sure it repeats the name of the animal a lot. Now, go back through the text and replace the name of the animal with something else – it could…
Skeltonic Doggerel for Trin & Milo ~ NaPoWriMo Day 16
Here’s my piece of nonsense verse for day 16 of NaPoWriMo. The prompt was great fun, as I love children’s verse, with dancing rhyme and metre! This thumps a bit, but it was still fun! Here’s the prompt: “Skeltonic, or tumbling, verse. In this form, there’s no specific number of syllables per line, but each…
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Tea and Breath 