SPOTLIGHT -
1969
"...we came in peace for all mankind. Then returned to continue the war."
A Headlong Act of Love: The Gerald F. Berlin Creative Writing Award
The Gerald F. Berlin Creative Writing Award is rewarding future doctors and poets alike.
Spring
"To what purpose, April, do you return again?"
"Sweat"
"When I was nineteen and still had time, I worked college breaks in my father’s factory, and let sweet leather’s smell soak into my skin..."
Now That Anything Could Happen
"You know, now that anything can happen, it’s hard to know what will, and what will you do now that you know?"
Sweat
"And then he stepped back, straightened his hat, let me sweat my own decision."
"While Listening to Annie Lamott Give Tim Ferriss Her Advice for Writers"
"The clock just ticked minute 41, and Annie, just as you predict, my attention is wandering, even if I haven’t hit Step 3: Make the reader feel something is at stake, which I’ll have to focus on in my revision."
Looking at Photos
"...My mother like a distantly spilled perfume."
Communion
"I am her book of poems and it is I."
The Snow Is Deep on the Ground
"Always the light falls. Softly down on the hair of my belovèd."
While Listening to Annie Lamott Give Tim Ferriss Her Advice for Writers
“Step 1: put your butt in a chair for 45 minutes every day and get down a shitty draft.”
"Dress Rehearsal"
Here's a thank you note to all the musicians.
Free, Free, Free
"Pain can't touch me no more, For I am free, I am free, I am free..."
Memorial Hoops
"But Who am I kidding? The weekend was about Basketball."
Adrift in Winter
"All anyone wants to know is when spring will get here..."
Dress Rehearsal
"...they’ve returned like songbirds, exhausted from flight but wild to swagger the songs they carry..."
Love in a Time of Climate Change
"...so close that your emissions of carbon are mine, so close your sea rises with my heat.”
"Tender Fences"
"...barriers that create space for healing placed close enough to hear everyone’s cries of longing and love..."
Kindness
"Before you know what kindness really is you must lose things..."
Michiko Dead
"He manages like somebody carrying a box that is too heavy, first with his arms underneath..."
Tender Fences
A Poem for Pulse
"...Love can't block a bullet, but neither can it be shot down..."
"Pareidolia"
"And with one slow blink my reality shifts..."
First Inoculation
".... I’m consigned to wait while the baby gets an injection..."
Pareidolia
"...But tonight I’m twenty years and two hundred leagues from the sea, her painting suddenly a family portrait—weather-beaten me in the middle with worried-window-eyes..."
One Hundred Love Sonnets: XVII
"I love you as one loves certain obscure things, secretly, between the shadow and the soul..."
Listening To Terry Gross
"Back in the 70’s, before I knew my own voice, I listened to yours..."
November
"... when winds spread the word and brown fields bristle like dense fur down the back of the earth..."
Tonsure
"Forever you find your father in other faces..."
Listening to Terry Gross
"Before I knew my own voice, I listened to yours while we learned our trades..."