Category Archives: poetry

Memoir, or: Why Are You Telling Me This?

In 10 days I’m attending a week-long writing workshop for women who write memoir about faith. For all of us, the faith is Christianity, and Lauren Winner, the author of the books Girl Meets God and Still and a religion professor at … Continue reading

Posted in art, poetry, writing | 5 Comments

Fact and Fiction, part two: The Anxious Artist

Two weeks ago I had a major anxiety attack. It happened while I was in the shower in the morning, which is where I usually have anxiety attacks. It had been a couple years since I had one, so it … Continue reading

Posted in poetry, politics, writing | 4 Comments

Fact and Fiction

Today on the NPR radio program This American Life, they devoted an entire hour to a retraction of a story they aired in January about working conditions in Apple factories in China.  It wasn’t that the claims made on the original program were … Continue reading

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Poetry and Tea at the Fishhouse

MaryJude at the fishhouse Brother Paul Jasmer has had a fishhouse on Lake Sagatagan at Saint John’s Abbey and University since the mid-1980s. This is the second one, light enough to get on and off the lake and heavy enough … Continue reading

Posted in Benedictine monastery, poetry, religion, St. Joseph, writing | 6 Comments

Ten Years Later

On September 11, 2011, I woke up in Madison, Wisconsin, where I was visiting friends on my way back from a visit to Chicago. You couldn’t escape the day, the anniversary, if for no other reason the media had turned … Continue reading

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Tracks

It is difficult to get up during a blizzard at the end of March and go to work. This is true. My workplace, where most of the people (nuns) live right where they work, does not have snow days. So … Continue reading

Posted in poetry, the Farm | 1 Comment

Does Poetry Matter? (2)

What I think I’ve established so far is to frame the question in a larger context. Beyond the individual reader or writer, beyond the community of poets themselves, does poetry matter? There have, of course, been times that poetry, even … Continue reading

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Dream of Life

I highly recommend that anyone who reads and likes Patti Smith’s book Just Kids also rent the (auto-)documentary Dream of Life. Thanks to Giana for sending the recommendation my way! This movie, a collaboration with filmmaker Steven Siebring, took ten years … Continue reading

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Does Poetry Matter? (1)

 Marianne Moore, poet and lover of baseball  The above is the question for the 2011 “Great American Think-Off” sponsored by the New York Mills Regional Cultural Center in New York Mills, Minnesota, a town of 1,100 people just … Continue reading

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Patti Smith / Just Kids

Patti Smith’s memoir Just Kids is not an advice book, and should not be read as one. If you want to know her program for becoming a famous rock star in the 1970s, here it is:  move to New York City, even … Continue reading

Posted in poetry, reviews | 4 Comments