I’m grieving the loss of dictionaries, thick, massive volumes that I used to get lost in. I would open a page and find hundreds of words, all of them demanding my attention, each a miniature world to explore. But now I’ve become a victim of on-line lexicons because they are handier than putting aside my laptop computer and marching into the other room to unload the Oxford from a bookshelf where it resides. (more…)
Foghorns blast through the 7 AM San Francisco overcast. The only woman in the place, I saunter into the longshoreman’s union hall, trying to appear as if I did this every day. A few cigarette-scarred wooden tables offer a place for the men to gather and talk while waiting to be called to work. Billowing clouds of cigarette smoke hang ominously over everyone. 
Like detectives, writers need to be constantly observant, picking up clues from what people are wearing, how they gesture, the words they speak, the way they interact with others. They study people’s facial expressions and what they might suggest about the person, storing away the data in their memory banks. Or they’ll take notes in a writer’s journal that they’ll refer to later. 
Memoir writing blurs the line between truth and imagination in this revealing conversation with Lily Iona MacKenzie. We explore how creative writing techniques shape both fiction narrative and personal stories, as Lily explains her unique approach: “you lie in service of the truth.”
Yesterday, I had to kill time (terrible metaphor) while waiting to hear a friend of mine do a reading of his newly published memoir at a Corte Madera bookstore. So I hung out at Marin County’s Corte Madera Library. 
For years I felt guilty about breaking the heirloom toys my stepfather’s mother had preserved, relics of another era. I can still remember the excitement of lifting each object out of the boxes where they had been stored and bringing them to life again: tiny china dishes with hand-painted flowers; a miniature stagecoach carrying riders and pulled by horses; dolls with porcelain faces and hands, features frozen in smiles, dressed in stylish Victorian gowns; a doll house with elegant furniture and a family. 
Editing writing requires tremendous restraint. I was reminded of this recently when a poem I had submitted to an anthology was accepted providing I approved of the editor’s changes. I’m open to thoughtful revision suggestions—a text can always be improved—but I assume the recommendations will be just that, insightful observations that cause me to re-think my work. In that light, I can re-enter a poem or story and see if any of the ideas resonate enough for me to make changes. Yet since I’m the poem’s creator, I expect to revise it myself and have the last word on its content. 
I’ve been thinking about how loosely we use abstract words like love, happiness, and truth as if they had concrete, observable meaning. I tend to revolt from using love to close my email or other exchanges unless I really feel love for the person I’m corresponding with. It bothers me when people sign their correspondence “love” without considering whether or not the emotion really applies to the recipient. Maybe you feel loving towards someone on most days, but not every day. Isn’t it deceitful to say “love” if you aren’t feeling it at the moment? Wouldn’t such a response seem confusing? It leads the reader to believe that the writer actually has such strong feelings, that somehow we’re part of the writer’s inner circle. Often that isn’t true. 
Being a first-rate writer requires the same kind of training that an architect receives. A typical program includes courses in architectural history and theory, building design, construction methods, professional practice, math, physical sciences, and liberal arts. Writers may not need to study math or the physical sciences, but they do need to give themselves the best liberal arts education they can find, both formal and informal. And like architects, in order to be successful in their field, writers need not only vision and a rich imagination but also a strong foundation. 
Thank you, Zackary Vernon, for taking the time to share your professional writing journey with me and my readers. 
Being part of an on-line writing group for several years has provided many benefits. But with the positives come a few negatives.
Until recently, if I had wanted a restful getaway, I would not have chosen San Francisco or any big city. Getting away meant heading out of town, usually for a coastal inn. I wanted the leisurely pace and ocean views of Mendocino, Pacific Grove, Carmel, or Big Sur. 
Onyx wind chimes shaped like birds hang outside my bedroom. Each time a breeze stirs them, their music reminds me of the first trip I took to Mexico. While there, I was hoping to discover a part of the country that photographs can’t capture—the spirit of the place. Lawrence Durrell claims that landscape communicates this aspect. He says, “All landscapes ask the same question in the same whisper, ‘I am watching you—are you watching yourself in me’?” 
I recently reread Henry James’ The Portrait of a Lady and have mixed feelings about the era and the characters. It’s difficult to read about Victorian morés from a 21st Century perspective. Not only do I need lenses that will give me a bi-cultural perspective, but I also feel squashed between a culture clash. Not long after I finished with Portrait, I read a review of A. M. Homes’ book May We Be Forgiven in The New York Review of Books. One of her main characters says, 
I’m remembering a fascinating article I read in the New York Review of Books some time ago about Joseph Cornell. In many ways, he feels like my spiritual father. I love his quirkiness, his living on the periphery, his unique vision. Reading about him makes me want to go out and haunt junk shops for interesting memorabilia to make things with, to start a collection that I can draw from. I had an image of turning an old radio into a kind of Cornell box. The Importance of Poetry Mentors
April 4, 2016
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Recently someone asked me which poet or poets influenced me the most in writing poetry and why. It would be great if I could just name one of two, but different poets have been important to me at each stage of my development in that medium.
When I was an undergraduate and still finding my way in the poetry universe, I fell for
William Carlos Williams. His straightforward, down-to-earth lyrics spoke to me in ways that other poets’ work hadn’t. He seemed to be speaking from inside experiences that I 
could relate to. At that point in my evolution, I wanted something clear and accessible. Here’s an example: “This is just to say.”
This is just to say
I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox
and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast
Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold
It amazed me that a few simple unadorned words could carry such a punch. The plums remind me of the apple that Eve partakes of in the Garden of Eden. Eating the fruit of the tree of knowledge awakens her to an awareness of good and evil. As with Eve, the plums are something that the speaker can’t resist.
Later, I discovered Wallace Stevens, who joined my list of revered poets. His lyrics were the opposite of Williams’ work. They weren’t just moments captured on the page but philosophical statements that also had layers of meaning. I’m thinking here of “The Emperor of Ice Cream”:
Call the roller of big cigars,
The muscular one, and bid him whip
In kitchen cups concupiscent curds.
Let the wenches dawdle in such dress
As they are used to wear, and let the boys
Bring flowers in last month’s newspapers.
Let be be finale of seem.
The only emperor is the emperor of ice-cream.
Take from the dresser of deal.
Lacking the three glass knobs, that sheet
On which she embroidered fantails once
And spread it so as to cover her face.
If her horny feet protrude, they come
To show how cold she is, and dumb.
Let the lamp affix its beam.
The only emperor is the emperor of ice-cream.
I don’t plan to do an explication de texte of this poem, but I want to point out how delicious the language is that Stevens uses, how musical the sounds: “whip in kitchen cups concupiscent curds,” “wenches dawdle in such dress,” “the dresser of deal,” and “three glass knobs.” The word choice in Stevens’ poem is totally different from Williams’ selection, creating particular effects.
I went through a period of confessing with the more confessional poets (Anne Sexton, Sylvia Plath, Sharon Olds to name just three). But when I entered a Masters in Creative Writing program at SF State, the poet/teacher Kathleen Fraser introduced me to many innovative poets that I hadn’t heard of till then: Fraser herself, of course; Anna-Marie Albiach; Rae Armantrout, Barbara Guest; Carla Harryman; Lyn Hejinian; Susan Howe; Leslie Scalapino; and Rosmarie Waldrop.
This exposure to poets whose work defied the traditional lyric and narrative poem cracked open another poetic universe for me. I have done some experimental work myself, but the most important thing I learned from this exposure was to play more with words and be open to letting them connect with one another in ways that I would not have allowed if I hadn’t taken the detour into invention. The result has been always illuminating, reminding me of how a foreign language can take us into new ways of perceiving the world. To just view the moon through our English idiom is to limit our understanding of it. But to see it through Latin or Greek gives a totally new perspective.
I’ll end with a more experimental example from my own work that was just accepted for publication by Bone Bouquet:
Big Lucks
She told me to
surrender but
I didn’t know
what the word meant
I found a bird
with a knot
in its chest
that I tried to
undo but a kite
ran away
with me I
thought a monster
would save
me One jogged
past named Mary
She had mustard
written across
her chest and the
moon dropped a boy
into a bag
It seemed better
than giving birth
in a zoo All
that junk lying
around in a
subway Some janitor
got ambitious
and threw the cat
into the box
I now am holding