Tobi Alfier - Happy Almost Thanksgiving

Whether you’re cooking, traveling, or expecting company, my guess is you’re gonna be pretty busy this coming week. We’ll save “Growing Your Writing” for next week and just do something fun.

Thanksgiving/ Holiday Prompt:

Write anything: either a prose poem, a free-verse or form poem, or a short piece of fiction from the viewpoint of an orchestra.

Let the cook be the conductor and see where the prompt takes you.

            Maybe all the different dishes are the instruments

            Or the pieces of each table setting are the instruments

            The empty chairs might be a theater waiting for the audience to arrive

            Maybe the different dishes are the audience

            Or the guests are the audience. Describe them

            Describe the musicians. Maybe they are the different dishes

            Is there wine? Maybe the wine is the conductor’s baton

            Is it buffet or sit down?  What is the buffet line, guests or food?

from wikipedia

If you can, see the cook greeting everyone in the kitchen, wearing a white apron and holding a ladle in one hand as she directs them to pour a glass of wine, or

carving a turkey with a knife/baton as long as a tree limb, the slices falling off silent and even as the anticipation builds up, guests being directed to tables dressed with fresh flowers and chafing dishes, or

the violins of roasted asparagus tuning up with the flutes of snap peas, the twinkle of triangle bubbles, the percussion of stuffing overlaid by the horns calling the traditional dishes to sound out the key of C.

If not, what can you see? 

The beginning of October I wrote about Odes, and quickly riffed an Ode to Mashed Potatoes:

Ode to Mashed Potatoes.

Think about the silky smoothness of them on your tongue,

the way you can make a well for the gravy

and it’s a reservoir just for you and your spoon.

How they’re like the desert clouds softly floating by

out the window, a bed

with the softest flannel sheets caressing your palate

as you dream of turkey and stuffing,

cranberry sauce five ways,

and the matching pumpkin pie—

softness waiting just for you—

before you grab your sleeping bag,

go out on the porch to watch for falling stars.

If something like that works for you, write that. 

Write it before the holiday or after the holiday.

Take notes during the dinner if you want (but please don’t write on anyone’s cloth napkins…grab a notepad from next to the phone). If you write anything you'd like to share, PLEASE add it to the comments! I'd love to see what you came up with!

Be thinking about it, have a wonderful dinner, drive safely, use potholders if you’re cooking, and remember that the next day, a turkey sandwich on egg bread, with mayonnaise, lettuce, and a pinch of salt is the next best thing to heaven!!!! xo

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Tobi Alfier's most recent collection of poetry is Slices Of Alice. She is also co-editor with Jeff Alfier of the San Pedro River Review. Don't miss Tobi's columns on the craft of poetry: insert your email address in the "Follow By Email" box to the right of this article and you'll be notified every time a new article appears.

Brian Beatty On Edward Dorn

Borrowed Trouble: Micro Tribute to Edward Dorn (1929-1999)

I wouldn’t write at all if it weren’t for myriad writers before me whose works showed me what was possible. The poems of this series are small offerings of respect, of thanks, to those muses. – Brian Beatty

Edward Dorn

In a dream once I took a train

journey hobo-style up over mountains.

My trip west ended in California out in the desert 

where I befriended cowboys with no use for horses or guns

and, of course, stoner show business types high as the stars in the sky.

Like most revolutionaries you read about in books

we dared to secede but failed to succeed.

So far, anyway. So far.  

– Brian Beatty

click here for more info

Learn more about Edward Dorn:

Poetry Foundation Bio 

Wikipedia Bio 

Click for books by Edward Dorn 

- - - -

click here for more on this book

click for more on this book

NOW! Read the entire series of Borrowed Trouble by Brian Beatty anywhere you go by buying the collection of all sixty poems today! You've enjoyed these poetic tributes on-line, now enjoy them everywhere!


Brian's recent collections of poetry are Dust and Stars: Miniatures and Brazil, Indiana. 


Don't miss Brian's columns on great poets: insert your email address in the "Follow By Email" box to the right of this article and you'll be notified every time a new article appears.

November 21, 2019 7 P.M. An intimate evening with Lou Harrison's Poetry

Review of John Lithgow’s Dumpty: the Age of Trump in Verse

Review of John Lithgow’s Dumpty: the Age of Trump in Verse

(112 pages, Chronicle books)

Click here for more information

     John Lithgow’s acting credits range from his comedic alien in Third Rock from the Sun to his chilling role as a serial killer in Dexter. Recently he provided a much-lauded portrayal of Winston Churchill. Lithgow is an accomplished choreographer, Shakespearian actor, illustrator, and author of a half-dozen children’s books.  Given his eclecticism, I was delighted to discover that his latest publication, Dumpty: the Age of Trump in Verse, displays the full range of Lithgow’s playful, cerebral, and furious genius.  While his verses are not Shakespearean, his gibes are wont to set the table on a roar. His anger is palpable, his wit eviscerates, and his punch lines pack a wallop.                      

                

     All of the book’s thirty-three verses are accompanied by his own illustrations, each one stylistically well-rendered, and each verse followed by brief background notes. The whimsical nature of the verses and drawings highlight Lithgow’s catalog of presidential outrages, faux pas, tweets, political appointments, nepotism, and behavior on the world’s stage. While Lithgow’s takedowns will likely find a happy resonance with the President’s detractors, the clever nature of the verses may be enjoyed as well by Trump’s more urbane supporters. This is, after all, a funny and informative tome.

                

     The book opens with a short introduction by the author where Lithgow acknowledges that he penned the book for “people who oppose the president” in the hope that it would provide a brief respect from “their chronic depression.” But soon thereafter he addresses “Friends of Dumpty” or “FODs” directly:

                                

               “In your eyes, Dumpty’s bullying is courage, 

               his bigotry is patriotism, his vulgarity is authenticity, 

               his cruelty is unbridled fun. 

               Your support for him springs from sheer infatuations, 

               it’s incomprehensible to everyone else. 

               It’s certainly incomprehensible to me.”

                

     The book begins on a lighthearted note with fifteen ABAB stanzas describing “The President’s Pageant,” a thumbnail consideration of the women in his life.

               “‘For starters, Ivanka’s superior air

               Can’t obscure her demure sensuality.

               And Tiffany, too (though she hasn’t a prayer),

               Is a lock for Miss Congeniality

               ‘Picture Hicks in the spotlight! A radiant vision!

               That body, that hair, and those eyes.

               And Hope would mop up in the Talent Division

               With her skill at inventing lies.”

     Naturally, due regard is given to Kellyanne Conway and, um, Stephanie Clifford (known professionally as Stormy Daniels). In fact, very few in the president’s circle are spared from Lithgow’s pointed quill. In a Gilbert and Sullivan parody, retired U.S. Army lieutenant general Michael Flynn, Trump’s national security advisor (January to February 2017)who pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI, is versified in the first-person, “I am the very model of an ex-lieutenant general. / Although my reputation is decidedly ephemeral.” Then with a nod to Rodgers and Hammerstein and a sketch of the president dancing in a field of flowers, the poem “My Favorite Lies” concludes, “When The Times bites, / When The Post stings, / When I’m feeling sad, / I simply remember my favorite lies / And then I don’t feel so bad.” The list of prevarications that precede the eventual conclusion of the verse offers a trip down memory lane, atrocities enumerated within a musical refrain – and this is the real power behind Lithgow’s book, its good humor incased tales of woe.

                One verse likens President Trump’s administration to a reality show and describes Rick Perry performing on “Dancing with the Stars,” and a mockery of Scaramouche sets a high bar for vocabulary and rhyme, “The Italians created a classic buffoon / Who was cowardly, boastful, and louche, / That slippery scamp Scaramouche!” As one might suspect, the President’s legal representatives, “Cobb, Dowd, diGenova, Kasowitz & Cohen” are replaced when “a new gang stepped up, dressed in rumpled Armani: / Giuliani, Giuliani, Giuliani & Giuliani.” Another verse skewers Stephen Miller in a style fashioned after William Hughes Mearns, “A Dumpty aide from opening day, / I wish, I wish he’d go away.” My personal favorite is “All at Sea” in the style of John Masefield, and its accompanying note. “With no experience as a public school student, teacher, principal, superintendent, or administrator, Betsy Devos assumed office as the secretary of education on February 7, 2017.” The first stanza:

“I must go down to the seas again

   To the lonely sea and sun.

I’ve got a flotilla of ten big yachts

   And I’ll pick my favorite one.

I’ll lie on the deck all slathered in oil,

   Sipping a frosty libation,

And think of all of the things I can do

   To privatize education.”

     The list of the lampooned includes Duncan Hunter and wife, Paul Manafort, Wilbur Ross, and Bret Kavanaugh (“Of all the fine judges that POTUS could choose / To sit in the company of Charles Evans Huges”). But most darkly, Lithgow goes after “Jared and Mohammed.” “Inside the Saudi consulate, / The poor entrapped Jamal / Was strangled and dismembered by / The prince’s cruel cabal.” The poem alleges that the crown prince of Saudi Arabia, Mohammed Bin Salman, and Trump’s son-in-law and senior advisor, Jared Kushner, are heirs to their respective thrones who conspired in the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Clearly, there are times when Lithgow’s playfulness seethes with disdain for the object of his versification.

     Then there are less weighty mockeries of Sean Hannity and various FOX network pundits, and time is given to Roger Stone, Alexander Acosta, Andrew Puzder, and Jeffrey Epstein, among others.                 

     On the international stage, “Seven Days in November” follows the flipping of the house, headlines involving Robert Mueller and William Barr and examines the president’s escape to France where he failed to show for the centennial celebration of the end of the Great War because “[a] prediction of rainfall gave Dumpty a scare. / He feared its unsightly effect on his hair.” The poem describes his relative isolation among world leaders, but focuses on one redeeming moment. “But Dumpty lit up like a bright chandelier! / His friend had arrived! The beloved Vladimir!” Of note is that while the book gives others on the world stage their due, to Lithgow’s credit they are accompanied by other relevant names. Kim Jong-Un is accompanied by Otto Warmbier, the student who while in North Korean custody suffered a brain injury and shortly thereafter died. Supreme Court Justice Kavanaugh is accompanied by Christine Blasey Ford, and Trump’s alleged trysts are enumerated as well.

                 

     While Dumpty is an enlivening read, John Lithgow has an audible edition available, read by the author and accompanied by amusing sound effects, whoopee cushions, cash registers, and little inserts of music. There is a friendly and familiar quality to the reading, the perfect companion for a road trip or as a substitute for cable news.

                

     Whether in print or in earbuds, John Lithgow’s Dumpty is amusing, informative, and clever. It offers a concise and unsparing review of President Trump’s first three years in office, and, clearly, the author is doing what he can to lessen the likelihood of a second term. Dumpty has arrived in time to enliven the Thanksgiving table, accompany the impeachment hearings, and serve as a guiding star during the winter solstice.

- Greg Gilbert, author of Afflatus

Tobi Alfier - Growing as a Writer in 2020, Part Two

I’d like to introduce you to my friend John Winston Rainey. John is a screenwriter, a script doctor, a magician with words, accents, connecting with an audience, you name it. I have a couple stories to tell about him.

I first met John in 2006 at a reading I used to go to every Tuesday night. He was passing by, I think, and heard me read the first page of “Slices of Alice” through the window. He came in, and after the reading, he came up to me and point-blank asked me “Was that a poem?” I said that it was really more of a character study, but I considered it a poem, I submitted it as a poem, and that’s how it was published. I really didn’t think it could be anything else. 

A few months later, John emailed me and asked me to describe him. He needed a character for a screenplay he was writing. I hardly knew anything about him but little hints he’d dropped here and there, so I basically made most of it up. 

A Slice of John

John wakes up every morning at 6:00, not because his alarm is set but because the sprinklers go off outside his window promptly. John has not used an alarm in years, certainly not since he moved to this house.

While waiting for his morning tea to brew John does his daily yoga. He looks out over the hedge to the bay below and greets the sun. His stretches come naturally, a roadmap well-traveled by his lean body day after day. This centers and strengthens him for whatever may come. His breath is even and calm.

His house is stark. Although lovely, there is no sign of messiness or frivolity. There are no mementos. Dark floors, pale rugs, low furniture, very quiet. Many books are properly shelved or neatly stacked. A cleaning woman comes weekly to ensure that everything is just so. There is not even a dish in the drainer.

John is stark as well. Tall and angular, he moves with grace, with not a wasted gesture. When writing for himself he wears white shirts and listens to Debussy. When reviewing other people’s writing the house is silent. Even his walking from room to room leaves no sound. Sometimes he realizes he has not said a word to anyone since his last trip to the market. This makes him sad.

John has no pets. He has words. Words with clever repartee and gentle barbs attached. He practices them at the market several times a week. He always goes to the same store famous for meeting people and making connections. Normally observant, he does not notice. He does his shopping—fruits and vegetables to supplement the organic meals already prepared and delivered to his house to put in the freezer and cook at will. John favors a heart-healthy menu although he gets little joy from it. His doctor says he has the body of a man 10 years younger.

He does not remember how long it’s been since he inhaled the bouquet of a fine red, or smiled across the table at a beautiful woman. He aches for intimacy but acknowledges that perhaps what’s left for him is only to write about the possibility. Since she died he’s been existing with half a heart.

John is keenly aware of this around certain times of the year, particularly when summer turns to fall and the days get shorter. His holidays are tied to the Earth and he misses her around his holidays.

John is not a sad man, not at all. He is simply a scheduled man. A realist. The things most people would do for fun or relaxation, John does for research. He would not come back from somewhere hung over and sunburned, rather he would bring back with him the perfect description for the taste of salt at the edge of the sea as the world is waking. The poet in him has grown, not an even trade, but a small consolation.

I guess it worked because I think he used it.

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One day, John asked if I’d ever considered taking voice lessons. He said I read womanly poems with a little girl voice, and maybe some lessons would allow me to read the poems as they should be read. I have always hated my voice. I hate my voice on my answering machine, on YouTube, on the mic…what the hell, what harm could it do? He gave me the number of a voice coach and suggested I call.

It was one of the best calls I’ve ever made. I only took about five or six lessons from a woman who sounded like a gorgeous and sultry 40-year-old, who was in her 70’s. She helped me, and she helped Owen too! He listened to her instructions about breathing and found he was able to play trumpet and bassoon much better. She had me practice reading to a pretend audience all the way on the other side of her backyard. It was amazing. I don’t want to sound like Betty Boop and now I don’t have to. If you hate your voice, and you read often, you may wish to consider a few voice lessons. You won’t grow as a writer, but you’ll grow as a reader, and growth is growth. It’s something you might like to do in 2020.

Okay, starting with Alice, ending with Alice, and going back to screenwriting—if that’s something you’d like to do, you definitely should.  I told John that Susan Tepper, who you’ve met, said I should write screenplays. John said “I definitely think you should take a crack at screenwriting.  In my humble opinion, all great stories are about character and your "slices" are all about character specifics in lucid description. That is where story begins. Character is the seed of any story and character is the window that allows the audience/reader into the story.” Oh great, one more way for me to get rejected. But I’m not the only person who writes narrative-based character studies/poems/short fiction. If this is your passion, and you’d like a mentor or any kind of help with screenwriting:

John’s websites are raineyscriptconsulting.com & johnwinstonrainey.com. He’s transitioning from the former to the latter, but using both for now. 

In the words of Francis Ford Coppola:

“You ought to love what you’re doing because, especially in a movie, over time you really will start to hate it.”

Ha!!!! This is totally true for me with my writing. I hope it isn’t true for you. Whether it’s voice lessons or writing screenplays for the first time, both are growth opportunities that you can do in 2020 and beyond. If not those, find something that tickles you as a writer. Always be looking for ways to grow. And by the way, Francis Ford Coppola makes an excellent rosé named for his daughter Sofia, also a screenwriter/movie maker. Think about how much time you’ll have to write while waiting for the grapes to ripen!

Have fun. Write well. Try something new. Enjoy. xo

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Tobi Alfier's most recent collection of poetry is Slices Of Alice. She is also co-editor with Jeff Alfier of the San Pedro River Review. Don't miss Tobi's columns on the craft of poetry: insert your email address in the "Follow By Email" box to the right of this article and you'll be notified every time a new article appears.

Open Reading: November 17, 3-5 at Space Cowboy in Joshua Tree!

The open reading will be held on the stage behind the store. Bring something of your own to read or a passage that inspires you. Prose is limited to two minutes. You're also welcome to simply come and listen to your neighbors. We invite the entire community to come in, share, and simply have a good time! All ages invited, and every event is free! See you there =:-) 

Our featured reader Miriam Sagan is a  poet, an essayist, memoirist and teacher. She is the author of over twenty books. She is a founding member of the collaborative press Tres Chicas Books. A graduate of Harvard with an M.A. in creative writing from Boston University, Miriam was one of the editors of the Boston area-based Aspect Magazine with Ed Hogan. In 1980 Ed shut Aspect down and he, Miriam and others founded Zephyr Press. Come and be inspired! 

Click here to let us know you're coming!

Click here to read Cynthia Anderson's review of recent books by Miriam Sagan.

Click here to become familiar with Miriam Sagan's joy of writing.

Review of Whole Night Through by L. I. Henley

L. I. Henley, Whole Night Through, What Books Press, 2019

     L. I. Henley’s work employs exquisite poetry accented by prose asides and brilliant imagery to reveal the haunting interiors of eight richly imagined characters. As we become familiar with each voice, we travel their full, dynamic arcs, their memories, longings, and moments of truth. And most importantly, we know them through their relationships to one another and a central story. We discover also how an original sin can cast a long shadow across the pages of a book, “It was a sin. / What they did / in the shed.” And we experience how scar-crossed loves can entwine like serpents.

     Henley’s work evokes emotional responses, not unlike the blues or a dark, slow country ballad that arrives like an old lover, Peggy Lee, Loretta Lynn, and Patsy Cline’s “Walkin’ After Midnight.” This is a book that uses the entire keyboard, violence that hammers the bass keys, dark notes that call us to reminisce, love so hungry it consumes itself, love like a horse’s bridal – the breaking of something untamed – and the cost of being broken. This too is a story of young Marines deployed to the Middle East and how the war follows them home. L. I. Henley’s Whole Night Through is for people who savor language as well as its poignant absences.

- Greg Gilbert, author of Afflatus

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Previous Books by L. I. Henley:

 Starshine Road      Desert With A Cabin View      These Friends These Rooms

New Book! How Do We Create Love? by Michael H. Brownstein

He is both wet from the early rain 

and dry from the change in wind. 

He greets her warmly, 

places the blossom carefully 

on the old wooden table, 

the agate on the windowsill 

near the candles on the mantelpiece. 

Their hug is their hug.

Love is created in many ways. 

This is but one of them.

Bio:

Michael H. Brownstein has been widely published throughout the small and literary presses. His 2018 book, A Slipknot Into Somewhere Else: A Poet's Journey To The Borderlands of Dementia (Cholla Needles), has received much critical praise. A Slipknot Into Somewhere Else is a journey into the ethereal, where synapse bridges syntax. - David Evans - Feature Editor, Poets International

Michael’s work has appeared in The Café Review, American Letters and Commentary, Skidrow Penthouse, Xavier Review, Hotel Amerika, Free Lunch, Cholla Needles, Meridian Anthology of Contemporary Poetry, Poetrysuperhighway, The Pacific Review, and others.

In addition, he has nine poetry chapbooks including The Shooting Gallery (Samsidat Press, 1987), Poems from the Body Bag (Ommation Press, 1988), A Period of Trees (Snark Press, 2004), What Stone Is (Fractal Edge Press, 2005), Firestorm: A Rendering of Torah (Camel Saloon Press, 2012), The Possibility of Sky and Hell: From My Suicide Book (White Knuckle Press, 2013) and The Katy Trail, Mid-Missouri, 100 Degrees Outside and Other Poems (Kind of Hurricane Press, 2013). He is the editor of First Poems from Viet Nam (2011) and the head administrator for Project Agent Orange.

Click here to purchase How Do We Create Love? on-line ($10.00)

We encourage our neighbors to buy Cholla Needles books at Rainbow Stew, Space Cowboy, and Raven's Books. Support our local distributors!

Brian Beatty On Wallace Stevens

Borrowed Trouble: Micro Tribute to Wallace Stevens (1879-1955)

I wouldn’t write at all if it weren’t for myriad writers before me whose works showed me what was possible. The poems of this series are small offerings of respect, of thanks, to those muses. – Brian Beatty

Wallace Stevens

There are gentlemen in the park

with nowhere to go, guaranteed.

Sometimes they emerge from the shadows

knives or guns drawn to put on little shows.

Absurd comedy or grave tragedy,

you choose. To them it’s all work.

– Brian Beatty

Click here for more info

Learn more about Wallace Stevens:

Poetry Foundation Bio 

Poets.org Bio 

Click for books by Wallace Stevens  

- - - -

click here for more on this book

click for more on this book

NEW! Read the entire series of Borrowed Trouble by Brian Beatty anywhere you go by buying the collection of all sixty poems today! You've enjoyed these poetic tributes on-line, now enjoy them everywhere!


Brian's recent collections of poetry are Dust and Stars: Miniatures and Brazil, Indiana. 


Don't miss Brian's columns on great poets: insert your email address in the "Follow By Email" box to the right of this article and you'll be notified every time a new article appears.

Tobi Alfier - Growing as a Writer in 2020

We’re not gonna talk about New Year’s Resolutions – (quit smoking at midnight, bum a cigarette off the bartender at 12:15). Plus it’s too early anyway. You’re probably still finishing off the Halloween candy, if you can find it. I can’t find ours (Jeff hid it somewhere).

It’s never too early to think about how you’d like to grow as a writer. Some of the options need to be thought about since they involve time, and/or money. They’ll need to be included in your budget for next year. Some involve sending samples of your work. You’ll need to think about that as you write.

Growth does not mean your voice as a writer will change. It means getting stronger and learning new things. I can look at an old poem of mine and know when it was written because I didn’t understand line breaks until I workshopped with Kevin Young.

And…just because you learn something, that doesn’t mean you have to DO it. It’s just that then you’ll have choices, where now you don’t. Now it’s like you’re writing a poem without a thesaurus—you might not look at it anyway, but you can’t look at all if you don’t have it. I’m a huge proponent of choices. A couple of little things to start thinking about:

1. Read anything and everything. You’ll read words you’ve never heard before in ways you’ve never seen before. Then you might want to try it. I’ve written before about “Bluets” by Maggie Nelson. Some people are bigger fans than I will ever be, but it did give me ideas on ways to write. I wrote my Landlady series of poems after reading this book. My poet friend James E. Lewis was going to write a collection of “green” poems.

I can look at my old work and think “oh, that was my Erica Jong phase”, or ”that was my Diane Wakoski phase”. I didn’t sound like them, but the words I used could have been their words. I wanted to learn to write with more passion. I knew there was a difference in my writing; to anyone else reading the work, it was my voice.

Free Refill

I would like a free refill on my heart.

It is empty, a quadrant of lime flattened against

the frozen remnants of sweet syrup

and cold calculation.  Come fill me up,

why can’t you truly be of aid to the suffering

and not just the thirsty?

Waiter come quickly!

I need a free refill, my body is carrying

blood and water but the contents are dead.

I smile as if in shock, the happiness being

the absence of unhappiness but nothing certain,

I do not trust it, and only the sign in the window

makes me trust you.

How can we measure how much we love?

We say the oceans are not deep enough,

infinity is not wide enough, we love more than all

the stars in the sky and when we don’t love

we are a stray at a picnic begging for a crust

of bread it is pathetic.  I for one will not be pitied.

Waiter, I need that refill along with a side

of all I remember, all I’ve lost

and, I suppose, the check.

(Previously published in Spot Lit Mag)

2. You may wish to form a book club. You’ll hear four or five points of view on what you read. And it doesn’t just have to be books of poetry or fiction, it could be the current Poets and Writers or the current Cholla Needles. Getting together to read someone else’s work will get you comfortable reading out loud. If you’ve never read at an open mic, this will give you practice. As you meet, you’ll develop a level of trust and knowledge about the other participants. Maybe it will grow it into a networking group where you look at your own poems. The people who just say what they feel no matter how harsh will have to learn how to be more diplomatic; that’s a skill you should have before you go to a workshop so it would be a win-win to have a group.

One time I was at a class and there was a guy in there whose poems were horrible!!! Oh my goodness they were the worst things I’d ever read. When it came time for me to talk, what did I say to him? “you certainly have a consistent voice”. That was true. Let the teacher, or the workshop leader say the hard stuff, if they want. There’s no reason for another participant to cut anyone’s legs off at the knees. And you know what? Just because I hated his work, that doesn’t mean someone else wouldn’t have liked it. Being in a networking group will help you practice that it’s not about you, and it’s not about your ego. They will find their niche, or they will be rejected. Just my opinion. I’ve heard some workshops are brutal. They will never get a dime of my money—I don’t want to be like that.

These are two of many things that will help you grow as a writer. Over the next weeks, we’ll talk about workshops, extension classes, privately run classes, even voice lessons…NONE of these are to make you write different. They’re to help you write and read better.

From David Kanigan, and I feel exactly the same way:

2:39 a.m.

Lying in bed. I Can’t Sleep. Apparently, I still haven’t Live & Learned enough.

The window is open. It’s me and the crickets, and my thoughts that fill the night. And a passing car in the distance.

I hear / another year rustle by like the night’s /  one car. (Beckian Fritz Goldberg)

8 years ago today, well, not exactly today, but close enough, this blog was born.

I jump over to FB to re-read a comment on my last post: Tethered to Nothing.

This comment coming from a thoughtful (very), quiet (very), semi-anonymous Follower.

“Tethered by community. Tethered by the community you have created with your posts.”

And then the soft ah-ha.

Tethered to Nothing?

No.

Tethered to you. All of you.

And grateful…

Have the very best week xo

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Tobi Alfier's most recent collection of poetry is Slices Of Alice. She is also co-editor with Jeff Alfier of the San Pedro River Review. Don't miss Tobi's columns on the craft of poetry: insert your email address in the "Follow By Email" box to the right of this article and you'll be notified every time a new article appears.