Randi Today I discovered a cache of poems I wrote in German a few years ago — in March 2010, to be precise. And believe it or not, they didn’t make me cringe. Mostly I was playing with sound and things I had heard or read in classes. I’ll share a few below, for anyone who reads … Read more
Thank Amazon for free Kindle samples…because what a difference an opening chapter makes. The other day, after finishing Mariette in Ecstasy, I hungered for another good story and so consulted my ever-growing to-read list. There were two books in particular that I was curious about, so I downloaded their opening chapters to compare. It was a good … Read more
Thanks to the WD Poetry Awards and the November PAD Chapbook Challenge, I’ve been writing a lot more poetry lately. And I’m rediscovering how much I’ve always loved it. I cannot explain poetry. That’s partially why I gave it up in the first place — I could never figure out how one could tell whether … Read more
This semester I began my advanced-level ESL Oral Communication class with Susan Cain’s famed TED talk, and after the subject of introversion vs. extroversion became like a running theme in the class, I decided to pick up the book-length version, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World that Can’t Stop Talking. So glad I did. … Read more
I’ve been feeling guilty about the supposed non-usefulness of the artistic and intellectual gifts I’ve been given. Teaching makes sense to me — it’s clearly a service and a sacrifice. But writing, reading, and contemplation are hard for me to justify, possibly because I love them so much. Does society really need another writer, another … Read more