Thesis Stress…

…and other good problems.  I don’t think 2016 was even two weeks old when I got the news that my good friend Gregory Toliver had died.  Gregory was another complicated genius I was fortunate enough to know, and with his passing I’ve come to realize how insanely lucky I am to have known so many...

Poet’s Wife at a Poetry Reading

Maroon, hard-ass plastic chairs arranged, in haphazard semi-circle around The Podium, discount chardonnay and store-bought sweets “breathe” on a folding table. I am not a poet I do not speak       in soliloquy, rhyme, metaphor, or simile. I do not speak       in the static, soft, sing-song voice that lures the waking mind       elsewhere. I speak straight from the heart, that...