The Upper Room
It was first my daughter’s when we moved into this tall St. Paul house. One of two rooms on the third floor, it was the one facing south. And until the locust and olive trees grew tall enough for shade, it … Continued
It was first my daughter’s when we moved into this tall St. Paul house. One of two rooms on the third floor, it was the one facing south. And until the locust and olive trees grew tall enough for shade, it … Continued
Too many years ago to count, I won the Loft’s Mentor Series as a poet. Over the course of nine months, we were guided by perhaps six mentors, among them the poet and novelist Jim Harrison. I was recently divorced … Continued
Margotlog: Orchestras on the Slide: A Tale of Two Cities “The Twin Cities were separate at birth and far from identical,” I wrote in a novel called Falling for Botticelli (not yet published). Yet sometimes these separate cities suffer similar … Continued
As opposed to the wonderful Polish, Noble-prize-winning Wislawa Symborska, I do not lie on the sofa with pad at an angle and, for hours, puzzle out a poem. It comes to me in motion. One of the watershed learnings … Continued
Yesterday at The Loft, a Place for Readers & Writers in Minneapolis, two poets talked about their love of the art.. Mark Doty and Terry K. Smith, the first teacher to the second, the first well-known for writing a haunting … Continued
It’s not my first one–this collective. Early in my poetry writing, I took part in the Lake Street Writers Group. It was the 70s, with an explosion of interest in personal expression, in poetry about streets and lanes, farms and … Continued
Walking the neighborhood this time of year with the azalea bushes blushing from winter’s nip under their skirts, the “green fuse” sparks, and I’m channeling some great poet whose name I’ve forgot. Words form in my head as I stride … Continued
There are some who stand back a little from their characters, bemused and thoughtful, smiling indulgently perhaps or with a worried frown on their faces. In this group belongs one of my favorite Southern writers, Eudora Welty, with her light, … Continued
In the vacant Roman villas of Boscoreale and Oplontis (lst century BCE), architectural landscapes advance and retreat across room after room. On one wall, an image of a small round temple sheathed in columns rises from the top center and … Continued