Sincerely Whose? or Poems in the form of letters

The other day I was reading a love poem a student was working on and came upon an ambiguous line. “You need to give your reader a little more information here,” I told her. “No I don’t,” she said, “the poem is to my boyfriend and he’ll know what I’m talking about.”“Whoa! Hold on.” I [...]

Recipe for Writing Magic

The idea to start a blog came to me after attending a writing workshop in New York City this summer. Six or seven women gathered in a garden in midtown Manhattan. The leader gave us prompts and five or ten minutes to write. Each time I heard the prompt I faced a moment of white [...]

Cockroach Love

I tell my students we are going to write about cockroaches today. They look from one to the other, exchanging that now-familiar, “Is she crazy?” look.
 
Not only that, I tell them, we’re going to read a suicide note from a cockroach. Then we’re going to explore what the cockroach might be feeling. Then we’ll [...]

Jump In

It’s scary to jump into very cold water. For some people it’s even scarier to jump into a poem. Here are a few suggestions I offer to my students … and friends  
1. Read the poem aloud. Don’t try to understand it. Experience the poem as you would a piece of music: What images come to mind [...]

No Postage Necessary

This is my letter to the world,
That never wrote to me, –
What better lines to begin the semester with than those? After all, what teenager has not felt as Emily Dickinson must have writing those words?
“Don’t worry about understanding every word of the poem,” I told my students, ages 16-21, all young women; all either [...]

Those Who Can —

Those who can’t — teach. Or so the expression goes.
 
I never planned to teach … writing or anything else. From an early age I knew I wanted to be a writer. Yet here I am: Teaching — and writing. I have become a hybrid: A writer/teacher, or a teacher/writer.
 
By that I mean teaching and [...]