On Oprah Daily you can find “40 Positive Affirmations to Add to Your Daily Rotation.” The first of these comes from Louise Hay: “I am at the right place at the right time, doing the right thing.” This is all well and good, unless you happen to be drunk and naked, running around Times Square with a knife. In that case—and I might be a little crazy for saying this—it is entirely possible you may not be doing the right thing, in the right place, at the right time. I’ll say it right out: I don’t trust positive affirmations largely because I mistrust oversimplification. Love cannot exist without re ..read more

In my online poetry workshop, I recently gave my students a writing exercise where I set a five-minute timer and asked them to write their origin stories in ten sentences or less. I did the writing exercise alongside them. After the five minutes were up, I asked them to take a deep breath, and do it again. I set the timer again, and asked them to write their origin story again, differently this time. Five minutes passed. Then, I asked them to do it again, differently. Then again.  I’ve done this exercise consciously and unconsciously in my own writing process over the many years I’ve been ..read more

I first read Amanda Palmer’s The Art of Asking while I was going through my divorce. The marriage had been a good one. I never once felt afraid to ask my ex-husband for anything, whether it was sexual, practical, or personal. I told him everything. I’d asked him to marry me, and I’d asked him for the divorce. He said yes both times. But despite my ability to ask for things when the asking felt safe, I found myself incapable of asking for help in my daily life when the asking felt more dangerous. When it came to asking for directions, I couldn’t be bothered. (I once got lost on a ..read more

Getting over heartbreak isn’t easy. Recently finding myself wrecked on its shores, I turned to the only forms of solace I’ve known to heal a broken heart: writing, time with family and friends, time in nature, books, and time itself. In the past few weeks, as far as writing goes, I’ve written quite a bit of bad poetry. I’ve spent time with family and friends: my dad flew in and helped me clean up my wrecked home, and a day after he left, my best friend flew in from New York. We lounged on the beach, surfed, ate delicious food, and got pedicures and massages. When I looked for books that would ..read more

Click here to join my online writing courses! After months of planning, thought, preparation, and work, I am so thrilled to announce the launch of my new online writing courses and so excited to see my first members join! I’m writing this post to invite you to join as well! What do you get when you join my online writing courses? Receive personalized critiques from a published poet who holds an MFA in poetry from Columbia University. Attend a live, Zoom online writing course each month where you’ll learn to edit your work and read critically. Each month, I’ll select pieces of writing submitt ..read more

Elizabeth Kolbert’s Under a White Sky might owe its creation, in part, to Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring, a seminal book on ecological crisis, but Kolbert is highly aware of this uncomfortable inheritance. In the early pages of Under a White Sky, Kolbert discusses an unfortunate consequence of Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring, one of the most influential environmental books ever written. Kolbert presents the example as a warning both to us, and to herself as an environmental writer. Interventions made upon any natural system have consequences, and the consequences may not ..read more

It has been said that Sappho wrote “What cannot be said will be wept.” Like Pablo Neruda, I could write the saddest lines tonight. “Who can say what happens between us and the stars? They give their light, and many years later, we receive it. The city lights bleach the stars, but their lights are there, always part of our glory.” Who can say what happens between two people in love? I gave him my love, and many years from now, perhaps he will receive it. I no longer love him as I loved him, but I love him, and that love travels down into his darkness tonight, where many years from now, it might ..read more

On Oprah Daily you can find “40 Positive Affirmations to Add to Your Daily Rotation.” The first of these comes from Louise Hay: “I am at the right place at the right time, doing the right thing.” This is all well and good, unless you happen to be drunk and naked, running around Times Square with a knife. In that case—and I might be a little crazy for saying this—it is entirely possible you may not be doing the right thing, in the right place, at the right time. I’ll say it right out: I don’t trust positive affirmations largely because I mistrust oversimplification. Love cannot exist without re ..read more

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