Sep 23

Dead Cow Farm

A cryptic beautiful poem by Robert Graves — Dead Cow Farm An ancient saga tells us how In the beginning the First Cow (For nothing living yet had birth But Elemental Cow on earth) Began to lick cold stones and mud: Under her warm tongue flesh and blood Blossomed, a miracle to believe: And so was Adam born, and Eve…

War Poetry

4 min read

War Poetry

4 min read

Mar 30

Beauty

105

Tanner Knoll

I think this is a very beautiful poem, sir, expressing a very profound and poignant sentiment.

1 min read

I think this is a very beautiful poem, sir, expressing a very profound and poignant sentiment.

Published in The Junction

·Sep 2, 2021

Highway 66

A short poem — Thin blue highway hugging the soft edge of night, along this strange western town burning with apricot light like a necklace laid across the swell of grass of some vast New Mexican plain, it fills me with a yearning I’ve never quite been able to quell, or explain.

The Junction

1 min read

The Junction

1 min read

Highway 66

A short poem

Thin blue highway hugging the soft edge of night,
along this strange western town burning
with apricot light
like a necklace laid across the swell
of grass of some vast New Mexican plain,
it fills me with a yearning
I’ve never quite been able to quell,
or explain.

Published in Lit Up

·Jul 31, 2021

Writers Discussing Other Writers

From the eccentric to the individualistic, the cool and clever to the wildly anachronistic — “Rat-eyed” Virginia Woolf described Somerset Maugham as. “No man ever put more of his heart and soul into the written word,” said Eudora Welty of William Faulkner. “Curiously dull, furiously commonplace, and often meaningless,” Alfred Kazin said of William Faulkner. “Hemingway never climbed out on a limb and never used…

Lit Up

5 min read

Lit Up

5 min read

Jun 14, 2021

She Came Through the Mist & the Rain

This is a short video I once made of my transcribing an obscure but beautiful passage written by an almost forgotten poet named Arthur Symons (1865–1945), in his poem “Rain On The Down.” Rain On The Down Night, and the down by the sea, And the veil of rain on…

Poetry

2 min read

Poetry

2 min read

Published in Lit Up

·May 22, 2021

Theme

An essay on meaning — The word theme comes from the Ancient Greek word théma, which means “proposition or thesis,” and this definition essentially holds true to this very day: theme is thesis; theme is meaning. In literature, theme is the meaning to which the lines of a poem or the events of a story…

Lit Up

7 min read

Lit Up

7 min read

Published in Lit Up

·May 16, 2021

The Art of Characterization

An essay on extending the pitch of human possibility — The art of characterization is the art of presenting the people who populate your story. If plot is the bones upon which the meat of your story hangs, then surely characters are the heart and soul. “A writer creates a character as a way to reveal and emphasize consciousness —…

Lit Up

9 min read

Lit Up

9 min read

Published in Lit Up

·May 8, 2021

What Plot is Not

An essay on dramatic effect — Plot is not memoir. Plot is not diary. Plot is not journal. Plot is not history. Plot is not dialogue. Plot is not essay. Plot is not philosophy. Plot is not sex. Plot is not chronicle. Plot is not action alone. Plot is something deeper and more difficult to get…

Lit Up

6 min read

Lit Up

6 min read

Published in Lit Up

·May 1, 2021

BABBLING LIKE AN IDIOT AND STREWING FLOWERS

An April tribute to a half-forgotten poetess named Edna St. Vincent Millay — Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892–1950) — nom-de-guerre Nancy Boyd — American poetess and playwright, who at thirty-years-young won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry (then only the third woman ever to do so), was, at age nineteen, catapulted into worldwide fame after her mother Cora encouraged her to enter a poem…

Lit Up

2 min read

BABBLING LIKE AN IDIOT AND STREWING FLOWERS

Lit Up

2 min read

Published in Lit Up

·Apr 17, 2021

What’s the Difference Between Popular Fiction and Literary Fiction?

A distinction subtle yet unmistakable — The difference between popular fiction and literary fiction is subtle yet unmistakable. The criteria is graded — think of it as running along a kind of continuum or spectrum — so that a book or movie can have elements of both literary fiction and also elements of commercial fiction at…

Lit Up

7 min read