This poem is based on an article I read in a small town newspaper back in 2008. While this isn't one of my best poems, I do enjoy the movement created by the punctuation and flow of words. As much as poetry is an oral tradition, it is also an extremely visual art form. Small…
The summer of 2011 I stumbled upon Austin Kleon's work sitting on a shelf in a bookstore. Not heeding the title of one of his books, Steal Like an Artist, I immediately purchased that along with his work of poetry, Newspaper Blackout. I loved the poems he created with a permanent marker and the restrictions…
This is a poem I found in one of my old notebooks. Near as I can tell, I wrote it sometime in college. There isn't too terribly much for me to say about this poem except that in each verse, I see my little inspirations-- from romance songs about dancing in the moonlight, to my…
This is an odd sort of story with a small kernel of truth in it. Growing up, there was a man who used to sit in the middle of the food court and people watch. He seemed to always be there every time I went to the mall. Then I left for college. Home from…
I have more stories and poetry to post here, but today I am thinking about the ones that I haven't held onto-- the stories I let get lost on an old hard drive instead of transferring them to the new one. Most of these stories held at the heart of them a dying friendship, but…
This week I thought I would share another personal essay from Hollins. We were prompted to write about technology and had to choose between television, computers, and a third option that I don't remember, perhaps our phones. I chose to write about my television at home in Wyoming. Regularly working with footnotes in the history…
This is an odd short story I wrote while studying abroad in London. Later, I recorded myself reading it out loud for an audio-zine one of my friends put together. Originally titled, "Shopping Cart Freedom," I think that I found a much better title that suits the story. Skyscrapers from my time in Israel A…
An odd poem written between high school and college, blending together experiences and advice doled out to my sister and me.
This is the personal essay I wrote in the fall of 2010 for my "Creative Non-Fiction" class that made my professor, the brilliant Thorpe Moeckel, observe that I "loved sentences." He was right, I do. I have several stories and observations about this particular essay and I think next week I will share a story…
On November 18, 1307, legend says that William Tell shot an apple off his son's head. The fable is wrapped up in Switzerland's Independence, framing Tell as a heroic and principled fighter for the cause while borrowing elements of the myth from neighboring cultures. Today I am sharing my first and only attempt at historical…
