Reviews and Criticism:

At The Operating System, I wrote about Linda Gregerson for their 30/30/30 National Poetry Month Project.

Much has been written about Gregerson’s work, especially her use of a blown-open tercet, enjambed and highly indented. This form allows her space on the page to pace the poem, and gives a way for her to lead us along the line of the thinking mind. A teacher once told me that dialogue should be like real life, only better.  Gregerson’s poems follow a mind’s connections in the same way.  Like reading Mark Doty, Jorie Graham, and Virginia Woolf, we are a companion along the line of the thinking, a confidante who has to work to keep up but is amply rewarded….  Read more!

On Late Night Library, a podcast interview with Minal Hajratwala for their Late Night Debut.

Journalism and Essays:

I wrote for for Northwest Women’s Journal and The Oregon Peaceworker, neither of which is indexed online.

 

Find Education-specific articles for Teaching Tolerance on the Publications page.

“Gathering Anyway”  a literary essay, was a finalist for the Oregon Quarterly “Northwest Perspectives” competition in 2009

 

Guest Blogging on Craft: Poetry/Religion

at antler

Recently I was asked to visit a senior English class at the school where I teach World Religions.  I was excited to be entering into conversation with students not just as their familiar teacher but as  a ‘real poet.’  But as I was telling students about the writing life, when I was singing the usual song about how hard it is to write, and how I have to drag myself to do it sometimes, a student I knew quite well looked at me half in annoyance and half in genuine curiosity.  He asked, “Then why do you do it?”  …

Read more!

and at Relief: A Christian Expression

A few weeks ago, I broke my right wrist, the one I use to write. It’s currently immobilized—under the skin, with metal plate and screws, and over the skin, with a cast of purple fiberglass.  This has disturbed my regular rituals and rhythms of writing… Read more!

and at So to Speak.

It surprises many people in my progressive town of Portland, Oregon that I am both a feminist and religious. Specifically, I’m a Christian, an Episcopalian. To paraphrase Gwynne Watkins of the blog “God Spam,” “[I’m] a Christian, but not the kind that sucks.” Because I grew up in a house full of books on literary criticism and spent my adolescence in a church where the most important holiday was Gay Pride…  Read more!