Poems
I have studied poetry since 1994. My prime source is Michael McClure and other poets in the Open Form lineage. I have been fortunate enough to interview Michael, Allen Ginsberg, Anne Waldman, Robin Blaser, Ed Sanders, Jerome Rothenberg, Eileen Myles, Wanda Coleman, Joanne Kyger, George Bowering and other poets connected to this tradition. (See splab.org for links to soundbites.)My own poetry writing practice centers on three main projects currently. One is writing a serial poem that re-enacts the history of Auburn, Washington. (It was originally incorporated as the town of Slaughter in 1891.) My poem is entitled: A Time Before Slaughter. It is my contention that we each have inside us an inherent conflict between controlling something (or someone) or helping to aid its (their) individuation (freedom). The poem chronicles this conflict in me, in the town and in events such as the internment of Japanese-Americans and the treatment of the local environment and Native population.
Another practice involves my take on Allen Ginsberg's American Sentences. He wanted to Americanize the Japanese Haiku. Since 2001, I have written at least one of these poems every day. An essay entitled: American Sentences: Catching the Shadow of the Moment is linked here. Click here for an audio excerpt of an interview I did with Anne Waldman and Andrew Schelling about this form.
For some of my American Sentences from the last few years, click HERE. The last current project is the August Poetry Postcard Project, co-facilitated by poet Lana Ayers. More information is at the Poetry Postcard site. The project continues through the perennial postcard project.
2007 Poems
Frida One and Too for Frida Kahlo.
Funeral Photo Caption For my Dad at his sister's coffin, Feb 13, 2007.
Five Thirty-Ones for Doctor Bill Mitchell
The Death of Doctor Bill Mitchell
A series of short poems inspired by the late Indian poet Binoy Majumdar.
2006 Poems
A sonnet ring written after my Father's June 2006 strokes, Nine Sonnets for Pop.
Tuscan Sonnet Ring written after trip to Florence Biennale.
2005 Poems
Poems that were inspired, in part, by the encaustic paintings of Debra Van Tuinen, some in collaboration with John
and Roberta Olson are linked here: Alphabet of Wax:
Guanabo Written in Havana.
If We Can Bomb and Rebuild Iraq We Can Rebuild New Orleans
From the Victoria School of Writing Summer School July 2005:
Here is a series of poems written as I was closing SPLAB! at 14 S. Division: Dear Danika
Here is a poem written after hearing of the death of friend and legendary radio host Phil Harper: Googling Phil Harper
These are some old Jazz poems and one unofficial 3:15 poem I still like:
First, Breath (For Bud & Monk)
T.M.
The Story of Pastorius (One View of a Secret)
The Path of Survival (For Frank Morgan)
S.O.B. Sonnet XXIII (For Charles Mingus)
and
September's Search for Duende
One from 1999:
My Obligatory Seattle Rain Poem
For publishing credits, readings and other litertary activities, see Community Activities.
Published chap books are:
"Twisting Runes - CD & Chap Book" June 2000
"Out of Sight, Out of Mind: Invisible Maniac" June 1997
"99 Lives" September, 1996
"We Don't Celebrate Halloween in Cuba: and other stories from Auburn"July, 1996
Selected Quotes
"To a genius interviewer and visionary" - Larry Dossey, M.D."Your sense of the mythic is down and dirty as well as sublime" - Jean Houston
"To a real radio intuitive" - Mona Lisa Schultz, M.D., Ph.D.
"An original thinker and poet of the airwaves." - Jane Leavy, Author