A. Anupama
My daughter and I were talking about the difference between “overwhelmed” and “whelmed” in the car while I merged onto a parkway. I think those words are close to each other but not freely interchangeable. Creative work thrives on “whelmed,” as a kind of outflow of real compassion. “Overwhelmed” seems like the crowded on-ramp, where…
Like painting with colors no one can see. Like writing a poem with one word. Like remembering a celebratory dinner only by the brilliant smiles around the table. That’s what a true heart truly likes. I started a new job as copywriter in a medical communications company this week, which prompted one of my poetry…
Midsummer nights are meant for dreams that serve to lengthen summer days. No matter how slowly the moon wanes, I don’t complain, and instead stretch to “awake the pert and nimble spirit of mirth.” A jigsaw puzzle fit into our weekend do-nothing plans. I chose this fun, literary one from the New York Review of…
Walk somewhere, and you know that place better, even if you’re resisting it. I’m reflecting on many days at my alma mater Vermont College of Fine Arts, which announced this week it is letting go of its beautiful campus atop Montpelier’s steep hillside. The programs will continue, thankfully, with a new location for in-person residency,…
We could have courage, discipline or kindness for dinner tonight, so which’ll it be? They all sound good, right? I’m going with kindness right now. Partly because I have had to serve extra helpings of courage and discipline every night of this whole pandemic, just to get through. How does kindness taste? Is that what…
It's a good day for a reblog of this list, in my slightly sardonic voice here, of reasons to give poetry books as holiday gifts. The shortest shortcut to peace is poetry. 'Tis the season... Top 20 reasons to give poetry books as gifts #20 - Won’t go out of fashion (because it isn’t fashionable…
I wonder if I’m noticing enough, even as I pause over fresh red leaves in the roadside next to the curb. There’s pleasure in writing poems, even breathless with exertion of reluctance. The last robin in our neighborhood to fly away for winter might have gone already, or might not yet. A poem waits and…
I had forgotten about the way I kept “teaching shoes” in my car after this year-and-a-half in virtual classrooms. It’s so good to be with students, in living presence, and there’s no equivalent for it. Now that the school semester is fully underway, most of my thought and energy is in the lectures, discussions, assignments.…
What do butterflies say? If a child asked me that, I’d say “listen.” This past Sunday, my neighbor and I walked up the newly built section of trail that leads from Nyack Beach State Park to the Long Path, which climbs to the peak of Hook Mountain. We met a woman named Felicia, who teaches…
A tree laid its crown on the ground, mindful of the saplings nearby, mindful to lay it across the meadow somehow, away from the sculptures. Now an attentive ear much taller than a poet stays cocked at the side of the footpath: an enormous ellipse of tangled root, rock, and earth. On a bright morning…
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