Monthly Archives: September 2011

“From Bread Loaf to Sugarloaf” by Jo Pitkin

(My thanks to Jo Pitkin for this guest blog. And let me recommend her wonderful chapbook, The Measure.) In 1977, summer jobs for college kids were scarce in my Hudson Valley hometown. In previous years, I had been an arts … Continue reading

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“Tenderness” by Christine Boyka Kluge

(Christine Boyka Kluge’s blogs always give me a wondrous uplift with her combination of equisite nature photographs, choice quotations from poets, and smart reflections about life. And her book of prose poems, Stirring the Mirror, is one of the more … Continue reading

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A Poem for the Woodstock Scarecrow Fest

On Saturday, October 1st my friends at the Woodstock Land Conservancy and the Woodstock Farm Festival will host a Scarecrow Fest at the Zena Cornfield, one of the prettiest spots in town. (If you’ve seen a profile photo of Overlook … Continue reading

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On Not Becoming a Chinese Poet

On an early October day, on the cusp of the autumn color invasion when the forest looks darkest green from a summer of soaking up sunlight, I helped lead a “Hike & Write” up to Giant Ledges as part of … Continue reading

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Alan Casline, Watershed Poet

Where do you find your life story? In Sigmund Freud’s Oedipal conflicts? Joseph Campbell’s Hero’s Journey? A good portion of mine made more sense after reading Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way. But seated on logs for a trail break in … Continue reading

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Trees, by William Weaver Christman

(In 1934, on the verge of turning seventy, Christman published this essay in a local literary magazine called Trails. A lifelong farmer in Duanesburg just west of Albany County, he’d always enjoyed literature; earlier in his life, he’d corresponded with … Continue reading

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William Weaver Christman: Return of a Forgotten Poet

A century ago, the hilly rims of the Hudson Valley held farmlands and pastures spread far up their slopes, a history easily forgotten but for the stone walls still running through the woods. Born in 1865, William Weaver Christman inherited … Continue reading

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How I Found Woodstock

(Salvage, a former newsprint literary journal from Troy, New York, published this poem in 2005.) The Five O’Clock Log — Woodstock, Catskills Behind the ice cream parlor closed for winter lived Alvin, the Astrologer, whom I visited while searching for … Continue reading

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Let Haiku Be Haiku

Once again a writing handbook tells us that haiku need not be haiku. “Some people believe (mistakenly) that a haiku must have seventeen syllables arranged 5 / 7 / 5 in lines 1, 2, and 3. The fact is that … Continue reading

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“Peonies” by Debbie Millman

(The Phoenicia Pharmacy window, an eclectic gallery that ranges from a Three Stooges photo to a forgotten film developing sign, displays a chalkboard filled with hand-chalked print that begins, “When I was a little girl, visiting my father’s pharmacy was … Continue reading

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