We’re accustomed to thinking of nightmares as dreams that allow us to feel emotions we wall off in our waking hours, the surfacing of subconscious fears to the conscious mind. But we don’t have a corresponding word for dreams that bring joy.
MoreThank goodness for poet Lawrence Raab. In “My Life Before I Knew It” he says everything I wanted to tell my kids about heading off regret and seeing grace at work in your life.
MoreHarper invites us to imagine the complete and utter powerlessness of people on the slave block, particularly of mothers. Defenseless, unheeded, bitter, frail, shrinking, mournful, desolate. The adjectives heap misery on misery.
MoreFebruary is Black History Month, and I have six poems queued up to celebrate it. Each poem shines a light on parts of U.S. history not emphasized in my own history education, which unfortunately was of the Social Studies ilk. (Social Studies, boring and artificial, caused huge gaps in my knowledge of world history and […]
MoreOn the final day of the ESL series, I’m happy to share a picture of the Chicago students meeting on Zoom (a few were absent). What a wonderful group! I thank each one of them for sharing their stories, hopes and struggles openly and honestly. You’ve given me (and surely my readers) cause for […]
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