Balanced On the Edge

A field of red flowers and a cloudy sky
Camino de Santiago

Category: essays and commentary

  • My new pendant from Ybonesy!

    Sent from my iPhone

  • Inside Time You Let Me In: 25 Poets under 25 by Naomi Shihab Nye

    via browseinside.harpercollins.com

    My young friend and fellow poet Laura Beasley has several poems in this new anthology, published by Harper Collins. That’s big news! I’m going to buy the e-book, because I’m eager to read her poems. Plus, I’m curious to see what other poems Naomi Shihab Nye has chosen.

  • Snake Bit by a Word

    It was one of those times when you learn a new word, or rediscover an old one, and then it pops up everywhere. For example, one night you might use an astringent to tone facial tissue, and then you read the word astringent applied to a character in a poem.

    While reading It Is Daylight by Arda Collins I came across the word philtrum. Maybe I had learned it when I was studying Spanish. I know a lot of words like that in Spanish, ones you use  twice in a lifetime. But no, that must have been las corvas, the word for the backs of the knees. We don’t have a word for the backs of the knees in English, and Spanish has no specific word for the hollow between the septum and the upper lip.  Even my spellchecker doesn’t recognize philtrum. Of course philtrum comes to English from Latin. Spanish could borrow it too.

    Here’s a story I found Wikipedia:

    According to the Jewish Talmud (Niddah 30b), God sends an angel to each womb and teaches a baby all the wisdom that can be obtained. Just before the unborn baby comes out, the angel touches it between the upper lip and the nose and all that it has taught the baby is forgotten.

    That event, learning the word philtrum, was a few days ago. Today I went to a day spa for a massage and to have my upper lip and eyebrows waxed. (How gauche of me to reveal my tawdry attempts at beauty or to admit to the social injustice that I can afford a trip to a day spa when there are people in the world who don’t even have a cardboard box to call home.)9012

    So maybe it served me right when the esthetician ripped a patch of skin from my philtrum as she was waxing the peach fuzz from my face. Why did I submit myself to such torture? I don’t really even have a mustache.

    Bloody philtrum
    Bloody philtrum, crease on cheek from massage table

    She didn’t mean to. She said my skin was probably dry. I bled profusely, and she seemed worried I would sue her. But she’s probably right. It was my fault. My skin needs hydrating. In the US we like to blame people. We expect others to take responsibility. The esthetician had a creamy complexion. She asked me if I used Retin A. I said “no, just soap and water.”

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  • Reading List

    Cloudland Canyon, my one destination for spring break
    Cloudland Canyon, my one destination for spring break

    Now  that we’re on spring break, ten beautiful days, I have some spare time to update this blog. Don’t imagine me living it up in Cancún, however. I’ll be at home, catching up on laundry and writing a paper. I never was one of those Daytona Beach types, anyway. When I was studying Spanish in Madrid, I spent a whole week reading La Regenta while my compadres went to Egypt. Ugh.

    Since a few people have wondered what books we’re reading in the MFA program I attend, I’m providing a list from one of my current courses. This semester I’m taking Contemporary American Poetry; all the books we’re looking at have been published within the last ten years. In fact, most of them are from within the last three years. Each student in the class had the opportunity to choose a collection to present –mine was Slamming Open the Door, by Kathleen Sheeder Bonanno.

    I want to add a book that we aren’t studying, but one I’ve read this semester and that I highly recommend.  One of the poets in the class, Emily Elizabeth  Schulten, has a first book that has just launched: Rest in Black Haw.  I’ve heard her read twice in Atlanta-the poems are authentic, intimate, and well-crafted. They’ll floor you with their attention to the natural world and their implications of human connections. Stay tuned for a review in the next few weeks. In the meantime, you can enjoy this amazing poem, “Labor Day Weekend,” featured on Verse Daily.

    Bonanno, Kathleen Sheeder. Slamming Open the Door

    Collins, Arda. It’s Daylight

    Dickman, Matthew.  All American Poem

    Digges, Deborah. Trapeze

    Emerson, Claudia.  Late Wife

    Hass, Robert. Time and Materials

    Kaminsky, Ilya. Dancing in Odessa

    Kane, Paul. Work Life

    Mitcham, Judson. A Little Salvation

    Range, Melissa. Horse and Rider

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  • A mixture of snow and rain

    On my way to work….

    Sent from my iPhone