And I Have Circled the Sun Once Again…

            Will you still need me, will you still feed me             when I’m sixty-four… In 1967, the Beatles released When I’m Sixty-Four. I was about to be 14, my mother was pregnant and due in the late fall. I was the oldest of then four, I had just entered 9thgrade at Levy Junior High … Read more

Post-Massachusetts Poetry Festival – Action Items!

For the fifth year, I have attended the Massachusetts Poetry Festival and returned home filled with inspiration and joy. This is my favorite poetry event, year after year, and I encourage friends and colleagues to attend! I am never disappointed, always enriched. This year, I presented a round table discussion with my dear sisters Antoinette … Read more

Head and the Dulcet Tone of Howard Cosell

–> It was a cold evening, ABC’s Monday Night Football on the screen in my lover’s living room. I don’t like football so I was curled up with a book, my head nestled between the padded cocoons of the headphones plugged into the receiver, big as those huge ear protectors the guys on the tarmac … Read more

Launch Day for Psalter Is Here!

Today is the day that I officially launch my newest book, Psalter: The Agnostic’s Book of Common Curiosities,” published by Tiger Bark Press (www.tigerbarkpress.com) at the Downtown Writers Center of the Syracuse YMCA, 340 Montgomery Street, at 7 p.m. After the reading and signing, we will join at Flame, 713 E. Fayette Street, to continue … Read more

Loosing Letterman

Dave at the desk is what I wait for, Monday – Friday nights. Not the monologue so much, or the interviews. It is the 5 minutes of desk time when Dave addresses concerns. This is the essence of the most outrageous, sublime, sardonic, ridiculous, touching, agitating. For most of the past 35 years, I have … Read more

Teaching as Legacy

The magic that transpires in a classroom, no matter the age of the student, is the fuel that pushes all teachers through to satisfaction in their chosen profession. As we see the fruit of our sharing come forth in our students, even students who are adults, the knowledge that we have done good work soothes … Read more

Satisfaction is a Renewable Resource

Satisfaction is an elusive emotion. Yet it truly takes so little to have the warm wave wash over the body and soothe tension and longing. Instead of striving for “happiness”  in my endeavors, of late, I have been seeking satisfaction and contentment. It is so much more definable and attainable, at least as I see … Read more

Solace in the Kitchen

There are times when the best therapy is found in my kitchen. Not in stuffing my face with unneeded food but in preparing food, concocting amazing and satisfying flavors and textures, meals that soothe, dishes that garner compliments and heal.  Sunday it was bitter cold. There was no reason to leave the house. I decided … Read more