Advent meditation, 11 December 2023

On publishing This year I published a book of poems. It is about grief, love and anger. It seems to … More

Lifesaving Lines: What the Living Do, by Marie Howe

Two great lines for the price of one (it is Christmas, after all) this week, from Marie Howe’s extraordinary poem … More

I don’t want to pretend for a second that it was great. It was full of rawness and grief and … More

Here are the blog posts that you read most in 2020 As I click through the links I am surprised … More

Third Sunday in Advent Today I pause from giving you updates from grief’s front line and take a leaf from … More

The Sky Over My Mother’s House It is a July night scented with gardenias. The moon and stars shine hiding … More

What You Missed That Day You Were Absent from Fourth Grade Mrs. Nelson explained how to stand still and listento … More

Before No shoes and a glossyred helmet, I rodeon the back of my dad’sHarley at seven years old.Before the divorce.Before … More

First There is a holiness to exhaustion is what I keep telling myself, filling out the form so my TA … More

The unexamined life’s no different from … More

The Thing Is to love life, to love it evenwhen you have no stomach for itand everything you’ve held dearcrumbles … More

When I am Asked When I am asked how I began writing poems, I talk about the indifference of nature. … More

I have walked into the grief. I have walked into brave space, mine and others’. I have sat in … More

Courage It is in the small things we see it. The child’s first step, as awesome as an earthquake. … More

The grief keeps on coming. Though I write from my place of privilege, of safety, it still feels relentless. … More

On the Edge After your mother dies, you will learn to live on the edge of life, to brace … More

Writing my way through bereavement I don’t approve of death. I’m with Edna St Vincent Millay: I am not … More