Nothing kills dreamers quicker than the idea of truth. The assertion that there is one reality is killing unmarketable forms of expression through painful division. Imaginative writing is that casualty. So many times I’ve heard “I don’t read fiction” or “I don’t read poetry.” Real life accounts of actual events sell well through the dubious notion that truth is truer than art. The truth is an...

When you have an unlimited choice of restaurants, why go anywhere but a truckstop diner? Not only will you get great food but you'll get a poem or two.

In my last two posts, I’ve outlined some observations about changing attitudes toward literature and how those views came about. What I didn’t include, at least overtly, was my opinion on the matter. You might have picked up on my disapproval—especially since it rarely takes three posts to say, “I agree”—but it’s time to conclude the series by laying out what I think more precisely. By reading only for technique, judging...

Point of View in poems...when is the "I" really "I"?

We took our thirteen-year-old on a surprise trip to Portland to hear Anne Lamott read. We also wanted him to experience why, when we've gone to the Tin House Writer's Workshop many times over the last ten years, we go a couple days early. This is an account of Portland from a true food-and-book lover's eyes...

In my last post, I made the observation that many writers today are ignoring works from older periods (basically anything from the early twentieth century and older) because we value technique over message. Many older works have technical flaws, sometimes major ones, whereas current authors may be more technically proficient, even if they lack the vision of older authors. Broad generalizations, I realize, but I think I’m still on solid...

Hardy is a writer with something to say, and that comes through even if he doesn’t always know how to say it.

As we sit here in the present, either in our own homes or rented apartments, among relatives and roommates, with cars and SUVs, or at least a few cigarettes to smoke, it is sometimes a unique difficulty when we find nothing to be grateful for in this life.  It seems that in the high schools and in the colleges, while some of us turn to academics for enlightenment or the fall sport of football for the physical shape of our bodies, we are...

A significant portion of the steroid experience, though not the whole thing, was terrifying, if for no other reason than that I was having it. I spent more than two days in a delusional state before the damn things finally wore off.

I remember when I had once exchanged email addresses with a woman I knew, and she immediately said that I was "ancient," because I still use Hotmail as my email provider.