What you’ll find here
After decades in public education, what would it mean if I stopped teaching? Or if I taught adults instead of teens, or in picnic shelters or coffee shops instead of schools? What might happen if I immerse myself in writing or woodworking — or explore ways they could intertwine? How can I do more to build the beloved community I imagine? What, if any, legacy do I wish to leave?
These are the kinds of questions I’ll contemplate here as I write my way through figuring out what matters most in the chapter after school bells.
As a teacher-librarian, mindfulness instructor, and poet, themes kindred to my work will emerge in these musings, as will myriad others that matter to me like gratitude, listening, memory, maps, belonging, faith, death and dying, generosity, ritual, and rivers, and sustainability. Whether you’re pondering your next act or gathering kindling or seeds for your own reflections, I hope you’ll stay a spell.
Poetry River
If you’ve found your way here while looking for my former Poetry River web site, a resource site about contemporary American poetry, especially documentary poetry, that site is in transition. I plan to curate the resources I’d organized on Poetry River in a section of this Substack during the summer of 2024. In the meantime, if you are looking for a resource or have a question, please message me via Substack.
About me
My enchantment with stories and poetry began in rural northern New Jersey where I grew up. On a granite outcropping in the woods or under the black walnut tree in our front yard, I'd dig a stubby pencil and small, bent spiral notebook out of my pocket and jot down short poems about nature. Writing lets me capture the wonder around me, and the pain, and to work through things that are on my mind.
I’m the author of Beautiful Machinery and an unpublished documentary poetry manuscript about Grace Arents, a Progressive-era philanthropist and educator, and her companion, Mary Garland Smith. Over the years, my poems have appeared in Rust + Moth, Cider Press Review, Commonplace, the museum of americana, and elsewhere. I’ve also co-edited Poems from the Wellspring and written and edited for professional library publications. I’m grateful to all the mentors, colleagues, and writing friends who’ve encouraged, taught, and inspired me.
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