“Men have no standards,” my friend joked recently. His wife said, “Now, what does that say about me, sweetie? If you have no standards…” it had the air of an oft-repeated conversation and I was irritated by the complacent amusement Read more
My poetry professor gave out an assignment to write five interconnected, longer poems. The goal was that by the end of his course we would all write book-length poems. I was mad in love with the old victorian mansions of Read more
You’ve seen it before, on Star Trek or an episode of the Twilight Zone, in movies and books and slush pile stories: in this story, the white people are oppressed! Or it’s a matriarchy or in this society it’s normal Read more
When I was young, in my twenties, I walked past a man who had just been shot. It was on Euclid Avenue, an ugly stretch with a brown strip mall of empty store fronts on one side and a gravel Read more
In college, I took the advanced poetry class (after the beginning and the intermediary) and on the first day the professor asked, “Who here is a poet?” Two or three hands went up. I didn’t raise mine. In booming outrage, Read more
So there I was, in my natural habitat, the dancefloor. I was in my early twenties, getting my groove on, flirting with the boys, attracting a lot of them, keeping them in line, not paying for drinks. Not to brag. Read more
Class affects so much of life, and it’s galling how it affects how pleasant your work environment can be. I work at a university, so there are minute sub-stratas of classes in the staff. Your class is partially indicated by Read more