This fall, I taught an online writing course meant to help poets put together and prepare their first poetry collections for publication. Though I’d designed the course to be about the practicalities of structuring, formatting, and submitting their manuscripts, by the third class meeting, our conversations had diverged to the role of surprise in poetry. …
My mother sat in the very last row of chairs in the author event space at Powell’s City of Books in Portland, Oregon, the day my memoir, Ma and Me, was officially released. She smiled with pride as her gaze skipped across the room, surely taking in the improbability of the moment: her daughter, a …
I keep a spreadsheet that lists every book I’ve read since 2010. It’s the most consistent and representative record of my life that I have—a life spent reading. I can look back and see that I spent the summer of 2015 reading or rereading Jane Austen novels, and the summer of 2016, all of Sarah …
From lithub.com September 7, 2022 by Cai Emmons At eight years old I began writing poetry. I loved the sounds of words, and I loved stringing them together, often nonsensically. I liked the solitude of writing, the secrecy, the fact that I was in control. I did it knowing that poetry carried little weight in …
My husband and I push a cart through Target. Bearing a list, he is purposeful: coffee, cat litter, TUMS®, toothpaste. I, along for the ride, am easily diverted. “I’ll catch up with you,” I say, trailing my fingers over a stack of jewel-toned velvet comforters. I test several pillows for firmness, search to see if …
I like to know a thing or two about the world around me, so I read widely and watch a lot of film. However, when I write, I write for myself and I don’t do fiction. That’s not because I don’t like it, but because I can’t manage it. I’ve made a sad attempt or …
