Latest On Writing ·
Light Through the Cracks
A May 2026 reflection on "May Draft Notes: Light Through the Cracks", tied to "Why Love Feels Like a Penitence" and written as a personal record of what I was living and feeling.
Read the EntryRustic Embers
I write what refuses silence
More Entries
· On Writing
On Distraction and Staying Anyway
April 2026 became a month of return: same desk, same town, cleaner attention, and the kind of focus that gets rebuilt through repetition rather than force.
Paired Poem
Light from the Shadows
· On Writing
What I'm Working On
March 2026 stayed rooted in Santa Fe: early pages, medical follow-through, slower revision, and a steadier writing life than the season looked like from the outside.
Paired Poem
The Quiet Spark Within
· On Writing
On Finishing Things and Letting Them Go
There is a particular anxiety that happens when a poem is nearly done. Not when it's a mess — that's a different anxiety. This is the finishing anxiety: the fear that the last revision will be the wrong one.
Paired Poem
Resilience's Gem
· On Writing
Be the Light: The Poem's Actual Origin
I was at a low point when I wrote this poem. I won't be dramatic about it — but I was in it, and I couldn't quite see out. So I wrote about light.
Paired Poem
Quilt of Life
· On Writing
Why I Rarely Keep the First Draft
I draft digitally and revise hard. Most poems take multiple passes before they feel honest enough to keep.
Paired Poem
Whisper of Cascading Waters
· On Writing
On Revision: Killing What You Love
There is a line in my original draft that I was certain was the best line I'd ever written. It was doing four things at once. It was also completely wrong for the poem.
Paired Poem
Albatross
· On Writing
How I Decided on the Image for "My Love Had a Name"
Here is something I don't often talk about: the image for a poem usually comes before the poem is finished. Not always, but often.
Paired Poem
My Love Had a Name
· On Writing
Love, the Impossible Subject
Every poet eventually has to decide what to do with love. It is the subject that has been written about so thoroughly, from every angle, in every language, that adding to it seems almost arrogant.
Paired Poem
Guardians of the Mind's Realm