Berkshire Festival of Women Writers

At this very time, just a hop, skip and a jump away from anywhere in the MA, CT or NY state conjunction, really fabulous writing-related events featuring talented, funny and smart women are taking place, all during the month of March and even a wee bit into April. What is this thing? Where? How can … Continue reading Berkshire Festival of Women Writers

Sour & Sweet

In honor of my daughter, who’s 13, and despises Valentine’s Day (for what should be obvious reasons, if you remember anything at all about being 13) I’m posting an anti-Valentine poem Pokey wrote long ago (before she was even Pokey). This is for you, Maddy! X’s & O’s You can keep your four-leaf clover road … Continue reading Sour & Sweet

hence the detour, ma’am

A couple of months ago I was in the car with my two children. It was late afternoon, one of those days where Pokey had already circumnavigated several points on our globe—school, home, work, school, home, soccer—and she was getting a tad frayed around the edges. Not crabby, mind you, just a bit unraveled. As … Continue reading hence the detour, ma’am

One Way In, One Way Out

in which we pick up the thread of Pokey Mama's struggle with post-partum writer's block and her year as an Associate at the Five College Women's Studies Research Center looking at the impact of motherhood on the work of women poets... Are you old enough to remember the Wayback machine on the Rocky & Bullwinkle … Continue reading One Way In, One Way Out

pokey gets a yes

I’m treading the edge here, a line that shifts beneath my bare feet, salt and wrack swirling around  my ankles. I’m noticing how it’s not just me that’s shifting, not just one edge but all edge, overlap and flip-flop, blurring and gradation. I believe this lack of faith in permanence may be what’s called an … Continue reading pokey gets a yes

i’m not sorry

You know that old barb about certain people being born with a silver spoon in their mouth?  Pokey thinks she may have been born with an apology permanently imprinted on her tongue. Not the empathy-based, “sorry I stepped on your toe” kind of apology but the fear-based,  “sorry I have to tell you that you’re … Continue reading i’m not sorry

birthdays, snoring & the wrong moon

It’s Pokey’s Birthday! Not MY birthday, but the birth-day of this here blog, and that notorious character I’ve come to love,  who’s me and not me, which of course is total narcissism, but hey, it’s MOTHERS DAY, so cut me some slack, willya? Yes, a year ago I made my first post, and here I … Continue reading birthdays, snoring & the wrong moon

Get Thee to Massachusetts Poetry Fest

The poetry will be flying in Salem, Massachusetts, May 12, 13, and 14 at the 2011 Massachusetts Poetry Festival. Sadly, Pokey will probably not be attending as her girl turns 13 Friday the 13th and she will be all about that celebration. But I did go last time, and loved the homegrown, democratic feel, the … Continue reading Get Thee to Massachusetts Poetry Fest

the guiddesses

…but who can tolerate the power of a woman close to a child, riding our tides into the sand dunes of the public spaces. --Alicia Suskin Ostriker, from “Propaganda Poem: Maybe for Some Young Mamas" When last we left Pokey she was doodling her way towards enlightenment, having at least identified the shape of what might … Continue reading the guiddesses

pokey’s blog blog

We’re taking a wee break from the Pokey-and-the-Guidesses riff. Pokey’s been laid low with a walloping flu-like thing and spent a better part of the week dazedly clicking around the blogiverse. She got a trifle over- stimulated and had to drink a lot of tea and talk herself off a stratospheric ledge of doubt—wondering why … Continue reading pokey’s blog blog