Wrightings

A Kansas farm fades, leaving an unsettling void, not tornado-ripped, but familiarity erased in Evanilore. Our political landscape of early voting in midterm elections, dark on the horizon with a thin hopeful rainbow. The storm has not passed; ideologies have reaped what they have sown: doubt, despair, a Grapes of Wrath economy where the homestead is no longer homey. Here in Kansas, they pray the tornado will strike because the last crop only paid the insurance premiums, and an act of a loving god might give them enough to move on, move out, move into a child’s home or an old folk's home, not a camper on the back 20 acres. The American dream, the belief that this is “a land of opportunity that allows the possibility of upward mobility, freedom, and equality for people of all classes who work hard and have the will to succeed,” now looks like our flags, faded, tattered, and worn, whipping in the winds on their halyards without a backup line. Under our Friday night lights, we st...

  October 25 at 7 pm ET for the Women Writers Collective's celebration of the IWWG's culminating publication: Something Inside So Strong. I will be reading one of the three poems in this collection. If you would like to listen, please register here . It's free. Persecute On Thursday, my young man pushed his glasses up his nose.  They are new, and he is aware of their presence, weighing him down. The improvement of sight is obvious as he holds the book at a proper level and doesn’t cock his head and neck at a strange angle.  He is excited and focused, tells me about Saturn having over 200 moons, we review his spelling and vocabulary. He practices his math facts and then tells me he has a mark on his upper thigh He wants to show me. He says he thinks he got bitten by something. But as he tugs at his pants leg to slide past his knee I remind him that it is something his mom should check and not me. I know the boy is in trouble because Mom had called him into her bedroom befo...