Author’s Note: “When I wrote “Debris” I was working on a series of poems about things we leave behind. When I started to research space junk, I was taken by the notion of something so small being capable of immense damage. The poem took off from there.”... [Continue Story]

Author’s Note: “Wend is a sijo, a traditional Korean syllabic verse form that emerged in the Goryeo period (918 – 1392) and is still popular today. Themes range from the bucolic to the metaphysical. The standard pattern is three lines (each broken into two half lines) that average 14–16 syllables, for a total of 42–48: theme (3, 4, 4, 4); elaboration (3, 4, 4, 4); counter-theme (3, 5) and completion (4 ,3).” [Continue Story]

Author’s Note: “The rooms we inhabit often inhabit us in ways we may not even realize. ‘Never Room’ is a poem about coping with miscarriage in which place and memory intersect. It tries to capture a moment on the trajectory of loss that also hints at future loss in the form of divorce. I tend... [Continue Story]

Author’s Note: “I live just across a cove from the Delaware City Refinery, so it’s often in my thoughts. It’s been bought and sold several times during its sixty-four years; and in 2009 it was shut down. A buyer was eventually found, and it reopened two years later. I kept thinking about those two years, ... [Continue Story]

Author’s Note: “ ‘Stone Sijo’ is my attempt to highlight the materiality of language by using only monosyllabic words. I think of each word as a stone, and the poem itself as an edifice constructed of carefully-placed stones. Sound is foregrounded. The stanza form is that of a sijo, but I linked five of them... [Continue Story]