Goose Hill

I'm already starting to think about the shape my next chapbook will take. I want to write a group of poems that mashes folk and fairy tales with Roman Catholicism. I grew up a Catholic, and although my beliefs are certainly more agnostic than anything else, I was shaped by the grand aesthetics and stories of the religion. So these poems will also address childhood, especially in the way children are able to make those associative connections between ideas many adults would assume are mutually exclusive.  Although, after a few months, I am still only three poems deep, when I found the title (back in June) I knew it would be a project that I would hold onto very stubbornly.  Catechesis, (noun) oral religious instruction,  formerly especially before baptism or confirmation   That sounds a lot like folk tales, right? And so, even though the poems are still coming very slowly, the ones that survive my revising-while-writing process are strong. They have to...

I have just returned from a great New England roadtrip in the name of my stepbrother's wedding. On our way to Rutland, Vermont, our route just happened to take us straight through the small town of Hoosick Falls, New York and then on past Bennington, Vermont. If either of those names sound familiar, it's probably because you just read my poem "Shirley Jackson is an Advice Columnist for the Bennington Banner " up on wicked alice . A mere 24 hours after that poem was published on wicked alice , the universe dropped its purely imagined setting into my lap. I love when the universe does that. I wrote this poem as a kind of love letter to one of my favorite authors, Shirley Jackson, and my favorite of her novels, We Have Always Lived in the Castle . She spent a good portion of her life in Bennington, Vermont and much of her work was set in the midst of the American Gothic atmosphere of the New England countryside. If you have never read her, now is the perfect time...

My three poems "[Prospectus:]," "Shirley Jackson is an Advice Columnist for the Bennington Banner ," and "Atomic Age 1" are up over at wicked alice for their Fall 2013 series. Except for the last one, these poems are contemplations on the possibilities that await me in spinsterhood. The older I get, the more attractive (and inevitable) those possibilities become. Have a read , if you please.