19 March 2018: About poems that don’t work— who wants to see a bird almost fly? —Mary Oliver Now that we are saving daylight again, my mornings are in the dark mostly. Now that time has changed, my alarm rings through the pitch of night still hanging above the parking lot next door. Out there … Continue reading Melting Snow and Mary Oliver →

12 March 2018: Like brightness buried by one’s sullen mood —William Jay Smith, “Quail in Autumn” Photography could be called the perfect art form because, well, it is what it is. But—as with any art form—who’s to know what I’ll bring to the table as seer, observer: the man come from afar with a wagon-load … Continue reading Easing into the Scene: A Small Thought on Photography or any Art Really →

5 March 2018: Poet-in-residence at the airport. That’s what I’ve called myself for the past six months, sitting out here with each day’s inbound and outbound flights, working at the Yellowstone store, doing what I can for the park, writing poems in my downtime. But it’s all coming to an end today. My last day. … Continue reading Poet-in-Residence: Bozeman-Yellowstone International Airport →

26 February 2018: A few days ago I helped set up a used book sale at the library here in downtown Bozeman. Another odd job, another “resumé builder.” (Add it to the list.) Beginning at 8:00 a.m., a group of six of us hauled 360 boxes up from the basement—the boxes neatly labeled “Softcover Fiction,” … Continue reading The Used Book Sale →

19 February 2018: I once worked as a writing tutor for Miami-Dade College. There I met the poet Ricardo Pau-Llosa. A Cuban-American poet with a laundry list of publications, several books, and a PhD in English from the University of Florida, Pau-Llosa's first book, Sorting Metaphors, was the winner of the 1983 Anhinga Press Prize … Continue reading I Used to Know the Poet Ricardo Pau-Llosa and This Is What He Told Me →

12 February 2018: To Whom It May Concern My name is Travis Truax, and I am submitting my application for an editorial internship with [  ]. I received my bachelor’s degree in English from Southeastern Oklahoma State in 2010. Since then I have done my best to stay nomadic and explore what truly tickles my … Continue reading An Old Cover Letter (from 2014) →

5 February 2018: Time has come for the close of another notebook. This big green one I've slowly filled since September, slowly filled with five months of complaints and hope, with place and poetry, with money trouble and odd jobs, with new words (effulgent, frowzy, festinate), with work on my book, with work on this blog, … Continue reading The Close of Another Notebook →

29 January 2018: Several years ago now, a friend of mine from Colorado gave me a small palm-size pamphlet called Tree Climbing in Fort Collins: A Lyric Guide. It is just what it sounds like: a seventy-page guide chock-full of technique—some borrowed, some original—for climbing trees. Yes. Climbing trees. I couldn’t believe such a book existed. … Continue reading Climbing Trees →

22 January 2018: I like to read William Stafford first thing in the morning, half-asleep in the pre-dawn dark, half-conscious with a sort of groggy openness. I like to read old Bill this way because I feel I get a better idea of what he was doing, what he was after, what early morning state … Continue reading The Little Thread Leads Onward →

15 January 2018: You sit around tonight, reading Russel Rowland’s book, putting off trying to write. Putting off this feeling, this question: Are you the writer you thought you’d be? Looking back, be honest. You didn’t see this coming. You didn't see this sitting in Dr. Parrish’s class eight years ago, writing like a madman … Continue reading Talking to Yourself Again →