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
8 January 2018: I worked my way through various phases last year, different streets, different towns, sometimes different states entirely. I discovered new voices, new places, reading my way around here and there. Some books I sought out—some seemed to almost find me. I remember my mom asking me last Christmas, “How do you find … Continue reading Best of My 2017 Reading List
1 January 2018: Dear Ada, Did you ever fall in love with Richard Hugo? I can tell you I did once. And aren't the initial run-ins always the best?—when a new-to-you poet picks you up off the ground and says hello, here is a poem. When a poet seems to say: Here’s what you’ve missed, … Continue reading A Letter to the Poet Ada Limón
25 December 2017: I understand I live in an apartment, but I have always wanted a workshop away from the house. Not to handcraft floating shelves from 2x4s or beached logs, but a space from which to write out into the world. Something like Wendell Berry’s Kentucky woods or Stegner’s California. I want that silence … Continue reading A Writing Shack: A Christmas Wish in the Form of a Poem
18 December 2017: I called him a loner, a mumbler, a legend in the making—the little, grey-headed man picking up beer and soda cans around my neighborhood, senior year of college. I first noticed him in September, early on in the semester. He pushed a grocery cart around, muttering things I never understood or ever … Continue reading The Can Man
Writing from Here 