27 April 2026 Feeling a little Denis Johnson. Feeling a little Bruce Springsteen. Feeling a little other-wordly in a world between worlds. Poetry about music. Or inspired by. That’s what it feels like to read Devin Kelly’s book of poems called Blood on Blood. To quote Bianca Stone on the back cover, Kelly’s book is … Continue reading A Poet, an Album, and That Highfalutin Word Ekphrasis
12 March 2026 Oh, where to start with Mr. Jean-Louis Lebris de Kérouac—that French-Canadian kid from Lowell? Mr. Sal Paradise, Ray Smith, Ti Jean, Mr. Jack Duluoz of Duluoz legend? Oh, Jack, I once wrote in a song that you were King. I once got stuck on a cliffside in Big Sur trying to sneak … Continue reading For Kerouac, on His Birthday
5 March 2026 Seems to me, the magic of glass blocks is in their blur. In their frosty swirling of the present, they misshape and miscue. In a way, they mislead us. It’s almost sleight-of-hand, the way they make us feel the presence of something almost there — something both ever-present and ever-fleeting. Like certain … Continue reading Through Glass Blocks, Dimly
20 February 2026 Ever the creature of habit, ever the rabbit of routine, ever the tried, tested, and true Virgo… I love a good tradition. I love a cycle. I love a returning-to. Or, to use a word my new vocabulary app taught me the other day, I love the retrocedence of my life. Simply … Continue reading As Far as Traditions Go
13 February 2026 First, I have to ask myself: Is there actually anything poetic about that poem-like poem there? Or is it just my ego telling me, hey, you can still write a poem with a beer in hand, like it’s 2010 again? Look, it’s art. There, you did it. Congrats, kid. You made a … Continue reading Overanalyzing a Poem I Wrote in 2023
29 January 2026 "I open a book I read in college" —Rick Barot, Moving the Bones There it is. That’s the line. Thirty seconds later, I’m digging through my bookshelf, pulling up the past. Scanning books I read in college for little left-behind scribbles. Stars in the margins. Sentences underlined and highlighted. Words that once-upon-a-time … Continue reading A Simple Rick Barot Line Prompts Me to Dig Into the Past
20 January 2026 On a personal level, I’m calling 2026 the Year of the Lavender. It’s a whimsical moniker—based solely on the color of my new notebook and the book of Mikko Harvey poems I bought to start the year. Each morning, I write a page, and I read Harvey’s poems, pairing my coffee with … Continue reading The Year of the Lavender
13 January 2026 Call me a sucker, but I bought (and am enjoying) John Darnielle’s book of lyrics he published recently called This Year. The central figure, the constant, the songwriter, John is the brains behind a little band called The Mountain Goats—a man and a band who’ve been with me since college. It all … Continue reading John Darnielle (Not Bob Dylan) and His Big Book of Annotated Lyrics
5 January 2025 Let’s try this again. Let's at least kick the can again, and see where it lands. This old blog—Writing from Here, I've always called it—is still alive and well, waiting on my big return. It's been five years since my last post. A period of time I won't try to sum up here, … Continue reading The Big Return
Writing from Here 