“The Fish,” a poem, comes from my forthcoming chapbook, San Agustinillo. I wrote it in the winter of 2020 before a pandemic sent the world into upheaval and my sons came home from school to stay. I had been working steadily on the chapbook, then set it aside. I’m now Read more…
When I recently talked with artist and illustrator Rukmini Poddar for the Humanitou Podcast, one of the many things we talked about was the creative value in producing quantity as a means of getting to quality. I’ve struggled with this idea in years past, at least in certain areas of Read more…
When the artist Taylor Spence, a.k.a. Savannalore, recently joined me for the Humanitou Podcast, we talked about conformity and breaking free (among other things). We talked about paths to being our true, full selves. That’s a topic that comes up over and over, in some form or another, with many Read more…
Circles have been regarded and created as spiritually significant for several hundred years, at least. They especially are connected to Buddhism. Tibetan Buddhists create mandalas. Mandala, in Sanskrit, means circle. Zen Buddhists create ensō. Ensō, in Japanese, means “circle form.” In the first line of the foreword written by John Read more…
The path of learning and growing as a creative being is as much one of unlearning as anything. Or as Julia Cameron describes it, recovery of who we really are. In the process, we get to shed the answers and definitions we were handed and come to believe as true. Read more…
My eight-year-old son, J, beat me at a game of G-L-A-C-I-E-R the other day (it’s H-O-R-S-E but we like to choose a different word each time we play). It was his first victory over me in, I think, anything. And of all things, basketball? For decades, that has been my Read more…
In the era of smartphone selfies and social media sharing, I have found myself questioning the intentions of the selfie-maker, including, on occasion, myself. Why do people fill their social feeds with photos and videos of themselves posing and puckering and exposing, and even dying to get that special, envy-inducing Read more…
Editor’s Note: This profile series called “A Poet Was There” highlights poets from around the world who through their verse convey the kind of intimacy, truth and connection with place and experience that only exists because a poet was there. Read “A Poet Was There: Introducing A New Blog Series” Read more…
“No words to describe it. … They should’ve sent a poet.” ~ “Ellie Arroway,” in Contact I published a poem, “I Want Poets,” in 2018 with this opening line: When another’s world, another’s life, another’s tether to all that is is frayed and on fire, I want a poet to Read more…
A compelling history has taken shape in the name Humanitou. And it’s rooted, I’ve come to learn, in ancient, spiritual and creative mythologies that could not be more suited to me and my work. As fated, it seems. On the practical side, Humanitou is the name of my podcast, website Read more…