pastoralsatori

Mingus, the Corrosion of Seasons, and Playfulness

But it could almost be any moment between October and April in this part of Creation. Time is a strange factor in our lives right now. It has been years since we have seen the majority of relations and friends. Space has become more real even as time and seasons have collapsed to more abstract parts of our lives

On Cosmopolitanism, the Social Writer, and the Ways We Should Move Around Us.

For those that follow me on social media, you realize that I’ve been a poet on the go the last few months. I am one of those blessed writers that gets to travel for their work and as such I’ve gotten an excellent opportunity to meet writers in communities from Chicago to Pelee Island toContinue reading “On Cosmopolitanism, the Social Writer, and the Ways We Should Move Around Us.”

With Each Word We Move Closer to Decolonized Voices

Understand that part and parcel of looking towards building a healthy relationship with First Peoples and settler governments we must start with words, names, and symbols. For ten of thousands of years people have moved about the land, come to understand it in way that is both spiritual and physical, and have developed names andContinue reading “With Each Word We Move Closer to Decolonized Voices”

Upon where the Red Cedar meets the Grand: Lansing and Views of Rooted Americana

There is a surging wave of total modern Americanism that has yet to crash here and in the still before something that might never come, is the idea that homes and living are cheap, and ambitions have little to do with leaving, more to carry on something better than they were left with.

This Rock Shall Shake Forth the Better Year

Time to reach out from the wintry basement perch of this writer. We’ve all cleared out from 2017 and all of creation around here feels cleansed from the meteor a few weeks back. Nothing like a giant rock blowing up above you to clear out the bad funk left from a year a lot ofContinue reading “This Rock Shall Shake Forth the Better Year”

To Find Oneself With a Poet: A Brief Review of Andre Narbonne’s You Were Here

You Were Here Andre Narbonne 72 pages Flat Singles Press (2017) It is often said that poetry done right is one part memory, one part experience. Narbonne’s debut collection of poetry affords us this type of poetry, straddling the lines of a shared world and the very internal emotional way one experiences that world. ThisContinue reading “To Find Oneself With a Poet: A Brief Review of Andre Narbonne’s You Were Here”

Adherents to the Lyrics of the Places We’ve Lived: Notes on the Second Book.

So today it is. This is official release date for my second poetry collection, This City at the Crossroads. This is that moment where the writer rejoices, embraces the idea that their work has been brought forth to the world, and all the toil behind it is officially brought from the private shadow into theContinue reading “Adherents to the Lyrics of the Places We’ve Lived: Notes on the Second Book.”

The Small Books at the Heart of Literature Today.

Let me start by saying that summer is well upon us in the border region. It also goes without saying that the summer brings with it baseball both grand and small and all those memories that go with such a storied game. Sure, I grew up on Major League baseball with the Detroit Tigers justContinue reading “The Small Books at the Heart of Literature Today.”

May This Rock be Truth: Thoughts on the Newest Project

One of the best things with having completed a MFA is that you generally exit the program with more work than you would ever have thought likely to use. Truthfully, much of it can be left behind. But there are other bits, the stuff that marked a turn perhaps in the everyday often written underContinue reading “May This Rock be Truth: Thoughts on the Newest Project”

First Spring Sprouts Bring Thoughts of Creation

Simple thing to say is that they first day of spring marks a point of great relief among those with propensity to believe January and February are simply the annual darkness that we all must endure. And we’ve reached it, that great moment of relief. Yet for those who, like the Mrs., have been busyContinue reading “First Spring Sprouts Bring Thoughts of Creation”