Walking in the Quaker Wood

I wanted to tell you about the fox:
how it paused on a hillock of snow,
the tall pines of the Quaker wood standing
sentinel around it, a watchful army of trees.
As I stared, the fox’s head jerked upward,
as though someone had wrenched a rope
on its neck toward the sky. Following
its direction, I caught the last split-second
of a shooting star’s odyssey down
to Earth. It streaked across the sky before
disappearing into the haze of man-made lights.

I raced back to your room to tell you
that I recognized your soul inside
the fox's sleek body, your muscles
rippling its fur. I rushed
into the house through the storm-door
which sang on its hinges, up the stairs
to your room, not stopping until I found you
on your bed, not stopping until I felt
the rise and fall of your breath
on my palm. I stood listening to you
the way I listened to my children breathe
when they were new, two fingers poised
under their nostrils in the dark.

I held your hand, its veins
blue as the sky at first
starlight. I wanted to tell you
about the fox, how her prints scrimshawed
the snow, how the night came alive
with her breath, how one star above us
exploded to dust in the night.

Finishing Line Press, Free shipping
during advance sales period:July 29 - Sept. 10

Release date: Oct. 10, 2008

Indiana, Late August

Why do we never remember
moments such as this: the chocolate
lab swimming her snout
through the garden, the rasping calypso
of crickets, grey clouds tumbling over
each other in their mad race to greet Ohio?

Instead we seek what? Epiphanies, hurrahs,
crescendos, not the subtle reach
of the body toward the lowering
sky, song readying its sparrow
to burst through the lips and fly.

Gliding the Oceans of May

We’ve forgotten the texture
and cloud-scaffolding of sky
so enveloped are we
in the viridian sea-pastures
of May. Whose minstrelsy
has transformed the world into a breathing
ocean of green? We swim
through aquamarine, powered by neither
flipper nor fin, guided only
by an eagle’s cry. Our song
flows into symphony
with whale, porpoise,
and seal. We skim
past protoplasmic fronds,
past newly-leafed ferns
as earth exhales
its lone palette breath:
green, green, green.

Literary Prizes:

• 2006: Writing Fellowship, Wurlitzer Foundation, Taos, NM.
• 2003 Indiana Arts Commission, travel grant for research on poems on the Holocaust
• 2000 Indiana Arts Commission, travel grant for research in Alaska
• 1997 Connections Fellowship to the Mary Anderson Center for the Arts
• 1995 Indiana Arts Commission, Masters Fellowship in Literature
• 1995 Poetry Society of America, Gertrude Claytor Award, Second Place
• 1995 Chester H. Jones Foundation Award Winner
• 1995 Discovery Poetry Award, semifinalist
• 1994 Chester H.Jones Foundation Award Winner
• 1994 Eve of St. Agnes Award Finalist
• 1990 Eve of St. Agnes Award Finalist
• 1987 Bay Area Poets Coalition, First Prize for "Conjuring Borealis"
• 1987 Bay Area Poets Coalition, Second Prize for "Departures"
• 1986 Joan Lee Yang Poetry Prize, First Place, University of Cal.,Berkeley
• 1986 Browning Prize,San Francisco State University.
• 1983 Alaskan Women's Poetry Contest, First Place for "Map"
• 1981 Alaska State Council on the Arts, Poetry Prize

Writing:

Poetry:

I have published over a hundred poems in literary magazines including: the Berkeley Poetry Review, the Hopewell Review, Negative Capability, Artful Dodge, Madison Review, Modern Haiku, and Primavera.

Anthologies:

Work forthcoming in AND KNOW THIS PLACE: POETRY OF INDIANA., Indiana Historical Society, Spring, 2009.

My poems have appeared in the following anthologies: Chester H. Jones Foundation 1995 National Poetry Winners' Anthology. Poetry Society of America: 1995 Prize-Winning Poems. Chester H. Jones Foundation 1994 National Poetry Winners' Anthology. Aurora: 13 Poets on the Aurora Borealis Bull Thistle Press, 1991 A Labor of Love: An Anthology of Poetry on Pregnancy and Childbirth, Polestar Press,1989. The Sky's Own Light: Poems from Alaska, Minotaur Press, 1989. The Hungry Poets' Cookbook, Applezaba Press, l987. Woman and Cancer, Vanessa Press,1986. Finding the Boundaries: Poems and Stories by Alaskan Writers, 1981.

Non-fiction:

J. R. R. Tolkien: Creator of Languages and Legends,
Franklin, Watts, 2003

School Library Journal 2004-07-01

The Herald-Times

Non-fiction samples:

• On the Rim of the World Kivalina, Alaska
• Oranghutan
• Torajaland

Fiction:

Sample my two Cass Monroe mystery novels set in Alaska and New Orleans. Here is the first chapter of South of Point Hope, an Arctic mystery and Honey Island Swamp, an Eco Thriller.

Drama:

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