Instagram once bolstered my confidence, until the platform fell out from under me. I counted likes and shares in increasing heights of obsession. I used the validation to measure my self-worth. I posted once a week on an Instagram poetry account for eighteen months. I retreated in July 2022 from online approval and marked my…

On a November night in Panthertown Valley, I wrote my first haiku. Inside a camping tent, a friend taught me the basic syllable structure known as “5-7-5”. Three years later, I was brought up to speed on advanced techniques by a poet named Bob. The Panthertown lessons glossed over flexibilities and intricacies within Japanese forms,…

Poetry is one of my oldest friends. Rhyme, rhythm, meter, and vocabulary have supported me since I was a toddler. An interest in illustrated poetry books by Dr Seuss and Shel Silverstein later transformed into an attraction to Edgar Allan Poe. The woes of Poe were soon followed by love poems written to my middle…

One October day, I was sitting beside a creek with another writer. My friend asked, “Why do you write?” The best answer I could think of was, “When I don’t write, it’s like a silence I can’t stand. I crave it. I keep coming back.” Coming back to the craft is my most important rule…