Photo by BoliviaInteligente on Unsplash I read an interesting perspective on detecting artificial intelligence in writing, written by Matt LillyWhite: https://medium.com/the-daily-draft/ill-instantly-know-a-writer-used-chatgpt-when-i-see-this-7130506fe37e?sharedUserId=rfarmer_68430

I’ve been working on yet another poem about groundhogs; well, the groundhog that has plagued me every spring and summer for quite a few years. At one point I assumed, it was a different one. However, according to “The Groundhog Fact Sheet,” (https://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/blog/groundhogs-facts/), these mammals live a long time. My property or the entire neighborhood could be one groundhog’s annual vacation spot. Photo by Andy Sanchez on Unsplash As I read the fact sheet, I

photo by Pedro Vergara For the first time in thirty years, I’m tempted to give up on my garden. When I lived in Charlotte years ago, I grew vegetables that generated lots of food, including tomatoes, garlic, peas and beans, arugula, peppers, and herbs of all kinds. Many meals were created from this bounty. In Charlotte, I lived on farmland, with soil that had decades of enrichment. Now living in Bristol, every inch I dig into yields rocks and stones and clayey earth. Still

Photo by Lea Kobal on Unsplash Like many people on this planet, I'm bombarded by information, messages, emails, and other encroachments on my attention. Much of these seek to convince me that I can be better - better dressed, better educated, more sociable or more spiritual. In other words, brochures, emails, ads, and other "communications" are telling me I am not enough. And that is true, if enough is a euphemism for perfect. I'll never be perfect in the way that these notes

It's Been A While: One thing about maintaining a blog is that you've got to maintain it. I've not been very good about doing that! Yet, I have been writing: Poems, essays, pieces in Addy Indy's Ways of Seeing column, daily journals. Writing starts my mornings and shapes my days. Publishing - as in posting to this blog - that's been an issue. Now that I have a summer break from reading other people's writing, I'll see if I can create a new habit. *** Did You Ever Wonder? I fre

Gul Zeynep Genc on Unsplash Recently, I attended a women’s mini-retreat at All Souls Interfaith Gathering in Shelburne. The event,...

Photo by Meadow Marie on Unsplash On July 5 th , I went to the Rokeby Museum to their annual community reading of Frederick Douglass’...

So much has happened in the first few months of the return of the Trump administration, much of it angering, troubling, and / or...

Photo by srinivas bandari on Unsplash I'm listening to the rain patter against my bedroom window. The clouds have lingered for two days,...

raju-bhupatiraju-Ke11c4ZsG6E-unsplash.jpg I’ve been reading Craig Johnson books these past few days. This morning, in the midst of...

Yesterday I stood outside the Champlain Valley Unitarian Universalist Church, listening to a person describe her forays into creating a...

Photo by Milada Vigerova on Unsplash Meditation is one of the few practices that I've maintained for consecutive years. Yoga is another...

One of my fun jobs as a volunteer at the Lawrence Memorial Library is "processing" books. This entails making jackets (paper and...

My latest Ways of Seeing Column: "What I've been reading" Three years ago, I joined Goodreads’ annual reading challenge. Since then, I’ve...

Shuffling through my nightwear, I tossed aside several bottoms simply because they don't have pockets. Now, you'd think that since it's...

Recently, I received a newsletter that was totally uninteresting except for a bit of information that was worth noting: praise for...

I wanted to give my friends something on my birthday, today, September 12th. Happy Tuesday!

I hope you enjoy hearing me read, "Snapshots of the Wind": https://static.wixstatic.com/mp3/f1d3cb_dc3e6e62c9dd427ca8bc386238c0a99c.m4a...

Two of my poems were recently published in The Coop: A Poetry Cooperative: Lifting the Veil (from my collection, Snapshots of the Wind)...

When I was studying at Bennington College's MFA Writing Seminars, faculty mentor David Lehman, urged students to write a poem a day. As...