American Mestiza

I totally forgot yesterday was National Poem in Your Pocket Day. I feel remiss as a poet that I somehow missed the industry-sanctioned...

Today (if you’re on the west coast, yesterday on the east) was César Chávez’s birthday, known in the western and southwestern parts of...

Today marks the 28th day of the Tupelo Press 30/30 poetry challenge fundraiser that I have been participating in. Wow. I kinda can’t even...

I seriously cannot believe the month is almost over! It's gone by *so* fast and I've done SO MUCH. I took a trip to sunny Los Angeles...

That sounds dramatic, but once, in a two-week visiting writer workshop at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Li-Young Lee (who might...

I keep writing about the ordinary because for me it's the home of the extraordinary, the only home – Philip Levine I never cry when...

I love sending Christmas cards. Of course, none of them say “Christmas”* on them (because I am a lieutenant in the insidious liberal war...

For the record, I don’t actually have anything against turducken. Or deep fried turkey. I think as red-blooded, vote-participating,...

Ten days ago I posted about some of my favorite animated Halloween-related movies, and at the end I explained why Tim Burton’s The...

October is most definitely my favorite month. No, it's not my birth month, it's Halloween month. It is the month of black cats, witch...