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I write poetry when a moment in the ordinary flow of moments startles with flashpoint intensity. I try to absorb the uncanny heat that lingers in the aftermath, even as it rises above me.

Then the work begins: recall the particulars of the moment with the candour of the heart before the rigour of the mind; watch them spin themselves into kaleidoscopes of possibility, sometimes beyond my bravest imaginings; gather the shiniest and the scariest details together (they’ll be the same ones); and arrange them to mirror the original moment.

I always fail: I end with a stained-glass window, fragmented, refracting, but sometimes radiant.

Read more of my poems in literary journals like Canadian Woman Studies, Island Writer, and Ascent Aspirations, and in anthologies like Madwoman in the Academy and Walk Myself Home.

Watch for my collection of poems entitled Brief, Beloved Molecules.

Go to a poetry reading in your area (in Victoria, try Planet Earth Poetry) and read your own poem at open mic!

Or find poetry’s magic on line:

Your Daily Poem

The Writer's Almanac

“A bird is a poem/that talks of the end of cages.” (Patrick Lane, “The Bird,” The Last Water Song)

“A live metaphor is a linguistic short-circuit . . . . Metaphors shave off the insulation and meaning arcs across the gap.” (Jan Zwicky, Wisdom and Metaphor)

“Within its silence, exile, and cunning, poetry holds both the hiding and the seeking, for both are the point.” (Jane Hirshfield, Nine Gates: Entering the Mind of Poetry)

“Poem is wave. At the poem’s baseline is our unknowing, at its crest, the gathering of our knowing.” (Betsy Warland, Breathing the Page)