Poetry Slam

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]The Echo myth might be one of my least favorite stories of Greek mythology, but it lends its name to one of my new favorite poetry forms. In the myth, the nymph Echo falls in love with the worthless manbaby Narcissus who basically is...

45 is the magic number for this month's poetry slam. 45 syllables, that is: the 45 syllables, in decreasing lines, of the form known as nonet. I know this is the point where I usually get bogged down in some big long history lesson, but the fact is that there just...

If you grew up in the USA, the odds are pretty good that at some point you were required to write a haiku in class. Your teacher probably sat you all down and gave you a little lecture on the history and culture of Japan that may or may not have been accurate at all,...

Imagine your life was a musical. I don't care if the image that comes to mind is Hollywood or Bollywood, you get what I mean. At appropriate moments all the characters stop talking, turn to each other, and start singing what they mean instead. This is the basic theory...

I know it doesn't feel like it today, when the Real Feel Index says that I'm sitting in a room that's literally halfway to the boiling point of water, but summer is winding down and coming to an end. Kids are headed back to school, and for some of us (not me, thanks,...

[vc_row][vc_column width="1/1"][vc_column_text]Ah, summer. The dog days thereof, in fact. The science fictioneer in me gets excited for the conjunction of the sun and Sirius, the Dog Star... but the rest of me is too damn hot and sweaty to care all that much. When...