La Chascona | Pablo Neruda’s Home

Photo Credit: magical_world
The Chilean Nobel Prize winning poet Pablo Neruda owned three homes in Chile–two outside Santiago and one in Barrio Bellavista in Santiago. His home in Bellavista is named after his third wife Mathilde: “La Chascona” which pays tribute to her unruly hair.
Neruda was one of the strongest influences during my graduate studies in poetry. His use [...]

Cerro El Roble | The Oak Hill

It’s becoming Fall here! So strange to be writing about Fall foods like casseroles and chilly weather when so many of you are breaking out your skirts and t-shirts.
I went on another hike last weekend–this one on Cerro El Roble–The Oak Hill–and located in La Campana National Park about an hour and a half outside of [...]

Tonight I Can Write

Photo Credit: Bracani….Antonio
Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
Write for example, ‘The night is shattered
and the blue stars shiver in the distance.’
The night wind revolves in the sky and sings.
 
A portion of Pablo Neruda’s poem XX, Twenty Love Poems and a
Song of Despair
There are mosquitos the size of bats on the ceiling. I’ve been [...]

Descending – Tango

Photo Credit: Zabara_Tango
This is the place.
And I am here, the mermaid whose dark hair
streams black, the merman in his armored body.
We circle silently
about the wreck
we dive into the hold.
I am she: I am he
An excerpt from the poem “Diving into the Wreck” by Adrienne Rich.
Around three years ago, I learned how to scuba dive. I’m [...]

Golden

Leaves litter the sidewalks now–golden and curled. The scuttle of dried leaves even scared the tender greyhound I walked today. As I dashed through them, chasing after the lithe hound on my leash, the leaves brought to mind part of one of my favorite poems by Marvin Bell, “These Green Going to Yellow”–
This year,
I’m raising [...]

Valzhyna Mort

Please indulge me in some non-Buenos Aires related news. One of my friends, an enormously talented and humble poet named Valzhyna, has a new book entitled Factory of Tears. Her second book of poetry was published by my all-time favorite press, the well respected Copper Canyon.
The press has published some of my writing “mentors” and [...]