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A Matrix Poem
Lately, I’ve been playing around with creating a poem that reads two ways. All poems, of course, can be understood in multiple ways, but I wanted one with words that could actually be read in two different orders–and make just as much sense in each. Early on, I came up with the idea of arranging the…
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Washing Dishes
Some days in my life are so full it feels like I’ll never get everything done if I don’t use every spare second. If the cornbread muffins are going to take 12 minutes to cook, that’s 12 minutes I can spend grading papers. And if one of those papers is taking a long time to…
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A Gossiper of the Imaginary
“When you’re a novelist, you’re a gossiper of the imaginary.” -Jane Smiley, winner of the Pulitzer Prize It’s been awhile since I’ve written any fiction. Sometimes I think I’m too analytical to do a good job of it. I am, after all, a philosopher by training, and philosophy requires thinking very systematically, and favoring rigor…
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The New Domesticity
I began Emily Matchar’s Homeward Bound: Why Women Are Embracing the New Domesticity with excitement. Matchar’s book, released in May 2013, reports on the “generation of smart, highly educated young people [who] are spending their time knitting, canning jam, baking cupcakes, gardening, and more (and blogging about it, of course).” As the jacket copy says, “Some are…