I write poems, make lists, and cook things up, bringing it all to a low simmer, a stir with the wooden spoon here and there, a long wait for the meal, a house filling with the smell of what's being prepared.
For the past six years, I've been working in Chicago as a teaching artist through organizations like Urban Gateways, The Poetry Center of Chicago and Gallery 37, among others. I was the recipient of the Gwendolyn Brooks Award for excellence in teaching. I've performed poetry in events including The Reconstruction Room and Elbowing Off the Stage. I was a finalist for the 2009 Pocataligo Poetry Contest and my poems appear most recently in Buffalo Carp and The MacGuffin.
In my teaching practice, I spend time with people and share poems that I love with them, as we explore the effect of each piece, and work together to discover what has been done and how. Poems, being made of words, are rooted in the idea of communication, and a place where--among other things--poets can explore with freedom and speak the truth with frankness (not veiled by obscurity, as is so often the mistaken identity of poetry). We are always making observations about our daily world and connections between one moment and another, one image and another image. Poetry is about the practice of capturing these observations before they pass. Poetry is about making beauty out of what is in front of us.
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