In south Texas the line really was a river, even if it didn’t look like much. From the window of the pickup that Rose used to pick me up from the bus station the land on either side appeared equally flat and bland, the unpainted houses and patchwork fields set amid groves of trees as brown as grocery store bags. Winter had leached the color from the...
Read More
Poetry lives in the rigor of its format. A sonnet: 14 lines of 10 syllables each, with a specific rhyming scheme. Haiku: 17 syllables, no more or less. Even a randy limerick has to follow a precise line structure. What irritations writers have felt when what seems precisely the right word in its meaning doesn’t fit the meter or the rhyme—what tyranny, they...
Read More
Let’s begin with A. A for arroyo, also often known as wash: “often steep-walled . . . flat-bottomed or laden with boulders and gravel,” an attribute that comes in handy if you have an old Willys jeep, as my friend Jim has, and a need for a winter camp out of the way of the chilly wind, as we did more than once back when I lived in Tucson. You can drive up...
Read More
The hip-hop artist and climate activist Xiuhtezcatl Martinez was in Flagstaff late last week for an address at NAU’s Climate 2020 summit and an evening performance at the Orpheum Theater. He made it clear up front that the rules of engagement for the two events were not the same. “I need you all right in front, in the mosh pit!” he commanded the sitting...
Read More
The first time I glimpsed it, the Big Stump from a distance loomed vaguely ahead like some oversized vacationer, perhaps some former football player out on the coast for a weekend of casual fun. But no. As I got closer I saw that it was taller and more wide-shouldered than even the biggest linebacker. It looked like a massive, solid block of dark wet wood...
Read More