AJ

“Don't cure me, Mother, I couldn't bear
the bath
of your bitter spittle.
No salve
no ointment in a doctor's tube, no brew in a witch's kettle, no lover's mouth, no friend
or god could heal me
if your heart
turned in anathema, grew stone
against me.
Defenseless
and naked as the day
I slid from you
twin voices keening and the cord
pulsing our common protests, I'm coming back
back to you
woman, flesh
of your woman's flesh, your fairest, most
faithful mirror,
my love
transversing me like a filament
wired to the noonday sun.

Receive
me, Mother.”
― Olga Broumas, Beginning with O

“One reason that people have artist’s block is that they do not respect the law of dormancy in nature. Trees don’t produce fruit all year long, constantly. They have a point where they go dormant. And when you are in a dormant period creatively, if you can arrange your life to do the technical tasks that don’t take creativity, you are essentially preparing for the spring when it will all blossom again.”
― Marshall Vandruff

“Read. Everything you can get your hands on. Read until words become your friends. Them when you need to find one, they will jump into your mind, waving their hands for you to pick them. And you can select whichever you like, just like a captain choosing a stickball team.”
― Karen Witemeyer

“You remember too much,
my mother said to me recently.
Why hold onto all that? And I said,
Where can I put it down?”
― Anne Carson, Glass, Irony and God