AWP Conference Bookfair (Bear Star Press Table), Booksigning, Denver,
Colorado, April 9, 2010.
American Society for Aesthetics, Rocky Mountain Division, Santa Fe,
July 2009.
The Visiting Writers Program, SUNY-Farmingdale, February 2007.
The Stephen Dunn Award Reading, Portland, Maine, April 2005.
American Culture Association, San Diego, March 2005.
Robert Frost Festival, Lawrence, Massachusetts, October 2004.
American Culture Association, San Antonio, Texas, April 2004.
Southwest Writers Series, Prescott, Arizona, February 2004.
American Society for Aesthetics, Rocky Mountain Division, Sante Fe, July 2003.
Poet’s Corner, Cable Access Channel, Prescott, Arizona, January 2003.
Literature Fair Day, YavapaiCollege, Prescott, Arizona, December 2002.
Professional Writers of Prescott, Arizona, August 2002.
American Society for Aesthetics, Rocky Mountain Division, Sante Fe, July 2002.
Poetry Live!YavapaiCollegeVerdeValley Reading, April 2002.
YavapaiCounty English Teachers Conference Keynote Panel, April 2002.
KUSK Interview, The Tonya Mock Show, January 2002.
SharlotHallMuseum, Prescott, Arizona, December 2001.
SELECTIONS
Evidentiary
What a lot of talk that was. What the trail said, what the woods said, what the water said, what the branches (naked in their reach) said, what the hunter could have chosen not to say but did, what each season said in some other room (dormant and otherwise clothed), what the sky said twice. It would be a trick to think any of us said it all in the end, though we watched the show unfold from the edge and though our private room had windows, which means an expansive view. Of course, we can't forget the deer in the photo, tattoos curled like leafy tendrils along her neck. There we are, back to branches. The way they refuse to let go of our bodies, the way they refuse to let our bodies not go.
(first published in Horse Less Review, Winter 2011) (from O Dear Deer, , Squall Publishing, 2011)
In Defense of Objects(I)
An object…is what makes infinity private.
—Joseph Brodsky, Watermark
Unlikely winters: San Francisco and its trolley
car stuck in snow, Bangkok blizzard white.
Flakes shake to life, bright and insular.Cities
fade in the blur of a handmade storm.
Despite the dizzying effects, the eye rests
there, at home in beauty’s small arcade.
No sirens sound, no policemen sew their yellow
threads to these streets.The past collects
on souvenirs, turning kitsch to treasure.
When the Wedgwood knife falls
to the floor, shards of blue shed like tears.
Yet the eye is safe here, even in pieces.
The pink Christmas ball shatters to an inner life
of mirrors.It’s what confounds the mendicant:
the object’s pull, the need for pockets to keep
stuff in.What amounts to wonder lurks in things,
whole or broken, near, as distant as the gray
gargoyle where the eye’s balloon comes to rest.
Rusted keys, horseshoe, rust itself, color of burnt
sienna.The word itself:burnt sienna.
Petals pool beneath a tree.In morning light,
the snow globe glows like a translucent papoose.
(first published in Harpur Palate, 2005)
(from In Defense of Objects, Bear Star Press, 2009)
