The Writing Path Blog

… is coming soon, to a URL near you. Stay tuned. That’s all I’m saying for today. Visit https://racheldacus.net for more information and writing by Rachel Dacus.

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Why aren’t there more poems about rockets? I think of the shuttle crew up there repairing the Hubble Space Telescope right this minute. How amazing that is for the child of a rocket engineer in the 1950s. My dad spent most of his career just trying to create a rocket that could make it past the atmosphere. My father called home to his family on the world’s first — FIRST! — satellite-bounced phone call (it…

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Poetry in the White House: the new look of a new administration is to care about the spoken word. I knew things were looking good when it turned out that our new President wrote poetry in college. And that he writes his own speeches. That hasn’t happened practically since Lincoln. So I wasn’t entirely surprised to read today in the Washington Post that last night the East Room was the venue for a poetry jam.…

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I’m speaking of the new Samsung phone, which I got for my birthday. Thank heavens I got it a week in advance of the actual day, because I would have had to spend the day turning over the little black box and wondering where all the buttons were and which end to speak into. Instead, today I navigated us from Walnut Creek to Sonoma using the inbuilt GPS with spoken directions. My mother (86) asked…

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Check out BabelFruit’s new look. And look below (and to the left) for a sample of rosarian Carolyn Parker’s photo work. I’m not telling you this just because I have three poems in the current issue, but because I want you to enjoy the smooth ride, the visual and literary pleasures, and the ease of maneuvering through this zine. It’s everything an online magazine should be, and editors Ren Powell, Cati Porter, BA De Oliveira…

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Eternity is a new phone I’m in love with. And stumbling around in. It has many features, it surfs the Web, it emails (sometimes when I’m not looking), it has widgets, and is generally like a new puppy — adorable and unmanageable. But I’ve ordered a bunch of accessories, so it’s all good, right? It’s my birthday present, and it can find the nearest Starbuck’s and pizza place. What’s not to like, even if it…

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Get to know a new Poet Laureate (England’s): Who Is Carol Ann Duffy? New Laureate’s Rhyming Riposte NYTimes on Duffy with Links The rain has stopped, and I’m going to try to get out for a walk. If I get wet, that will only be a plus. Rain in May in the Bay Area! The unusual phenom will continue through about midweek, with my spirits soaring accordingly. Yet, I am thoughtful about my water use,…

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I can’t stop writing poems about it, rain in May, a benediction and a beknighting both — for our choral concert in Union Square this afternoon it’s a dubious blessing, for our landscape it’s bounty. Okay, I’ll stop alliterating. Missing my Napowrimo group and the pressure to not only write every day but post and critique. It was an excellent exercise among a group of talented poets, and I look forward to our next workshop…

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And I’m sorry to see it go. I wrote more than 30 poems, posted them and critiqued with a talented group at Alsop Review’s Gazebo, an activity I was hesitant to undertake. My deal with my muse is that I can write things I will show nobody, but I surprised myself by being able to write those and many more things I would show others, even in their raw, 24-hour-old form. I used some old…

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Winning his second Pulitzer Prize for a new collection, The Shadow of Sirius, poet W.S. Merwin said he was pleased and that the book was “a happy accident.” He described it as having a first section about childhood and remembering childhood, “not from a distance, but from inside.” The middle section is a collection of elegies to dogs, and the final section is about later life. Publisher’s Weekly called it his best book in a…

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