20 years married. Who'd have believed it?

As of today, My Best Beloved and I have been married for 20 years.  This comes as something of a shock, especially to me.  Prior to meeting My Best Beloved I did not have a great track record with relationships.  I blame myself for this entirely.  I chose the wrong men for the right reasons,…

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Paul Muldoon — A Poet in the Prison

Last week, Paul Muldoon, Pulitzer Prize and T.S. Elliot Prize winning poet and poetry editor of the New Yorker, came to visit the weekly class I teach at a prison here in New Jersey. The classroom is in the basement of the prison.  Bright primary-colored squares on the floor tiles, and pale blue walls strive…

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A Third Possibility

People frequently ask me, “Where did you go to college?” and some look as though I’ve just walloped them in the face with a flounder when I reply, “I didn’t go to college.”  How can that be, I see them thinking, you’re a published author.  Yeah.  And in this era of nearly mandatory MFAs, I…

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What Can't Be Taught

Being a writer, I write, but I also teach creative writing.  I teach a workshop once a month in a lovely bright room in a cafe in Princeton, New Jersey; and I teach once a week in a dim, goatish-smelling, basement cubbyhole in a prison in Bordentown, New Jersey.  Except for the setting, and perhaps…

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