About Me

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Belfast, Maine
Writing a memoir called The Architect's Daughter about growing up in Cincinnati in the 1950's and 60's when my father was a radical modern architect and we lived in a glass house.-- Also working on a 3 year collaboration with painter/photographer Michael Weymouth, A Shared Vision of Maine, http://mainesharedview.tumblr.com/ --Maine writer Dawn Potter and I gave a talk at the Belfast Free Library called "Poets Writing Memoir." http://mainehumanities.org/podcast/archives/category/literature/memoir --I'm the author of two books of poetry, Listening Inside the Dance: A Life in Maine Infused with Tango (2005) and Pierced by the Seasons: Living a Life on the Coast of Maine (2004) and a chapbook The Mayor and Other Stories of Small Town Life (2007). Three of my poems have been read by Garrison Keillor on The Writer’s Almanac and “Feasting” was included in his Good Poems for Hard Times.

Tuesday, November 16, 2010

An Unexpected Homecoming



I arrived on Monday morning, the plane lowering for a long descent over the sprawling suburban neighborhoods etching the hills far outside the city. It was a relief for the shadow of our plane to cross the familiar blue brown Ohio river and the high hills it has carved for millennia. When we landed in Kentucky, the stewardess welcomed us to the greater Cincinnati area in a curious way, saying “and if you are returning home, I wish you a good homecoming.”

I had a few plans for the week but mostly I was making it up, going where I was drawn. From the moment I descended the steep highway through northern Kentucky leading towards the new skyline of my old city, I felt exhilarated.

Cities continually remake themselves. Each new generation of new buildings fling themselves upon the sky line, determined to stand out, to cast a strong impression, to fill their block with impressive design and claim a life and space for the people who will live within their build walls. The city creates a continually changing patchwork quilt of the new jockeying for position around the old pre-existing structures. It is a kind of living sculpture of relationships.


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