Clearstories at R. Michelson Galleries

Clearstories, my poetry/image collaboration with photographer Stephen Petegorsky, is showing at R. Michelson Galleries in Northampton, MA this month. The exhibition, which features 17 of the pairs, was written up in a fine article by Steve Pfarrar in the Daily Hampshire Gazette. We also were interviewed on WHMP’s Talk the Talk along with gallery manager …

A shallow, wide river with stony banks passes through thick forest in Shutesbury, Massachusetts on a rainy day.

The Forest and the Trees

My latest journalistic piece came out in The Shoestring last month. The piece explores the conflict between the need to produce green energy in Massachusetts, and the pressure of solar development on lands we’d prefer to conserve, like forests and farmlands. What happens when large-scale, for-profit solar threatens green space? Are the local citizens challenging …

An art photo of the skeleton of a baby crocodile, by Stephen Petegorsky. The photo shows a yellow torso, greenish bones, and a patterned blue background that resembles ripples or mud.

Baby Crocodile in Scientific American

I was delighted to ring in the New Year with a published poem in the storied magazine Scientific American. The poem is part of my Clearstories collaboration with photographer Stephen Petegorsky. In “Baby Crocodile,” I drew on a memory of an encounter with a Florida alligator (a species of crocodilian). These reptiles seem cold and …

Clearstories

I’ve been collaborating with photographer Stephen Petegorsky on a set of paired poems and photos, titled Clearstories. An excerpt from the project has now been published as an online chapbook at Terrain.org: Clearstories The project explores animal specimens that have been cleared and stained, a process in which they are treated with an enzyme to …

a spring peeper on a leaf

Roaming the Valley – ancient lakes, frogs, and sand volcanoes

Despite wintry weather chewing at my edges I’ve spent plenty of time outdoors roaming the Pioneer Valley in the last few months. In late January, UMass geoscientist Julie Brigham-Grette took me for a McPhee-style gander through regional geology: Right now, we’re turning down a squelchy, pitted dirt road in the back fields of Sunderland. Minutes …