Have you ever been rejected from a festival, gig, journal, or contest - and then felt the burn and sting of that "no"? I sure have. I've just made a video with four strategies that help me deal with the rejection that is part and parcel of being an artist in the world. Happens to [...]
You've gotta play to win! This is just as true of music and poetry and art and love as it is of the lottery. And the good news is that we're a lot more likely to actually WIN in those games because the odds are always in our favor. Ask, try, submit, propose, invite, query, [...]
The right tools for the job give us wings. They are collaborators, conspirators, co-authors and co-creators. With use, with long relationship, they become ensouled. They become more than the sum of their materials and parts. They become friends. This is true of musical instruments, brushes and paints, recording equipment, ballet shoes, and garden trowels. It's [...]
Here is my humble harp hospital - a perfect place for a lovely little harp to heal. I’ve been doing harp rehab for a friend’s lap harp this week, bringing this beauty back up to pitch and teaching her to make music again. She’s been stowed in a closet for many years, which is the [...]
Just a bit of encouragement: every so often, go through the stacks, the piles, the shoals of unfinished work. For me, that is always bits of paper with poems scribbled on them and then put into rough cairns to be re-found, often months later. What is somewhat funny to me is that the reason I [...]
I'm passionate about the cultivation of intelligence. Nurturing it in myself and in others is one of the most thrilling things I can imagine undertaking on planet Earth. I'm writing a book about teaching and today found me gathering pieces I've written over the years. This excerpt on what I call "integrative intelligence" caught [...]
On my Lake District adventure, I visited a small church that boasts a beautiful stained glass window designed by Edward Burne-Jones and executed by William Morris. I was so moved by the experience and so grateful to the parishioners that I wrote this poem and sent it to them. I got word this week that [...]
In which I read a beautiful Midsummer poem by Irish poet, Padraic Colum. Ah, Summer and Enchantment! From a few years back. Rediscovered today as I am working on creating a multi-media presentation for "Songs of the Poets." Will share news of that soon!
This is a story of how life conspires with us to fulfill our dearest dreams - especially when we are willing to follow good feeling and trust our hearts. For years, I dreamed of visiting the Lake District in the north of England - home of English-language Romantic poetry and a hotbed of artistic creativity [...]
I'm talking here to my fellow musicians, singers, poets, storytellers, and performers of all kinds. By "stink," I mean: ask questions, state your needs, request and require clarification. Delay assent until you receive it. Be gracious, be respectful - but make a stink. That graciousness is what makes it a "gentle stink." It's not really [...]
