This past week I read a poem at an open mic during a live remote radio broadcast. Before the show, the guest interviewees, musicians and writers gathered for a briefing to learn our place in the line-up, provide the emcees with our introduction, and receive a pink Post-It note. The pink slip contained seven words deemed indecent or obscene by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). Words we were asked to not say out loud on the show. I was curious, were these in fact the same seven words that helped launch George Carlin’s career to national prominence after he first uttered them in 1972 in his monologue, “Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television.” Continue reading
Mixed Metaphors
Mixed Metaphors, Oh My! – A place where words, this writer, and readers play together.
Protect and Serve
The following essay was written to commemorate International Women’s Day on March 8 and to shine a light on the issue of violence towards women.
On the Street Where I Lived
Humboldt Park was only one block from my house growing up in Racine, Wisconsin. I was born in 1950 and my family moved to the southwest side neighborhood when I was six. The houses were starter homes and the six square blocks south of the park were plotted on a grid and each of the homes were sited identically, small Cape Cod homes with minor embellishments of color, shutters, some with dormers on the second story, and others a living room bay window. There was some comfort and equality in the sameness of my neighborhood. Continue reading
A Pocketful of Gumballs
Growing up in the 1950s, I was a member of the first wave of baby boomers, an elementary school child whose young family moved to the suburbs and learned to thrive in the emerging cold-war culture. My parents purchased their first home in a new Federal Housing Authority neighborhood of starter homes for returning veterans and their young families. I was the eldest child, six-years-old in 1956 in Racine, Wisconsin, the Belle City, home of Case tractors and Johnson Wax. Continue reading