Category: Writing

  • My Review of Gabe Montesanti’s “The Signs” in Split Lip Magazine

    Today, Split Lip Magazine published my review of Gabe Montesanti’s prose poetry piece “The Signs.”

    If you have a moment, please check out my review, but if you REALLY have a moment, please read Gabe Montesanti’s very unique poem, which Okay Donkey published back in April of this year.

    Also, I would like to thank everyone over at Split Lip for their help and support, especially Daniel, who guided and edited my piece. It was a lotta fun, and enjoyed the experience.

  • Prose Poetry Review: “Plum Mother” by Michael Nickels-Wisdom

    (The prose poetry piece “Plum Mother” by Michael Nickels-Wisdom was published August 27th, 2025 on Lost Balloon.)

    I don’t know if there is officially a genre of poetry that is about pets, but there should be. Most of these pieces are melancholic in nature and conclude with the pet passing on. What these pieces remind me of is Poe’s “The Philosophy of Composition,” in which he states that, “the death, then, of a beautiful woman is unquestionably, the most poetical topic in the world.” I would argue, and I am not making a joke here, that you could substitute one’s “pet” and come to the same conclusion.

    Please, let me explain…

    I was struck by this thought of while reading Michael Nickels-Wisdom’s “Plumb Mother.” This is a short prose poetry piece and it would be easy, and unwise, to simply see this as an anecdote of the speaker’s quirky but loved dog. From the beginning, the dog is delivered from above, down to the speaker, and by the second line it is established that the dog is well taken care of and has lived a long life of 17 years with the speaker and their family. In the dog’s middle age, she is given a plum which she treats as a child; acting as if it were nursing and defending the plum when it is “threatened.” Unfortunately, the plum withers, leaving the dog to set it down and mourn its passing.

    Poetry can exist and function in a timeless state, but in this piece we clearly have a past and a present. This dog now exists in the past, as we are told that in the second line, which hits on the “most poetical topic in the world,” while also establishing a melancholy feel for the rest of the poem. Though the story of the dog’s actions with the plum are humorous, it is in the last line where it is understood that there are two sets of mourning occurring here; the dog and the speaker. Yes, this is a piece about a funny incident with a dog, but it is a testament to the affection the speaker has for their pet, and to the joy and affirmation that a pet can bring to one’s life.

    It is tragic when a loved pet passes on from our families. They do give so much to enrich our lives. Reading “Plum Mother” reminded me of the tragic truth of having a pet, as we will out live them, but loving an animal as a family member is always a gift.

  • Short Story Review: “Project” by Rachel Cusk

    (The short story “Project” by Rachel Cusk appeared in the September 1st & 8th, 2025 issue of The New Yorker.)

    Photo illustration by Stephen Doyle

    I am a big fan of Rachel Cusk; have been for some time now. There are a great number of reasons why I enjoy her work, and when I read anything by her, such as “Project” in this week’s New Yorker, my fandom evolves into admiration, and even a little jealously. I am not jealous of her talent as a writer, envious might be the better word for that, but when I read her work, I wish I was the type of writer that had time. Cusk’s fictional version of herself, though narrator might be a fairer description, possess the greatest gift of all; time. Time to observe and contemplate.

    In “Project,” the narrator contemplates how who we are gets created. This contemplation leads to a path that bends and turns and takes us to people in the narrator’s life. First we meet M, a movie star and model. The narrator is thinking of writing M’s autobiography, which M’s response is to “…just make it up.” In this first section of the story, the narrator intertwines her interactions with M, while also speaking of a book she is reading by a woman who details the horrid abuse she suffered at the hands of her stepfather. It is a strange comparison, if not a juxtaposition. In Cusk’s assured hands, we see how these woman took their situations, fought back and went forth to create better versions of themselves, yet both spoke of a moment where their childhoods were lost… But even as I try to describe this, I am not doing this story justice. The story moves on the narrator’s partner, and his bout with an aliment and the need to a brief stay in a hospital. Then there are questions of the time we have and how we share it. Why we live the way we live and where we live…. See, not doing this justice.

    This story falls into my favorite Cusk style of writing – It just flows. Maybe this type of writing is like stream-of-consciousness-lite. These thoughts and ideas have depth and weight to them, but they don’t get tangled up in minutia and tangents. All of these disparate ideas roll across the page, with observations of the life the narrator lives, but also how some of these truth and universal; Or at least there is a hope that they are. This is a story seems to be celebrating the existential gift of being able to create our self, and chose how to live out that creation. And to do all of this, to have a life that can be observed, we need time for reflection.

    And through all of it, the ins and outs of this story, Cusk has a wonderful melancholic final paragraph. Not so much an observation, or a contemplation, but a memory of raising her children; when trust was tangible and innocent. That taking the time, to remember and re-experience, is a continuous step in the project of self creation.

  • Alone Again, Again

    We have been very lucky in our family, as my wife has a great job that allows her to work from home. On the whole, this works out very well for all parties. The wife plugs away at her job in the home office, and I work where ever there is a space, which most of the time is the couch. The only conflict we run into is when one of us has a deadline, and the other one wants to talk, or be loud, or talk loudly.

    But today happened to be one of the days that the wife headed into the office to work.

    And I’m alone, but with the dog, but she ignores me, the dog that is, so I am basically alone today.

    It’s like sensory overload today; I have too much freedom.

    I got all my errands done early in the morning after the wife and kid left, which was good and has now left the late morning and afternoon free for me. But it is also like everything has ground to a halt. With everything possible today (playing my music loud, talking to myself, reading out loud, taking a walk, taking a nap) I’m in a state of stasis. What do I do first?

    Funny how yesterday I was pointing out my inability to focus, and today I have been given freedom, and it’s making it harder to focus on what to pursue.

    I shouldn’t complain, but sometimes I still do…

  • Focus!

    The kid started in middle school this year, and I wrote awhile back about how she is adjusting to having more homework. And it’s going okay. We are still working and adjusting to the change.

    One of the issues the kid has with doing her homework, is that she gets bored and her mind wanders. A totally normal reaction for a kid to have when it comes to reading about world history, or having to write a paragraph on the three different states of matter. What we are trying is the twenty minutes of work, and five minutes of break time. Back and forth until the home work is done. Seems to be working.

    The funny thing that I discovered about myself is that I can’t sit down and work anymore. Good lord do I get distracted easily. Like really easily. See, I have been trying to work on this blog for thirty minutes now, but I keep on thinking of something else I need to do – which I have to go and do so I don’t forget.

    Sure, I know that there are some of you out there that would call that procrastinating, and you might be right.

    But what I feel myself experiencing is a lack of focus. Like, I sit down and I write a sentence, and then I start to wonder about… well, anything and everything. I kind’a find myself going to Wikipedia and just reading page after page about weird stuff. Or seeing if L.L Bean is selling any sweaters at a discount.

    I feel that I have lost the skill of being able to sit down and focus for even twenty minutes.

    I could blame my phone, and that would be accurate. Yet, don’t I have to take a little responsibility here? If I have a lack of focus, then I am the one who created this problem, right?