Murphy Writing of Stockton University Presents This entry is part of Getaway Reads, an e-mail series curated by Stephanie Cawley that features the writing of the Winter Poetry & Prose Getaway faculty. Who Will Tell My Story? by Mimi Schwartz I was away on a writing retreat this January, the first time since my husband Stu died last August that I was able to push away the loss and sense of chaos and feel more like a self I remembered. I vowed not to do e-mail, but like Adam biting the apple, I did it anyway. “Did you pay your quarterly taxes ... Read More...
Getaway Reads: Two Poems by BJ Ward
This entry is part of Getaway Reads, a weekly e-mail series curated by Stephanie Cawley that features the writing of the Winter Poetry & Prose Getaway faculty. The Star-Ledger by BJ Ward 287 was the long road to the newspaper plant my black-handed father would ride beneath the weight of a night sky. A father who works the night shift knows that weight, how it accumulates from within when his mistakes and debt begin to press on his children and ... Read More...
Getaway Reads: Fifty-Fifty by Roberta Clipper
This entry is part of Getaway Reads, a weekly e-mail series curated by Stephanie Cawley that features the writing of the Winter Poetry & Prose Getaway faculty. Fifty-Fifty by Roberta Clipper That’s what I call myself. My mother’s a mongrel. That’s what she says: ancestors from so many different parts of Europe that she can’t tell where she got the same name as Dad’s. It’s true! It’s on her birth certificate—Gillian Ann Gill. As southern as the William Williamses and Jo Ann Joneses of the West. I tease her: “If you’d hyphenated it, you’d be Jill ... Read More...
Getaway Reads: from Killing the Messenger by Thomas Peele
This entry is part of Getaway Reads, a weekly e-mail series curated by Stephanie Cawley that features the writing of the Winter Poetry & Prose Getaway faculty. from Killing the Messenger by Thomas Peele Where justice is denied, where poverty is enforced, where ignorance prevails, and where any one class is made to feel that society is an organized conspiracy to oppress, rob, and degrade them, neither persons nor property will be safe. --Frederick Douglass Him. That kid. Over there. In the skullcap. With the iPod. Him. That ... Read More...
Getaway Reads: The Need for Character by Richard K. Weems
This entry is part of Getaway Reads, a weekly e-mail series curated by Stephanie Cawley that features the writing of the Winter Poetry & Prose Getaway faculty. The Need for Character by Richard K. Weems The virtue of hope, in Enoch, was made of two parts suspicion and one part lust…He wanted, some day, to see a line of people waiting to shake his hand. --Flannery O’Connor, “Enoch and the Gorilla” Until this morning, my story was the same as any other yokel leaning on the brass rail at 9 a.m. Until this morning, there was no reason to ... Read More...
Getaway Reads: Poems by Lois Marie Harrod
This entry is part of Getaway Reads, a weekly e-mail series curated by Stephanie Cawley that features the writing of the Winter Poetry & Prose Getaway faculty. Doorknobs by Lois Marie Harrod Someday one will turn and slip—hot and heavy from your hand and you will hear its twin clunk on the other side of the bedroom and there will be the door between the two of you, as it has been, apparently, before ... Read More...
Getaway Reads: Notes on Eavesdropping by Nancy Falkow
This entry is part of Getaway Reads, a weekly e-mail series curated by Stephanie Cawley that features the writing of the Winter Poetry & Prose Getaway faculty. Notes on Eavesdropping by Nancy Falkow I’m not nosey. (Okay, well maybe a little.) I’m just always collecting inspiration. Eavesdropping is when I write down phrases or snippets I hear when I’m out and about, or when I'm listening to podcasts, or watching movies or TV. Sometimes I pop these snippets into my songwriting journal or I keep a running list in my phone. While listening to a podcast ... Read More...
Getaway Reads: Two Poems by Dorianne Laux
This entry is part of Getaway Reads, a weekly e-mail series curated by Stephanie Cawley that features the writing of the Winter Poetry & Prose Getaway faculty. Facts About the Moon by Dorianne Laux The moon is backing away from us an inch and a half each year. That means if you’re like me and were born around fifty years ago the moon was a full six feet closer to the earth. What’s a person supposed to do? I feel the gray cloud of consternation travel across my face. I begin thinking about the moon-lit past, how if you go ... Read More...
Getaway Reads: Two Poems by BJ Ward
This entry is part of Getaway Reads, a weekly e-mail series curated by Stephanie Cawley that features the writing of the Winter Poetry & Prose Getaway faculty. The Photographer's Divorce by BJ Ward She walks out the door for the final time and her absence is already moving in, clutching its baggage, looking for whiskey in his cupboard, negatives in his camera. Her absence sets the table for one where it and the man will dine alone together for many nights. As they eat each night in the stark light of a single candle (how ... Read More...
Getaway Reads: Two Poems by Stephen Dunn
This entry is part of Getaway Reads, a weekly e-mail series curated by Stephanie Cawley that features the writing of the Winter Poetry & Prose Getaway faculty. The Imagined by Stephen Dunn If the imagined woman makes the real woman seem bare-boned, hardly existent, lacking in gracefulness and intellect and pulchritude, and if you come to realize the imagined woman can only satisfy your imagination, whereas the real woman with all her limitations can often make you feel good, how, in spite of knowing this, does the imagined ... Read More...