The Magic of Grammar

Poor Grammar. It has such a strong, hateful stereotype, doesn't it? People call it unnecessary, ugly, devious, and even sadistic. But Grammar and its convention henchmen are actually quite helpful and vital to the English language, at least literarily. The trick is how to use it. Sometimes, people forget that the point of grammar is…

If Poets Were High Schoolers

Happy Friday! This weekend, I'm planning on seeing a comedic play about the relationship between Edgar Allan Poe and Emily Dickinson, which made me think of doing something like this. Here's a humorous piece that places modern-day labels on famous late poets. Enjoy! Walt Whitman Whitman is known to walk into places barefoot and proclaim…

The Librarian

There is a librarian who organizes fluttering memories. The birds fly in with ebony words smeared on their wings and they always soar with more questions than answers; her thoughts are dust-covered dancers twirling behind crumbling books locked in skyscraper-shelves; she told me to look for your book yesterday and I peeled it open and…

What Makes “You” Powerful?

In writing, one may choose to use several different persons or perspectives to convey a story to a reader, including first person ("I"), second person ("you"), or third person ("they"). Many modern authors have experimented with writing in second person, in particular. But why? Why not just write traditionally, in more of an orthodox style?…

Piety

  Between the crevices in the syntax, the sentence, the subject, punctuation serves as an altar to ideas that cannot be connected by splinters or nails. Exclamation marks that yell also scream out tales. Gentle commas swirl into periods, like silk but even softer  and create something that serves the crevices between the icons and…