Author: hwaugh13
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Invoking My Mother as I Sit to Write a Poem
Winter nights I’d watch her at the sewingcase, rolling thread between her thumband forefinger. Out would pop a knot, as ifmending the hem of my sleeve deserved magic. Read the rest of the poem over at Mom Egg Review, to whom I’m very grateful for a place to publish this poem.
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Night Feeding
Nights I pray the beadsof your spine as you sapmy breasts of milk. Your milkwhite body curlslike incense smoke amidstmy petitions: don’t choke, don’t drown, don’t growto resent me. Read the poem in full over at Ekstasis Magazine.
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Landscapes of Longing: Pilgrimage and Desire in Anthony Doerr’s Cloud Cuckoo Land.
“You’ve been longing again for what you have.” – Carl Dennis, View of Delft The first time I drive across the desert and into the Rio Grande valley, I swim into blue. The sky is as sharp and vast as I’ve ever seen it—blue so expansive and pure it hurts my eyes. In her beloved novel…
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“Maybe that is belief.”
“I don’t even know if I believe in God some days. But I miss him.” I spoke in tongues for the first time in my living room, alone. My bare legs stretched against the cool linen of our hand-me-down couch. I prayed in a language I understood, and then, I didn’t. One phrase flowed from…
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From the Land of Deep Darkness
I don’t have to look far to find metaphors for longing during Advent. They come as close as my living room, where I sit by the window each morning in the blurred light from our Christmas tree. It’s still pitch black at six in the morning, so the night feels impossibly long, conclusive even. The…
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The Way Down: Adam Luck’s Familial Advocacy
It’s lunchtime on a Tuesday when I pull up to the Kate Barnard Correctional Center on the east side of Oklahoma City. My pulse jumps a little at the sight of the barbed wire fences, but I have no reason to feel unsafe—I’m attending a meeting that’s open to the public. I let myself in…
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Poetry’s Deep Work
“Softly, calmly, immensity taps at your life.” – Jane Hirshfield, “Tree” I remember exactly where I was when I encountered poetry for the first time. I was reading for my British literature class and had hunkered down in my dorm’s hallway so I wouldn’t wake my roommate. The poem was one by William Wordsworth. In…
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Currently Reading
Some favorites I’m currently reading: The Book of Longings, Sue Monk Kidd Lit, Mary Karr Poems, Elizabeth Bishop The Tradition, Jericho Brown And a few forever favorites: Circe, Madeline Miller Book of Delights, Ross Gay Gilead, Marilynne Robinson Holy the Firm, Annie Dillard A Room of One’s Own, Virginia Woolf Spinster, Kate Bolick Traveling Mercies, Anne Lamott Walking on Water, Madeleine…
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Cleaning Baseboards
I receive a text from my friend on a Monday. It reads, “About your birthday present: I seriously want to help you clean your house. I would love to have it on my schedule once a month.” She’s referring to a casual conversation we had the week before—she mentioned coming over monthly to help me…
Hallie Waugh 