April 23, 2016
I traveled down to Monroe Harbor to write. It was summer 1988, and I lived in Chicago. Listening to the boats clank, I lay on the slope above Lake Michigan. I pulled out the script of Ceremonies. It was the…
April 9, 2016
I trudged down the country road about 10 PM. It was summer 1985, and I was at a conference in Pennsylvania. A bonfire was being held, and I thought that might be fun to go to. It was located some…
April 5, 2016
I wandered around in the old Woodstock Library. It was fall 1983. I found an old paperback named The Pillow Book. The writer was Sei Shonagōn, a woman of the court of Japan about 1000 AD. Ivan Morris had translated…
April 2, 2016
Last night -April Fool’s Day, appropriately enough – I began the final journey to the end of Ceremonies. That is to say, after all these years, I began the final revision. When completed, I will order up print-on-demand copies and…
March 29, 2016
PIERRE LOUΫS Pierre Louÿs (1870-1925) was a French author, poet and photographer. He explored various aspects of sexuality, especially focusing on lesbianism. Among others, his works included Astarte; The Songs of Bilitis; Aphrodite – Ancient Manners; The Adventures of…
March 28, 2016
At Northern Illinois University, in Founders Memorial Library, on the top floor, on the north side, I sifted through Ceremonies. Then I sat, gazing out the floor-to-ceiling windows into the night. Later, I walked down to the Private Collections Room. …
March 26, 2016
Driving back from Rockford Library, skimming around the curves on Marengo Road, I thought about Ceremonies. It was late summer, 1974. A fair amount of material had piled up. I kept the pieces in the order I wrote them. There…
March 22, 2016
On break, I curled up on a pile of boxes and read from my Mentor Book of Major American Poets. That winter I was working in a plastics factory. I also pondered the kinds of entries I was writing for…
March 18, 2016
Some months later, I sat on the bridge over the Kishwaukee River again. It was the end of summer. Cicadas buzzed. The sky was a bit overcast. I had been creating pieces for Ceremonies at random. A sentence, a paragraph,…