The Slow-Cooked Sentence



2020
February
16 Bus ride measured in staccato phone snap and ring glint
7 Political loner, swayed by reason not passion, deserves respect
January
31 When floor and quilt are meditation on cloth, country, clay
25 How 12 elephants and a lightbulb settled a battle over breakfast
16 Walking on this old floor is similar to a ship at sea
10 Unbeknownst to me, I’d boarded a ferry full of field trips


2019
December
31 Aiming for a personal best: Racing to fitness by 50
24 Seven edited sentences:A retrospective walk through a year’s words
17 Cataloging a life
11 When disorder knocks, let it in: Applying the second law of thermodynamics to a remodel
3 When a manual typewriter equals the speed of my thoughts
November
26 Artist Allen Crawford liberates Walt Whitman’s vigor from verse
19 Snail sentences, small and measured
12 At the heart of human survival: image and imagination
5 Fortune cookie wisdom: Distraction is the enemy of worker and her waistband
October
29 Strangely immortal language of poetry and bristlecone pine
22 From my perspective, all exhaustion and futility
15 Sunday coffee with Rashomon, Raymond Carver and the unreliable truth
8 A night of song, a theory about sacrifice by priestess of punk Patti Smith
1 A weather forecast calls for reduction of cloud, mushroom
September
24 It’s never too soon for honest men to rebel and revolutionize: Relying on Thoreau as I mother a young climate activist
17 Invisibility is more than a refuge in this field guide to disappearing
10 Short story writer Alice Munro’s bittersweet nod to aging
3 A sentence by Chinua Achebe celebrates my daughter’s birthday
August
27 An American Sentence for a boy who has left for school
20 Newspaper report on why slavery seeded U.S. exceptionalism
13 A small boy’s missing mother defines the Japanese concept of sad beauty in human suffering
6 Tomie dePaola’s story ideas, like sourdough, must be fed
July
30 Anaïs Nin in defense of the diary and handwritten sentence
23 Children’s author Tomie dePaola prefers fantasy over preaching about environmental virtues
16 Making raspberry jam while reading Anaïs Nin
8 Noshing on books, bites & black culture in David Barclay Moore’s “The Stars Beneath Our Feet”
2 Sleeplessness unravels story stitched into a quilt
June
25 Toward a future filled with stretch and stability
18 In early morning’s sooty light, birdsong blessed the day
11 Building homes from shared values a model of philosopher Joanna Macy’s active hope
4 A minnow of short story, with nod to Kipling and cousin
May
28 Byrd Baylor’s desert ode: A girl learns her poor family is rich in things that matter
21 Terry Tempest Williams’ meditation on women’s voices is a prayer of bird song, blank page
14 Ursula K. Le Guin on why suffering, not love, unites us
7 We might be miserable, but playwright Young Jean Lee doesn’t want us to be alone
April
30 Roller derby, deck of cards give me a novel set of writing skills
23 Sci-fi writer, space traveler, spelunker work at chaos’ edge
16 Sculptor Anne Truitt on pathways between connection and privacy
9 Continuation of conversation between self and spring
2 Like my family’s vegetables, ideas sprout, become food for thought
March
26 Philosopher-poet David Whyte seeks words’ precarious beauty
19 Morning coffee with obituaries: Discovery within a final remembrance
11 Trail of cookie crumbs connects imperfect knowledge to production of ideas
5 Zadie Smith responds to inadequacy, hot tweets, and the bartender’s question
February
26 When words are free as the air we breathe, a writer’s belly is empty
19 An obscure alphabet eases a foment of irritation, agitation
12 Weighing flour and the poetry of wordbaker Linda Pastan
5 Artist and anthropologist seek words to describe winter’s wane
January
29 In defense of marriage, motherhood for the mega-rich
22 Potholes on the road taken
15 Cell biologist connects seed husk and butterfly cocoon to deeply human feeling of love
8 19th-Century family of amateur ornithologists, self-taught artists create book of lasting import
1 Ignorant and optimistic, I venture forth


2018
December
25 Night Tree: A family’s journey into the forest creates intimate, lasting connection with nature
18 Photographer Tom Murphy’s striking images of isolation, survival of Yellowstone winter
11 A profane essay on progeny with nods to God, poet and capitalist
4 Ecotheologian Thomas Berry on the urgency of evolutionary epic
November
27 One man’s origin story
20 Pomegranate as mouthful and metaphor
12 Ursula K. Le Guin on how integrity binds past to future, and makes us whole
5 A lesson on active hope by philosopher Joanna Macy
October
26 Notes, in haiku, from a lectureby author Barbara Kingsolver
24 Percy Shelley’s unacknowledged legislator and poet Kate Lebo links prayer to protest
20 Tarnished story in a gilded age
September
26 Poem and place for hard times
July
23 Soothing lavender
12 Last night, I woke
5 Flashpoint on the Fourth
3 A meditation on morning and other beginnings
1 Rx for failing, ahem, falling


2017
December
4 How we communicated one wet, bleak afternoon
October
17 A manifesto hidden within mise-en-scène
September
29 I do not know where to begin
June
14 What happened at the park’s edge
6 Agnes at the edge
1 In which a homeless woman finds a name and loses everything else
May
23 ​Under a voyeuristic sky
15 Three on Mother’s Day
10 One hundred days later
April
24 Instructions from the harridan Brenda Hillman
18 Inequality wrapped in a tinfoil of fairness
March
23 Cure for cancer is somewhere, but not in this room
20 An exploration of the lack of manners points out my own
16 Relatives
13 A postscript to “I am not a rolling stone”
2 I am not a rolling stone
February
23 White woman at the intersection
17 What happened when nothing happened
2 Hope has two daughters, anger and courage
January
27 When sleeping women wake, mountains move


2015
October
6 Flannery O’Connor’s use of grace:A self-study of faith in writing
August
6 Learning by heart Mary Oliver
February
5 Tender and not too sweet:Barley, coffee, molasses scones
January
28 For Chez Danisse, an update


2014
December
3 Driving to Idaho
November
4 Anne Truitt on writing with loyalty about those we love
October
24 Painful, beautiful, cautionary sentences by Rebecca Solnit
16 Sisters, but not my own
6 Beautiful sentences: Roger Deakin on a pencil’s tentative nature
May
15 When is the effort the gift?
13 Six active verbs in the past tense
April
7 Interior view
4 Believing in rainbows and unicorns
March
26 A hand through rough terrain
19 Caretaking
12 Horn tooting: Kindred magazine
5 Conference gravy + giveaway
February
26 Seasoned


2013
December
17 When rejection is imminent
November
20 Mixing metaphors this morning
18 An intersection of food and fiction
12 This is scratchy and rich and singable
6 Tuesdays are good days for demolition
October
29 My weather report
24 Microreview: On the defense, James Purdy
3 Twelve things to love in autumn
September
26 Pockets for iPrecious
20 Microreview: What stills my mind, Mimi White
12 My Godot
5 Subtraction
July
17 Catch and release
June
13 Contemplations on a puppet passion
12 A limerick for a minor emergency
10 Squeezing time from my turnip days
May
27 Five things to finish this summer
23 My pen and ink
21 Currency
1 Recipe poetry: Fried Rice, Deconstructed
April
22 A week of small observations with sons: Three to remember
20 A week of small observations with sons: One woman revolution
17 A week of small observations with sons: A video recipe for soup
16 A week of small observations with sons: Not alone
15 A week of small observations with sons: Living with the wildlife
March
21 Four sisters in Fairbanks
6 Paper menagerie
February
25 A thread through the labryinth
5 In which I channel Ricki Lee Jones who isn’t dead but far enough removed from me she may as well be
1 Squandering solitude
January
29 Heaviness around the middle
11 The return road


2012
December
18 A new kind of Christmas carol
November
26 In the plate-licking aftermath
13 Flare up like a flame, make big shadows I can move in
6 Aeromancy or between the raindrops
October
31 My sweet spooks!
22 Observations
3 Q&A
1 October cleaning
September
6 Purls of poetry
3 Obnoxious loves
August
27 Food for thought
July
23 Chekhov interrupts my sleep
12 Parenthetical citation
June
19 Mileage from a Boston Cream Pie
13 Assholes All Around
7 Lamentations on June
5 Viewing the wildlife
May
31 I have found something beautiful
24 Overlooked treasures
17 Racy thoughts on rhubarb jam
11 Hindsight
3 Elbow grease
1 The letter H sponsors a second post
April
18 A story brought to you by the letter H
17 Six signs of spring (break)
10 To be known by name
3 A journey south
March
27 My Life as a Screenplay, Act Two
19 Singing pipes
15 Unlike Monday
12 On a morning deficient of light
9 Preoccupied with roads since my return
February
17 Warmer waters
14 Tending to the mending
10 Can we read at the table tonight?
8 Sugar rather than salt in my wounds
3 It’s probably raining
3 Friday’s promise
January
31 Knitting is a diary written in yarn
26 A conversation occurring minutes before guests arrive
23 My response to another’s paradise
20 Noncompliance
17 A day that was not today
11 Pretzels are poems written with flour
9 Monday’s cup
5 Continuing education
3 The forecast


2011
December
26 Behind the pageantry
23 To pull in air was like reading a novel
10 Within the cloudbank
October
25 Dynamite chili or feeding the masses
20 When life riffs from a good book
17 20 things I’m no good at
11 On my knees
3 Second sighting
September
27 Unexpected
22 Goodbye blue sky
21 Soupçon or sounds of collecting
16 Another’s breath
13 Space is something we give ourselves
August
22 Time enough to learn to prune a tree
15 A sewing lesson
10 Sandscript
July
21 Pick, pack, preserve
11 More is merrier
6 Creating in the chaos
June
22 A flight of fancy
16 A milestone for 10-year-old mayflies*
9 Saying goodbye to Wednesdays
2 Nest building, species identification and other thoughts from camp
May
26 My companion
24 Vastation or how I say goodbye
23 Remembering a week, a man
13 Reality is the raw material
6 Rhubarb soda + Mary Robison
4 Celebration under a somber sky
April
27 Kenspeckle or visiting the ravine
19 While on the topic of eggs
13 Every morning there’s a cup of coffee and I wear your ring
8 While at the park
6 Landscape of an oyster liar, er, lover
1 Why I left home late Thursday night
March
29 Quaggy or life in the rain
24 Similarities between boy and bug
22 The practice of leaving
18 Malapert or navigating foreign terrain
11 Morning with a young philosopher
9 Connecting dots where there are none
4 Evanescence or shedding the weight of self-awareness
2 Bad words and a butt-load of bitchiness over bringing home the bacon
February
23 Pausing
18 I like reality that tastes like bread
16 My brain
11 Fourth-graders search for nice
9 To be sustained
4 Where there is tea
2 Sough or sounds in a foreign language
January
28 Melting manners with molten marshmallow
26 My style and my mind alike to roaming*
21 Potential
19 Unexpected
14 Lessons
12 Twenty-one answers in an afternoon
7 A resolution
5 Effulgence or writing with film


2010
December
31 A year, reviewed
29 Mud and sunshine
17 Sweet, sound advice for the season
15 Going the distance
10 Tare or in which Christmas is unwrapped
8 The pocket tree
3 Later today
3 Today
1 The morning’s song
November
19 What you do before you friend someone
17 You get what you get
12 French kissing a mermaid
10 I am 40, now
5 Cancer cracked me open and I weep
3 A conversation with a young superhero
October
27 We are stardust, we are golden or Rilke’s elegies
22 Happy man on a happy day
20 Breathless
15 Air
13 It makes the world go ’round
8 Bilocation or returning home
6 Homage to Sendak and an ushering in of the flu
1 Maunder or writing about writing
September
29 I like wind
24 Pears and chocolate
22 Three cheers for mediocre
20 Beek or what I did on a good sky day
17 Tears with my tea
15 Lacuna or wandering through negative space
July
23 A summer siesta
16 A lesson with fire or how words ignite
9 Diving into traffic
June
29 Sun-soaked strawberries in Seattle
21 Words from the road
9 My heart, plucked
May
31 Made for TV drama
24 The numbers tell the story
17 Tangled time
10 Definitions of home
3 Just living
April
26 A week in re(d)rospect
19 The gritty details
12 Making gaps, letting go
2 A big leap
March
31 Who needs a reason
29 White chocolate mint cream
26 Some egg-cellent links
24 In which the day begins like any other, with argument and laughter
22 When mistakes are intentional
19 Before the beginning, they were brothers
17 Spring feverish
15 Caught on Chat Roulette
12 Celebrating the small stuff
10 Tenebrous or the results of a pinewood derby race
8 Four reasons to call yourself a knitter
5 Linus, limits and a liberal sprinkling of Parmesan
3 Hot cocoa taste test
1 Chapter 5: Dark dreams
February
26 Quotidian or surprises in the suburbs
24 Thoughts unrelated to the sentences that birthed them
22 When life unravels with the toilet paper
19 Billet-doux
17 Priorities
15 Half-baked: Story’s similarity to the scone
12 A lovely weekend
10 In which the author ruminates about love
8 Five-minute fix
5 A road trip
3 Aubade
January
31 Hats from the heart
29 A cup, a crunch, a crumb
27 We’re programmable
25 My effort, not futile
22 Five things needed to induce sleep in a toddler
20 Ursine
18 In want of
15 Succor
13 A palette for the palate
11 Women hold up half the sky
1 Popped


2009
December
25 For you
23 Christmas, past and present
21 Cookies ’til we collapsed
18 Happiness by the spoonful
16 Mad dash for a menorah
14 A conversation between dataheads
11 In the silence
9 Someone needs to tell Muhammad
7 Gallimaufry
2 Road blocks
November
29 The end (of the beginning)
27 Returnee
25 Rituals
23 Transformation
18 Unmasked
16 Diverted
11 A bus exchange
9 Predawn
4 Failure or Alas, I cannot get published
2 Ghostly goulies
October
30 Unprepared
28 Slate’s loss, your gain
26 Autumn manifesto
23 We met in line at the fabric store
21 Petrichor
19 A morality tale
16 Melon soup
14 Breakfast
12 Girl power
12 Carom
9 How do you like your coffee?
7 What’s cookin?
5 Judgments
2 The tastes of sickness
September
30 Alliteration amoré
28 A reading reduction
25 Let’s write
23 Diktat
21 Glorious, garlicky soup
18 Manneken Pis
16 An ending
14 Absolution
11 A key
9 Celerity
7 Woohoo for the workers
4 A story written with frosting
2 Farewell summer
August
31 Tyro
28 Icebox cupcakes
26 Jewels in a jar
24 Metamorphosis
21 Crepuscular
19 Tastykake
17 My safe Sam
14 Wishing on chunks of space rock
11 30 things to love + poem
10 Ephemeral
7 Insult and injury
5 Washington, D.C.
3 Sunday, defined
July
31 Ululate
30 Tomato seeds
29 Summer flesh
17 Gone swimmin’
15 Departure
13 Preparations
10 First summer soup
8 Saving the farm
6 Gambol
3 Melting
1 Twin tales
June
29 Coruscate
26 Soup in a boot
23 A launch
22 And you can call me …
19 Report card
17 Git along, lil’ kitties!
15 The walrus and the carpenter
12 A story shard
10 Mending the nets
8 Addiction
5 Wring me out
3 Localicious
1 From the brass section
May
29 A final burst of joy
27 Q&A
25 Memorial memories
22 Silly soup song
20 What happens in the backseat …
18 Mama’s mix
15 Participating
13 Hue are you?
11 When the world’s a stage
7 Mothering skills have eluded me
6 Blogus interruptus
4 Going down
1 Soup, slop and sanitation
April
29 Yearning
27 And then heals
24 In which a heart hurts
22 The bird lady, round 2
20 Five minutes
17 The keeper of the keys
15 Through their eyes
13 Oh, shit
10 Soup, never simple
8 Homage
6 The sky fell
3 Turning up the heat
1 Sweet inspiration
March
30 Up in smoke
27 Rambling through red
25 Creation
23 Of mom and minions
20 Soup, soccer and scavengers
18 My life as a screenplay, Act One
16 Oh my, we love pie!
13 Pie in the sky
11 Max, unedited
9 Scatterbrained
6 Out of hardship, happiness
4 Fill me up
2 The bird lady
February
27 Conversations and a cure
25 A fish out of water
23 Chivalry
20 Just horsin’ around
18 The explorer
16 Steal my heart
13 Primordial soup
11 Collisions
9 Hurried haiku
6 Life as hard as rocks
4 Hungry bellies
2 Cake confession
January
29 Jesus in a tortilla*
27 “Winter” by Sam
26 Elusive heat
23 Unraveled
21 Inspirations
20 Poetry and pineapples
14 Ouch!
12 Smoking


2008
December
16 Hot heads
10 Guaranteed
5 Kaleidoscope
4 A winter’s tale or how I fell in love
3 Seasonal SNAFU*
November
26 Corn people
18 A stranger in the neighborhood
14 Anniversaries
3 The perfect cup of cocoa
October
29 A house, divided
22 Coloring a cold
16 To start the weekend off right!
15 My skin or my soul
14 Time warp
9 Forbidden
1 A wedding
September
30 Hoops and hoppers
29 Still life
26 Muscle memory
24 Writer’s envy
22 An oatmeal cookie that rocks
19 Plants and politics
10 Flashback
8 My neighborhood
5 My summer vacation
August
22 Another’s words
8 Fashion, part two
7 Stories, stock market and steak
6 It’s a grill thing
July
31 Ode to my healthy baby
28 To the point
24 I deserve a merit badge
21 Passion for a pocketknife
18 Fashion, part one
17 A penny for your thoughts
15 A chance encounter and a yummy rum recipe
14 My oldest friend
10 The funniest thing I’ve watched in a while
9 In response to my sister’s question
7 Silver City
3 Two mothers on missions
2 A night with bats
June
30 Chapter four: What happened next
26 Certain book read in a certain place
24 Chapter three: Her very own hell
23 Throw some spice in that sentence
20 A haiku for my husband
18 Chapter two: The blame
17 Chapter one: The fall
16 When punch, puking and a poem occur in 5 minutes
12 Candy land
9 For Christ sake have a cuppa tea
4 Red water pump
2 When life throws you a curve ball
May
30 To all the young dudes*
29 In which I drop the hot coal I’m holding
28 Quitting
27 Skin deep
23 The Little Red-Headed Woman
22 Bento binge
21 Waiting
20 A tale, twisted
19 Soar
16 Morsels are my manna
15 Absolute bliss: Alone in the bathtub
13 Rules to weed by
12 Connected
12 One beautiful sentence
11 Evolution of a game
February
5 Living with shadows
January
26 A tale of elusive heat
22 Spoilsport
21 Grassroots politics
8 The newest currency


2007
November
11 Insomnia
6 For every rule there is an exception
2 Worry Beads
October
30 Pregnant Pause