Between bouts of worrying about everything going to shit, I have managed to do some reading. Books I have finished (yay!) M Train—Patti Smith sublime subliminal liminal—Rena Priest view with a grain of sand: selected poems—Wisław Szymborska Sobbing Superpower: Selected Poems of Tadeus Różewicz—Tadeus Różewicz Two-Minute Mysteries Collection—Donald J. Sobol Books in progress The Book of [...]
Tag: reading
A small change in my reading habits
I have a small problem: I have a veritable stack of books (they’d be an actual stack if I actually stacked them) that I have bought, but not yet read. This has been going on for several years, to the point where I will go through my unread stack a couple of times a year, [...]
Everett Poetry Night—December 7!
Cheese and crackers—the day is almost here! On Thursday, December 7, I will be the featured poet for Everett Poetry Night at Café Zippy in, well, Everett. The festivities begin at 6:30 with Tanner Deraitus playing some music, followed by open mic at 7—then it’s my turn around 8. (Yes, my car is unlikely to be [...]
Seattle-area folks: Upcoming reading at Mountlake Terrace Library
On Saturday afternoon, May 27th, I will be appearing with fellow PoetsWest members Terry Busch, Eugene Marckx, and Rayn Roberts (who will be hosting) for a poetry reading at the Mountlake Terrace Library from 12:45 to 2:15 p.m. An open-mic section will be included, so bring some poems to read after we’ve done our thing! [...]
First Time Done
Last night was my first time as a featured reader. Although I was late in selecting which poems I might read, I showed up prepared. To my surprise, although I had read at this venue before (during the open-mic sections), I was increasingly nervous as the hour approached. My digestive system tried to stage a [...]
‘Sky blue and jet black’ (audio recording)
Take a listen to my friend Lola Peters reading one of my poems, ‘Sky blue and jet black’, as part of the Porchlit series: https://soundcloud.com/porchlit/lola-recites-kevin-j-oconner And here is the piece of music that provided the title for the poem: (8 September 2015)
Friday morning. Rain. (a poem)
A bit frustrated with my writing the last couple of days. An acceptable result from Friday… Rain on the ground this morning drops of water dot my windshield a surprising scene for the middle of July That telltale damp in the air the scent of rainfall lingering as I walk down the steps It’s a [...]
The Reading (a poem)
The January 10th prompt in The Daily Poet by Kelli Russell Agodon and Martha Silano, is to pick a letter of the alphabet, and accumulate a list of at least 25 words starting with that letter, then ‘use at least 15 in a poem about something that does not start with that letter.’ Since I did not write [...]
Lifelong Learning
I have recently come to the conclusion that I have become a lifelong learner. It is often said that learning is a lifelong activity. I think that most of us don’t really look at it that way. We go to school while we grow up, then some of us go to college (then a few [...]
Q&A: What do you read?
This week’s entry is about who/what I read. What do you read? Because I write poetry, it may surprise folks to learn that I don’t like to read much poetry. I find that most poetry fails to make the emotional connection I need to get something out of it. Without that emotional connection, all that [...]
Ordinary Average Thoughts 