Madge McKeithen

A Well-Loved Poet and Gatherer of People

October 18, 2015

When I moved to Laurinburg, North Carolina, in June to teach at St. Andrews University, one of the first people I met was Ronald H. Bayes read more

Tags: Black Mountain poets, Joseph Bathanti, Laurinburg, NC, poetry, poets, Ronald H. Bayes, St. Andrews University, Ted Wojtasik

Slow Irony, Sure Wit

January 20, 2015

Slow Irony seeks to link the pleasures of humorous insight with a commitment to “go local” in matters key to a community.

Forty-two years ago, at a weekend retreat held at St. Andrews Presbyterian College, read more

Tags: Grace Loving Gibson, higher education, irony, Laurinburg, North Carolina, place, poetry, retirement community, Ron Bayes, Scotia Village, St. Andrews University, Ted Wojtasik, wisdom, wit

On Her Plate

October 8, 20143 comments

“Let me tell you what’s on my plate.”

It’s Mom on the phone, from her hospital bed in NC to me at my desk in NJ, and I think, Ah, she wants to talk about her upcoming pacemaker procedure. read more

Tags: Aging, Atul Gawande, Families, Healthcare, Kezar Lake, Medicine, mothers, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Sarah Manguso, Two Kinds of Decay

Stillness, Nothing-Happening Moments

April 10, 2014

In March at a beach in North Carolina, a group of people I have known for a long time gathered read more

Tags: Akhil Sharma, Burning Down the House, Charles Baxter, experience, Family Life, fiction, Kawabata, memory, Palm-of-the-Hand Stories, senses, stillness, writing

Onset of Spring?

February 1, 2014

Most of this post — Robin Robertson’s poem, the photographs taken in November in Frenchtown, NJ — was compiled in a moment of late November pause, read more

Tags: Calendars, family, February 1, Festivals, Frenchtown, Gaelic, Gerald Stern, holidays, Imbolc, NJ, North Carolina, poetry, Robin Robertson, Samhain, Spring, winter

Waiting Ahead

November 1, 2013

Amy Bagwell is a force for poetry in public spaces in Charlotte, NC. Spurred first by her love of poetry and her passion that it be out there for everyone to read read more

Tags: A. R. Ammons, Amy Bagwell, art and design, Billy Collins, Central Piedmond Community College, Charlotte, Charlotte Center City Partners, Jon Pineda, Leiden 101 Murals, NC, poetry, Poetry In Motion, Poetry Society of America, public art, Queens University, Wall Poems of Charlotte

A “mayor”, a cellist and a writer-producer walk onto a dock

August 13, 20132 comments

Who expects surprise when a creative couple leaves New York for up-country South Carolina? Debbie Rice and Bryan Hiott made the leap in 2012, friends’ admonitions read more

Tags: Alex Hubbard, alternate process photography, Bearded Poets, Betsy Teter, Blue Ridge Writers Workshop, Bryan Hiott, Celloasis, collage form, Debbie Rice, fiction, Greenville SC, Hub Bub Arts, Hub City Press, hybrid forms, John Lane, Lake Summit, Michel Stone, nonfiction, Patrick Whitfill, Saluda NC, Sharon Gerber, Spartanburg SC, Zach Mueller