Spirit Poems

  The Cutting of Hair by Larry Smith My wife cuts my hair has done so for 20 years since my crop fell off. Even when we've argued we roll out the chair, draw out the clippers and scissors from the drawer. She touches my shoulders, from behind and robes me in a half-sheet pinned at the neck. A buzz rolls over my skull; gray hair falls down my arms. My chatter soon subsides to the quiet of her caring as she focuses on ears, comes round to bring scissors to eyebrows. She loosens the sheet and I gather it up to shake hair outside while she cleans and puts away tools. How I love this woman. It's a ritual as old as Eve and Adam, the cutting of hair.

  Writing Is Not a Contest..... I’m going to come right out and say it. Writing is not a contest. It’s a creative act that can move the creator and others to share in art. A fine writer once told me that he moved from writing poetry to writing fiction… “because we poets seem to be fighting over crumbs.” And because submission and evaluation become a part of it, as does comparison, there has developed a whole host of “rules” for the game of publication and review of the work. Friendship and support go out the window when commerce or status enters. In the modern period there were publishing houses that kept a stable of writers. A loose collective of writers can be a strong and beautiful thing. Look at how New Directions Publishing evolved, or Black Sparrow Press, or City Lights Books. Because they believed in the writing and the writers, they produced strong and innovative work. It proved to be a movement, and it was good for all. As a publisher I often meet folks at bookfairs who confes

 Thoreau on being a poet July 1, 1840 in Thoreau’s   Journal: The true poem is not that which the public read. There is always a poem not printed on paper, coincident with the production of this which is stereotyped in the poet’s life —is what he has become through his work…Let not the artist expect that his true work will stand in any prince’s gallery.