Poetry

What There Is

by Jane Devin on 06/09/2009

There’s a glass building rippling in the sun, a sidewalk littered with cigarette butts and bus tickets, a blue-eyed boy teetering precariously close to the curb, and a distracted mother staring off into the distance. There’s an old woman standing at the bus stop, clutching a brightly flowered handbag to her chest. I smile at [...]

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Cousteau’s Daughter

by Jane Devin on 09/23/2008

I feel like I should give some disclaimer to this piece, some explanation of why, not only because the topic is tough, but also because it’s become a cliche.  Writers, film makers, and students alike have been steered away from the topic of child abuse — it’s been done, the subject is stale, and every [...]

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In Honor of My Muse: Patricia Neal

by Jane Devin on 03/29/2008

She’s got that low, sensual, beautiful, Southern voice. The perfect blend of drawl and inflection that’s all at once a lullaby and a catalyst — an invitation to lay back on the porch swing and lazily watch the moon, or to rise up in the morning like Joan of Arc, prepared to honor the trumpet’s [...]

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In 2000, I was awarded a month-long fellowship to Norcroft, a women’s writing retreat on the North Shore of Minnesota. A few years later, when the retreat closed its doors, I was asked to contribute to an anthology about the Norcroft experience. I set out to do it, but realized that whatever I wrote would [...]

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