Under Construction

  • It’s been a minute

    It’s been a minute

    Actually, it’s been a year since I started posting Thursday mornings on Under Construction, with occasional off-cycle posts.



    Thank you readers – whether you’re a subscriber, follower, fan, or however you’ve arrived.

    Thank you to those who know me, those who know my work, those who have been introduced to Under Construction by someone who knows me or my work. Thank you to those of you who … well, I’m not sure how you’ve found your way here, but I’m glad you did.

    Under Construction is where the door is always open, where we don’t blame the dogs and we don’t answer all calls, where all the doors have automatic openers, and where iguanas are not invasive. It is where we, too, dream of peace. It is for all the poets and all the mourners, and it is where adverbs and nouns are shapeshifters. (If you read all the way to the bottom of the posts, right above the Subscribe button you’ll see what I mean.)

    It’s where poems echo through the years and through the poets – looking at you X. P. CallahanDeborah KellyJosh Datko. Erasures, with links to the source material, are here: Call and Response: owlwe lived and we ate; and war and peace.

    Where I cannot stop writing about residents dying in nursing homes, because residents are always dying in nursing homes. Where birds are poetsbees stir the mirror, and you – readers – are the one thing that matters.



  • those who stand

    those who stand

    an off cycle post

    For those who blow whistles in Minnesota and elsewhere else



    Source material: On Living in the Hour of Cities Under Siege by Carolyn Forché from Otherwhere: New and Selected Poems, 1976-2026 (Scribner Books, forthcoming in September 2026)



  • in New Mexico landlocked

    in New Mexico landlocked

    An old school erasure using a Tombow water-based marker



    “in New Mexico landlocked” is sourced three times from: Anelise Chen, “Clam Down,” from The Daily at The Paris Review.

    Chen’s memoir, Clam Down: A Metamorphosis, is now available.



  • RIP Penny

    RIP Penny


    For a different take on the demise of Penny, look at the source material, The Penny Dies at 232, which was erased then compressed for this poem.



  • war and peace

    war and peace


    I was called to write this poem when I read War Erasure #4, by Josh Datko.

    The two poems come from the same source material.



  • (1988-2026)

    (1988-2026)

    an off-cycle post




    i want back the streets from zealots

    to reduce all things hard-edged & splintering

    to make room



    Source:

    Renée Nicole Macklin Good (1988–2026), On Learning to Dissect Fetal Pigs,” Academy of American Poets Prize, Old Dominion University (undergraduate), 2020



  • Elves speak

    Elves speak

    a six pass erasure poem

    the poem:



    The six passes:



    The source material called me. Then called me again, showing me still and chimes as verbs.

  • remember

    remember


    Source material for this eight pass erasure (nine, if one counts the title): “What Can Run But Never Walks, Has a Mouth But Never Talks, Has a Head But Never Weeps, Has a Bed But Never Sleeps? A River. A Sonnet.” from Paper Banners, by Jane Miller.



  • Invasive

    Invasive


    In June, I wrote about sea-faring iguanas in Carried Home, on the imagination of iguanas.

    The source material for this post includes a close up photo of an iguana’s face: This Is What a Vindicated Iguana Looks Like.

    In fairness to Dr. Daniel Mulcahy, evolutionary biologist at the Museum of Natural History in Berlin and author of the study referred to in the article, know that Dr. Mulcahy and his colleagues are “working to ensure that Clarion Island iguana eradication programs are stopped.”

    Wish them immediate and complete success.



  • Death of a resident – again and again

    Death of a resident – again and again

    Stolen gift cards – $500

    Failure to report allegations of abuse, neglect, exploitation – $500

    Improper use of physical restraints – $500

    Failure to conduct timely employee background – $500

    Resident death due to bowel obstruction, acute respiratory failure – $500

    Stolen gift cards = the life of a resident