In truth, all poets, writers, and artists are mudlarks … scavengers and treasure hunters in search of precious remnants buried in the rubble of their own personal shipwrecks; muckrakers in the cultural and political waste of the current historical moment.  We dredge the past, dissect the present, and invent futures in the hope of finding something of value that can help us make sense of our own piecemeal narratives and often to help create meaning for others as well as for ourselves.

​

Welcome to Poetic Flotsam. 

My riverbank is the shoreline at Astoria Park just outside New York City.  It's where I grew up - it's where my mother laid on a grassy hill, pregnant, in the heat of July 1962, just before my birth.  It's where I played tag with my dad beneath the Hell Gate Bridge, learned to drive, kissed my first boyfriend, and later brought my children to the playground when they were small. 

It's also where I brought my angst and depression for refuge, sat for hours, for decades, in the early morning before work, writing, contemplating, and waiting for the sun to replace the starry city lights of Manhattan across the river.