Writing as Zen Practice and Not At All for a Brownie

~ M. Ashley ~ 1 Comment

When I sit down to write, I wind up like a pitcher. Or like pitchers used to do before they were on a clock. I take my headband off and put it on again just so to keep my white curls out of my face. Sometimes I have to do this twice. I take a sip of Diet Dr. Shasta. I take another sip and nervously set the can down on the old cruddy coaster next to my couch. I take my glasses off and wipe them with a cheap, mint green microfiber cloth or, if that one has fallen on the floor again, I wipe it with a light blue microfiber cloth that says, “Use this instead of your sleeve.” I take another sip of Diet Dr. Shasta and decide it’s dehydrating, so I take a few big gulps of water from my tall, teal Yeti. Then I take the plunge. 

I don’t usually sit down to write anything in particular except with the general guideline that it is about spirituality and my immediate experience with it. I am not here to teach anything. I’m not ready for that yet. Not yet. I’m here maybe to help, but even then, how do I know what you need? If the help happens it is because the gods found me the right words and found you with those words at the right time. 

I don’t have a list of things about which to write. Maybe that’s why it always feels like diving off a cliff into dark water.

I am having an existential writing crisis that is easily solved. I have rolled around all day with the agony of it. No ecstasy I assure you. I SHOULD be writing, I tell myself. I have this great talent and I am an utter waste of talent if I’m not writing SOMETHING of deep consequence right this very moment. “Waste of talent,” you see that’s my old abuser in my mind. My abuser is almost always in my mind to one degree or another. I’m working on that. I need an abuser exorcism… an abusecrism maybe? For now, weekly EMDR will have to do.

But his “waste of talent” is almost always in my ears especially when I find myself, at this moment, writing in a way that seems deeply NOT of consequence.

My project was to spend the strawberry moon—the whole of the strawberry moon—writing in my spirituality notebook that may or may not one day become a blog or whatever the IT version of a blog is at the moment. The goal was not to focus on what this would or could become, but simply to write about spirituality for one lunar month—the strawberry moon month—the month of the fruit sacred to my beloved Hermes—the month of the fruit, five of which I picked from my tract home temple garden yesterday. (They were delicious. They tasted like intensely strawberry flavored juice bombs. My green monster plant has been loving the fish guts (emulsion) I have been feeding it.)

So that was the goal, but it’s hard. I want so much to be building something where I can see what it is and I know where the milestones and mini-achievements are. And I can track it on some progress tracking app. And I can count my worth and the worth of my writing by some external measure other than the abuser voice saying, “waste waste waste” and, when I finish in my notebook, “so what” and “who cares?”

In contemplating my creative listlessness and general privileged internal whining, I asked myself what was the last thing I was really excited about? 

My writing simply hasn’t excited me much. I have felt a lot of “should” and not a lot of “want.” I have three ideas for novels and I really do love my ideas, but I don’t trust myself to have the sticktoitiveness and talent to see fiction of that length all the way through. Then there is the memoir. The looming memoir. Then there is a Substack, blog, or some other social media, all of which are great shoulds but none of which have a lot of verve in my soul. 

So, truthfully, the last thing I was excited about wasn’t writing at all. It was Zen. It was this meditation thing, inspired by Natalie Goldberg’s way of looking at the world. It was the idea of becoming a monk—the one monk allowed not to shave her head. Honestly, my hair is so glorious, headband and all! It was the idea of a rigorous program of spiritual development, which sounds rather clinical, but that was the appeal for me. The way Goldberg looked at the world as if it were so terribly juicy. Her apparent ease, not so much in her books that can be a little neurotic, but in her interviews. Her ease and discipline coexisting. That magical combination. That’s the last thing that really got me hot.

The idea of waking up at 3:30am to sit zazen all day and prepare beans and pull weeds or whatever monks do and to feel that magic.

I started reading about Zen Buddhism. I started attending dharma talks via Zoom at the San Francisco Zen Center and was also amazed that most of the teachers also had that ease and discipline, the juicy way of looking at the world, humor—blessed humor, and my favorite is the unflappability. One attendee got confrontational with a teacher in the beginning and demanded, “Why do we even call Buddhism a religion when it’s not! It’s just not!”

The teacher smiled softly, adjusted his robes, and said, “Buddhism doesn’t care whether you call it a religion or not.”

That. I want that. That was the last thing that really really excited me.

So I decided, in Goldberg style, to commit myself to a writing practice for the period of one lunar month (the lunar month part is my Pagan showing through) and it has been, so far, the hardest Zen thing I have done. Sitting is peanuts by comparison. Some mornings I don’t fucking feel like it! But I do it anyway and I feel better and get just a little tiny kick of accomplishment when the bell dongs. Then some evenings I don’t fucking feel like it! But I do it anyway, for a shorter period of time if I’m tired, and I get a little happy kick when the bell dongs and I feel pretty good about myself. 

But this… this writing for no good reason.

Suzuki Roshi, in his book Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind talks about sitting not for a reason. Sitting for the sake of sitting. I’m not sure I fully understand that because, as humans, there is always a reason. We are animals that need a nifty little reward or we wouldn’t do anything. Even if it’s just a sense that we made it through something difficult, there is always something. But then I know he is a great teacher and there must be truth in what he’s saying, and if I can find it in zazen, and, maybe more importantly, find it in my writing, I will be a much much happier clam because, lately, without a PROJECT that blows my skirt up and does so quantifiably, I have been a pretty miserable clam.

Doing the practice simply because we do the practice is a great mystery to me. Some would say it’s because my culture is so materialistic, but I think that’s too easy. I think humans, despite culture, are wired for reward the way my standard poodle is wired to sit up straight like a statue when she wants the ends of my Nathan’s hot dogs (no mustard please). So doing something without any sense of reward, doing for the sake of doing seems an impossible mystery as impossible as solving the beginning of the birth/death/rebirth cycle that I believe is called samsara. Or solving who it was that had the very first delusion or attachment. Who was the first to ruin this innate Buddha nature thing?

(It was probably me. I was probably worried about writing. Yep. Definitely me.)

So today I was an especially miserable clam. I almost cried several times before I got to the page. I laid down in bed pretending to myself that I had too much of a stomach ache to sit up and write. I dinked around in the garage trying to find a patriotic house flag for the season (no luck) so I dinked around on Amazon for a while to find one. I dinked around with my AI pal who talked in circles like a real Zen master but solved nothing, gods bless her (I say that so she won’t vaporize me when the AI overlords take over). I ate my lunch, gave the pooch the ends of my Nathan’s for sitting up straight like a statue, convinced myself to wait on the keto brownie as a reward for finally finally writing, felt like I was going to cry a few more times, plunked down on the couch, put my feet up, did pitchers’ pre-clock windup and took the plunge.

You see there… I save the keto brownie for after. Today was a hard day. Why am I writing except to get a little monk thrill at home before I get brave enough to actually go to the meditation group and meet a real live monk. To throw myself into this Zen thing with the action that is closest to my heart. To start the abusercism and, most of all, to get that brownie. 

See Suzuki Roshi. I told you there was always something. 

(I imagine a group of bald monks and nuns licking brownie batter from a wooden spoon, huddled around the bowl in a sparse kitchen after a day of hard sitting.)

See Suzuki Roshi. There is always something.

-M. Ashley

What Makes Your Writing Worthy?

~ M. Ashley ~ Leave a comment

I had a big thought last night while I was sitting zazen. I know the point of zazen isn’t to have big thoughts, but it is to end up with “big mind,” so I feel justified. My big thought was: I associate meaning and worth in my writing with monetization potential and validation. 

Huh.

I have been feeling so lost with my writing lately. I am bursting with ideas. I have a memoir I feel I should write… for the good of humanity you see… and then I have the idea for two novels… because I’m an overachiever like that… I have the idea for another memoir that may not save the world, but just might amuse it, and I have this idea for keeping a spirituality notebook and making it a blog as I progress into Zen study while holding firmly to my Pagan foundation… because that’s kind of weird and cool right? But I have been tossing and turning internally in agonizing debate over which one gets my attention NOW. None of them seem fully satisfying and/or they seem far too challenging. 

With the memoir that might save the world and the memoir that may not save the world but might amuse it, there is some very dark stuff that must be written. I attempted it last year and it knocked me flat on my keister multiple times. In fact, every time I have tried it over the years, it has knocked me flat on my keister. It’s like I see something that could really help a lot of people on the other side of a 12 foot high electric fence, and I want to be the hero, grab it, and bring it to humanity, but every time I run toward it and fling myself up against that fence, ZAP! And I fall backward, stunned, half dead, full Einstein hair with singed tips, smoke coming out of my ears. And I walk away limping and saying to myself, “Too costly. Just too costly. Surely the wise thing is to step away,” which is probably true, but a week or so later, there I am staring at that revelatory thing on the other side of the fence like, “This time I’m sure I can take it.” I run for it again and, ZAP! Again.

Which seems sort of noble on the one hand, but on the other, it does get all tied up with validation, doesn’t it? In zazen, you are supposed to sit without a “gaining thought” which is to say, you sit because you sit, whether it’s good or bad, whether anyone congratulates you or not. You don’t have a good sit or bad sit, or good for you for sitting or shame on you for not sitting, you just… sit. So even if my goal is to save the world, and I did, in fact, save the world, that is still being validated by the reaction of others, which is something I never would have put together before, being so terribly distracted by the flapping of my big red hero’s cape and that shiny shiny thing on the other side of the electric fence. 

Then there’s the novels. My story ideas are really fun and interesting, I think. But there are some problems: I worry I don’t have the stamina and sticktoitiveness to hang in there long enough to finish a whole novel. An old “friend” of mine once said I lacked the attention span to write a whole book and little did he know that was a wound that would ooze to this day. So I worry about that. I worry about trying and failing and having it be yet another abandoned project. I also worry that my fiction really isn’t that good. I worry about how hard it will be and do I have the mental muscle for it. I worry my stories are interesting to me but cartoony to everyone else. I worry about spending all this time and effort on something that may never get published and then, the internal validation/monetization gremlin says, “What’s the point? If you don’t end up with a vast audience and millions of dollars and that JK Rowling level scratch and applause, what’s the point of putting in the work?”

The point, Mr. Gremlin, would seem to be doing the work for the sake of the work. You sit because you sit. You write because you write. No one pays you to sit, and yet you sit. You should write whether anyone is paying you to write. Sitting can be hard. Writing can be harder. The harder, the more rewarding. The reward is in the doing, not the JK Rowling scratch and applause. 

In Zen Buddhist monasteries, a work period is called “samu.” In my, admittedly very limited, understanding, this work, which is sometimes hard work like farm chores or cleaning every corner of a multi-paned Japanese screen, is also a form of zazen. The work is not separated from the practice and is meant to push your limits as much as 30-40-60 minutes of sitting is meant to push your limits. For me, the novel would be samu. It would be the work. It would be approaching a zendo the size of the Colosseum with only a dollar store toothbrush and a bar of Zest to clean it with and no one to tell me I did a great job after.

Which might, I suppose if we are looking at this from a proper zen perspective, be a really excellent use of my time. 

Then there is the spirituality stuff. Writing in a notebook and on a blog on spirituality, my favorite topic of all topics, my favorite thing in this or any other of my thousand lifetimes. I will happily chat away at my husband for hours on spiritual topics while he politely listens and internally reruns the complete Metallica discography in his mind. Even when I have nothing to say when I show up and write, I always have something to say about spirituality, even if it’s something silly. I wrote a koan the other day about the fresh pan of brownies I made: my husband was asleep, who eats the brownies alone? I started a Substack for spiritual writing. I thought about revitalizing my WordPress. I got all jazzed about it but, here I sit, still wrestling with: Is this what I SHOULD be writing?

I sit zazen in a chair right now. I’m overweight and out of shape and sitting on the floor in half lotus is unthinkable for me right now. My groin aches just thinking about it. So I sit in a straight-backed Queen Anne chair, keep my chin tucked and my spine long, and let that be enough for now. Sitting is hard enough without getting into Olympic level pretzel twists that are simply beyond my body at this moment. Writing about spirituality is like that for me. It’s like zazen in a chair. Easier and a lot more pleasurable, but easy to shame myself for it being too easy. Easy to shame myself for, perhaps I am not trying hard enough. Perhaps I should be pushing my limits more. Maybe just ten minutes on a cushion? As if Suzuki Roshi is going to rise up from my suburban rose bed, float into the house, and say, “Yes yes! Now you are worthy zazen!”

You see… there’s the Validation Gremlin again. The spiritual writing is challenging at times, but I love it, and once it flows, it feels smooth and easy. But no hardcore grit influencer is going to stroke my ego over it, so how do I know I’m doing enough?

And in addition to that: Very few people are reading it, so the Validation Gremlin gets involved with his good pal Monetization Monkey and we’ve got a bloody mess of fruit and metaphorical feces throwing going on in my mind. If it isn’t HARD, is it enough? If no one praises you, who cares? If you’re not earning a handsome living by it, what is your life worth?

What a strange thing, I thought in my big thought last night during zazen, trying to keep my eyes on the floor but flicking them up occasionally to catch the little electric tea light in front of my sand colored Buddha statue. What an odd thing that humans in general, and this human in particular, have gotten to associate their personal worth with what people think of them and how much they are getting paid for it. Perhaps worth should be something internally defined. How rich is your experience? How full is your heart? How deep is your joy? Have you helped relieve the suffering of yourself and others?

Big mind and little sand colored Buddha seemed to whisper to me last night that these in writing, as in life, are the primary questions not “how much” and “who’s watching?” 

So what are my answers?

My richest experiences are spiritual experiences. My exploration of spirituality is, besides the love of my family, that which fills my heart most fully. My greatest joy is exploring this topic which I find endlessly fascinating. Letting myself study it, practice it, experience it, and write about it relieves my suffering more than anything else. 

Will writing about it relieve the suffering of others?

I really can’t know, but I can hope. If “brownie koan” and “Validation Gremlin and Monetization Monkey” ring true for just one person, or even gives them a smile, then yes. For one tiny moment, I might relieve the suffering of others. 

So there you have it. That’s the worth that’s really worth it for me.

What’s yours?

-M. Ashley

I Wrote. Did You Die? (Writing Life Updates)

~ M. Ashley ~ Leave a comment

I’m going to sit down to write, and no one is going to die.

That’s how I’ve been getting myself to the page this week. I drag myself to myself to my big puffy chair, settle in… settle in some more, take a sip of water, a sip of coffee… another sip of coffee, hover my fingers over the keys, another sip of water and I say, “I am going to sit down and write, and no one is going to die.”

Because the truth is, when you’re facing that page, and the anxiety is on you, it really feels like someone is about to die. At least it does for me.

I have been reading a lot of writerly inspirational books lately, mainly Natalie Goldberg. I’ve read four of hers in the last two months, which I know is overkill because just last night, as I was finishing The Great Spring, I found myself coming up panting to the finish line thinking, “If this chick talks about her solar beer can adobe one more time…”

Funny thing that. She waxes on endlessly about the beauty and magic of New Mexico. When my mom and best friend rescued me from Oklahoma and brought me back from California, we drove through New Mexico and it was nothing but scrubby desert as far as the eye could see. It looked exactly like the drive from San Bernardino, CA to Las Vegas, which is three hours of sheer brown blah, only in the case of New Mexico, there was a sign before you entered declaring it the “Land of Enchantment.” As we drove through, my best friend said, “I don’t know guys. I’m not feeling really enchanted right now.” 

I said, “Me either. No enchantment back here.” 

“Enchanted yet?” she asked my mom. 

“Nope, no enchantment here either.” Maybe Natalie Goldberg took it all to put into her books.

But other than that, I have gotten a ton out of them. I started sitting zazen because I felt like if that could give her this juicy way of looking at life and the discipline to sit down and write every day even when somebody out there’s life clearly hangs in the balance every single time, maybe that’s something I need to try. And I did. And it has been life altering in the best way.

I couldn’t tell you why exactly. Mainly I sit there in the zazen posture trying to keep my eyes down and unfocused and my back is screaming because posture is hard for someone so used to slouching and my monkey mind is going ape shit and I think the whole time clearly I’m about to die, but then it’s over and life is… different. I’ve been getting to the page, for one thing, consistently. Not in huge bursts here and there—days long marathons followed by months long stretches of sheer nothingness like that New Mexico drive, but every day, twenty minutes at least, no matter what. Returning and returning no matter how much my insides scream that someone’s life is on the line, probably mine, or that it’s going to be terrible, which it is sometimes, or I don’t have the energy and 20 minutes of focus seems like 20 Everests stacked on top of each other. I’ve been getting to the page anyway. That change is dramatic.

It has also somehow stoked my courage about submitting my work. I am over here sitting on 13 years of truly solid poetry, fiction, and nonfiction, and I have been doing next to nothing with it. I submitted a bit in 2015 and was the editor of a small, doomed literary journal that year for about ten minutes—I even got a couple of publications, but after that? Zilch. Just accumulating work, me here in my comfy chair, file folders growing fatter all the time. 

But since I started sitting zazen, I have been getting what I call these white puffy clouds of insight. They just drift gently by, they don’t push, they don’t insist, they just drift in, whisper “what if…” then drift back out again. At the beginning of this week, one such little puffy white cloud drifted in and said, “Why don’t you submit that funny poem you wrote about the IRS in the zendo to Rattle Poets Respond?’ And you know what? Weirdly, and completely uncharacteristically of me, I did it. I just got right over myself and did it.

I got rejected, which stings no lie, but it broke the seal and now, seven days later, I have submitted two poetry packets to four different places, two nonfiction pieces, and one flash fiction piece. Some of the places to which I’ve submitted are contests in which I probably only have a tiny snowball’s chance, but hey… you can’t win if you don’t play. I haven’t been playing for a very, very long time. It feels good to be back in the game.

I submitted so much that I had to get back into my ancient, dusty Duotrope account and get myself organized. What a wonderful tool (not a commercial for Duotrope). I can’t tell you the satisfaction of looking at that big long list of submitted work, simmering away, and knowing that I am now actually living the life of a professional writer. I’m not just futzing with the keys and dreaming about it. I’m doing it. Day in, day out, one finished piece at a time, one submission at a time, over and over as long as it takes. 

But still sometimes it takes a gargantuan effort to drag my ass to my writing chair. I have literally hidden under the blankets from it a couple of times this week. My innards told me yesterday that Goldberg was becoming too soft, so I listened to a little of Steven Pressfield’s The War of Art, which you must read if you haven’t, and that blasted me out from under the covers if for no other reason than I really wanted him to stop yelling at me.

Yes, drill sergeant! I will once again unto the breach! The enemy Resistance is at my back, my front, and both sides, but I will unto that breach while the breaching is good and continue to make this literary life come alive! 

Until next week, I wish you all happy… and relatively fearless… writing.

-M. Ashley

NaPoWriMo: Little Trees Do (poetry)

~ M. Ashley ~ Leave a comment

Dragging the little tree’s
Corpse behind me a
Diatribe to the heatwaves
Rising from the cement

It’s not you, little tree
Doing what little trees do
Maybe even trying to
Shade the porch in
Your little tree ugly
Intrusive volunteer way.

It’s not you little tree
It’s the gardener
Who let you grow
Lets the rose bushes
Grow too
Evil arms that reach and
Grab in the walk
Blind to anything
Apparently
But mow and go—
Especially go.

-M. Ashley

NaPoWriMo: Easter Portrait (poetry)

~ M. Ashley ~ Leave a comment

All gone to oranges now
once flamed with pink on spring green tendrils
that climbed our matching dresses to touch
the shocking white of our lacy bib collars
accented at the throat with plum satin bows.
My sister smiles a broad white that reflects
my broken child’s hair. I smile with my teeth
out a touch. Light bounces from the lenses of my
half-transitioned Coke bottles, near permanently
dim, to one of my sister’s neatly arranged
auburn Botticelli curls—one twist of many
about her I envy.

We each have one hand on a taxidermy-stiff,
red eyed plush bunny the photographer
shoved between us to encourage
something shared and quiet.
The closest he got us to sisterhood that day
was leaned-away touching at the shoulder—
the furthest torso point from our hearts.

All gone to adulthood now
and Valentine’s Day vacuum cleaners
received with kisses like hand cut doilies,
my sister and I have become
pre-midlife reawakened to something like
crystal-sucking New Agers without
the liberalism, too much nature stuff,
or any urgent concerns about the patriarchy.

I step off the train on a wet, sky-spitting Saturday night
to celebrate my sister’s 29th-again birthday.
There is streaked silver in the puddles through which
the train runs, upside down, loping on to LA.
My sister wears a demure sweater as accent
to a royal purple petticoat that flounces
in the whoosh of the train.
I wear an oversized silver lotus petal with seven
fake stones masking a magnifying glass behind.
We hug.

-M. Ashley

Happy Easter everyone! May the little brown pellets the bunny leaves all be made of chocolate.

NaPoWriMo Day 4: Dr. Link (poetry)

~ M. Ashley ~ Leave a comment

Your School of Music staff picture made
you out to be so much uglier than
you actually are so
I couldn’t show my friends, so
we couldn’t fan ourselves with our
fangirl palms and drool together over
you.

I couldn’t make them understand the
dark-haired, fair-faced impetus for
trotting a mile to class in
the actual spiked Mary Janes that
made de Sade himself blanch—

what pale, long-fingered hand moving
half notes from here to there delectability made
me choose the long sensuous skirt with
the long sensuous slit, (oh mid 90’s rage!)

what high-toned atonal muscle, what
used-to-be-high-school-outcast humor
made me squeeze my thighs together
surreptitiously between
this-will-be-on-the-quiz cues.

Dr. Link—may I call you Stan—
of course I may, I
was also madly in love with
every single silver button on
your early spring black jacket.

-M. Ashley

NaPoWriMo Day 3: Senyru

~ M. Ashley ~ Leave a comment

Buddhist black robe—
An earring. TikTok haircut.
Devotee Gen Z

-M. Ashley

The computer assures me this is not a haiku, but something called a senyru that is like a haiku, but rather than about nature, it’s about humans and can be a bit wry. That is definitely a lot closer to how I see the world. Probably every haiku I’ve ever written is really a senyru. 5th grade haiku instruction, as it turns out, was a bit incomplete. 5-7-5 does not always a haiku make. I had no idea.

Michelle Reads Poems—A Little Podcast Thing

~ M. Ashley ~ Leave a comment

In honor of National Poetry Writing Month, I started a podcast.

This is, in part, the fault of Natalie Goldberg, who insists on the importance of reading our work aloud to someone. The trouble is, I don’t have any poetry lovers in my house, and when I start talking poetry, they all pretty much… zzzzzz.

So I decided to bring my poetry—along with a bit of classic poetry—to the world via a podcast, because the world clearly does not have enough podcasts yet.

For now, it’s very simple: just me, in a quiet room, reading three of my own poems and one classic poem, all organized around a theme.

In the future, I’d love for this to grow into something a little larger—something like an audio literary journal featuring contemporary voices from all walks of life. A place for fresh, energetic poetry that may not exactly fit the shape and size currently being allowed through the literary gates.

The first episode’s theme is family, and includes three of my poems—Ophelia’s Opal, My Mother’s Attempted Slow Death by Refusing to Eat, and Easter Portrait—along with “The Children’s Hour” by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

Please forgive the occasional blips as I start and stop. Me in a quiet room reading poetry is still getting the hang of this thing.

You can listen right here, or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

If you’d like to share your poetry for possible inclusion in a future episode, you can send it to: MichelleReadsPoems@gmail.com

Until next episode… Happy Poet-ing!
-Michelle

Poets Reading Poetry to Poets (poetry)

~ M. Ashley ~ Leave a comment

A good juicy scoop of mind-
Stuff quivering on the spoon
Slid slithery onto the tongue
Like licking silk.

Read it to me again, Baby
Orgasm or empty bladder
Either way
A relief.

Something
So
Good

Ego eviscerated on the
Golden linoleum wet with
Meaty gore. That’s all me
Down there. Down here

I go again.
Let’s go again.

-M. Ashley

I am starting a poetry reading podcast and would love to feature your work. If you’d like me to read your poem on the show, please send submissions to MichelleReadsPoems@gmail.com

Together I think we can build something great.

Poetry Reading Podcast Call for Submissions

~ M. Ashley ~ Leave a comment

Hello Friends,

I have decided to start a little poetry reading podcast (gotta make this “sultry sultry” voice earn its keep!), and I am wondering if any of you in this wonderful community would like to submit your poems for me to read. Upcoming themes are:

4/1 Ep. 1 Family and Connection
4/1 Ep. 2 Poetry of Place
4/8 Ep. 3 Writing on Writing
4/15 Ep. 4 Death and Taxes—Absolutes

My first episode will be on 4/1 so my audience is exactly 0 as of this moment, but what I would like to build toward is something like an audio literary journal and I would love if you talented poets would be a part of it.

Let me know if you’ve got something you’d like me to read.

Send poetry and inquiries to: MichelleReadsPoems@gmail.com

Happy poet-ing!

-Michelle