Photos

Worthless Words

These are photos of the sculpture at Glore Psychiatric Museum in St. Joseph, Missouri, that I incorporated into a poem titled “The Sculpture.” (It was first published in Muzzle’s 2015 mental-health issue as “The Letter.”)

A patient at Glore made the piece when the hospital was still in operation. I’m visiting the museum in the spring to document the writing on each piece of foamboard along with a diagram that shows where the pieces are situated in the work.

One of the museum’s employees took these photos and sent them to me. I haven’t seen the piece in person since 2015. I’m happy it’s still on display and in good condition. Anything can outlive us. Anything can matter after we’re gone, just as we matter while we’re here. These words are not “worthless,” as the sculpture’s creator says on one of the foamboard strips.

My Poems in Fence

This is the issue of Fence that my work appeared in back in 2001 just after I completed my undergraduate coursework. When I showed it to my first poetry teacher, he wouldn’t even look at my poem. He just said the journal wasn’t one he read or took seriously. I felt stupid for thinking my work had merit and that Fence was a credible publication. I didn’t submit work for seven years after that interaction with my teacher. I mostly didn’t write during that period, either. Matt Jasper calls this kind of thing wing clipping. This felt more like ripping my feathers out by their calami.

The issue I was in includes work by Bruce Andrews, Jorie Graham, Cate Marvin, and Adrienne Rich, among others. It’s astounding that anyone could look at the table of contents and respond the way my teacher did. Fence is one of the best literary journals out there. My teacher should have been celebrating me, not diminishing me.

Fence is currently open for submissions. Their reading period closes October 31, 2025.

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Images: 1. The front cover of Fence, Spring/Summer 2001. 2. The first page of my poem Quintet being held down by an iron bee paperweight. 3. The cseconf page of my poem.

The Dance Magazine, 1928

This page from The Dance Magazine, dated July 1928, features Mignon Laird. She was one of the dancers at the time who had their own domestic zoos. Laird’s father was involved with the circus. I believe he was promoting circuses, but he also had elephants at one point and aspired to have his own circus. The Thornton side of our family knew the Lairds, and my mother was named after Mignon.

La Verkin, Utah

Clare, last night I saw horses, more than a dozen of them. First, I saw the dust they were raising as they ran, then I heard their hooves on earth, that dry drumming, then I saw them through the trees just on the other side of the Virgin River. They weren’t wild but they had enough space to act wild. There they were in the sage and dry grass moving like the river when it’s boated, fluid like that and strong, wanting nothing but this moment, nothing but each other. Keep writing your horse poems, Clare. A horse is a heart outside the human body who reminds us we each carry a heart within us, one that beats like a hoof hitting dirt. We need horses more than ever. We need your poems.

Baker Wetlands, Kansas

My friend Jose Faus in the distance at Baker Wetlands in Kansas, 2017. It was evening. We were alone. I saw a Wilson’s Snipe. I’d recently stopped writing poetry. Jose, a poet, ventured into birding with me so we could spend time together that way. It wasn’t half bad, being a birder and not a poet.

Headrick, Oklahoma

My family on my mother’s side. 1. My great-grandparents, Jesse and Sarah. 2. My grandfather, my great-grandfather, and horses. 3. My great-grandparents on their porch, children all around the place, many outside the frame. 4. My grandfather, great-grandfather, great-grandmother, a great-aunt, another great-aunt, I think, and a baby who was supposed to be her sibling but was really her child. This was their not-nice house. 5. My family on the porch of their nice house. The dead (suicide, unknown cause) are propped up in framed images in front of the living.