Susan Browne's Blog
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Feb.18.2009
The other day, a student in my creative writing class told me he went to the Lafayette Reservoir because I had mentioned how I love to go for a walk/run there. In class, I had talked about the beauty of taking a six mile walk, alone, around the reservoir and how it clears my mind and spirit, as...
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11 comments
Jan.31.2009
I saw the film Revolutionary Road last night. It's a work of art on every level, the cinematography, the acting, the script. Based on Richard Yates' great novel, the script uses dialogue directly quoted from the book. Powerful. I was riveted.
The film is a poem of brutal truth. It doesn't...
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16 comments
Jan.28.2009
My husband Kenneth made coffee for me this morning. I lingered in bed, (it was 5:30am-we both like to get up early), and fell asleep again. It was an unexpected gift I gave to myself. Zooey, the fabulous calico, cuddled up at my side. When I woke a half an hour later, the rich deep dark earthy...
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3 comments
Jan.23.2009
In this California climate of financial morass, the first two weeks of the semester are a real hoot. A hoopla of people demanding classes when there are no classes. It's a ton o' fun, telling a hundred or so students they can't have their classes. And such a joy to receive nasty emails from...
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8 comments
Jan.01.2009
On the last Sunday of 2008, a friend and I went to Spirit Rock Meditation Center for a day-long retreat. This particular retreat was called "Out with the Old." Nina Wise and Wes Nisker, both authors and Buddhist teachers, led us through eight hours of meditation, stories, poems, guided...
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4 comments
Dec.27.2008
One of the highlights of this past holiday week besides bowling, which is a Xmas Day tradition even though only two family members can actually bowl, the rest of us just drink a beer, wind up, and lunge the ball down the alley,
was getting a massage.
Even the word relaxes me. Massaaaaaaaage. Ah...
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12 comments
Dec.20.2008
Time to put the year to bed. Tuck it in and say, "Nightie Night," sing a lullaby. I just turned in the final grades for my students, went Xmas shopping, had a dinner party with my very talented musician friends, song rocking this little Merriewood house, closing on the midnight hour...
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5 comments
Dec.18.2008
When I was in Denmark in October, a friend there recommended this novel: Out Stealing Horses by Per Petterson. The story is a beautiful weaving of present and past, of sixty-seven-year-old Trond Sander and his fifteenth summer when he went out stealing horses with his friend, Jon, and all that...
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6 comments
Dec.16.2008
Recently, I've been busy with end of the semester reading/grading, but I found time to enjoy some holiday cheer. Two restaurants of delicious eats:
A friend and I went to Marzano, on Park Blvd in Oakland. A cozy brick interior, very close tables, and yet the feeling is lively and comfortable, a...
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Dec.10.2008
A friend of mine had a house for rent by the creek, with a fenced backyard, a high wooden fence Callie-Blue couldn't jump. We moved in August 1st, and I began preparing to teach at Butte Community College in September, just one night class, but I was thrilled. This, I thought, was the beginning...
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7 comments
Dec.08.2008
I saw a terrific trumpeter Saturday night at Yoshi's: Chris Botti. Or I should say, instead of "seeing him," I listened to him because his music made me listen with my core. At first, I wasn't crazy about going, thinking (without really knowing much on the subject) that he was only a...
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6 comments
Dec.05.2008
It is a strange phenomenon: the human being who sits next to you at a dinner party and never asks one question about you. I had this experience last night. There were other people at the party who did engage in a more balanced exchange with me, but I was unfortunately seated for dinner near three...
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Dec.03.2008
I was upset by your review
Of my book on Amazon
Until I realized you'll be dead
In a few years like me
So we have a lot in common,
Including we're both
Emotionally disturbed
And suffer from lifelong
Bewilderment, two qualities
You saw operating in my poetry
Among your other astute
Observations of...
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19 comments
Dec.02.2008
In late spring, I move out of Maureen and J.B.'s house. I find a studio apartment on the second floor of a house on Fourth Street. My floor of the building is nestled in the branches of two oak trees. The large casement windows open out, and it's as if the leaves breathe gold-green light into...
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3 comments
Dec.01.2008
My father left a message on my answering machine the other day: "Ed died. My best friend is gone."
Ed and my father met in the second grade. They were friends for 78 years. Yesterday, at Ed's funeral at a church in San Leandro, my father related the story about first meeting his friend...
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6 comments
About Susan
Born in Long Beach, California, Susan Browne has lived most of her life in the Bay Area. Her poetry has appeared in Ploughshares, Subtropics, River City, The Mississippi Review, Gargoyle, Margie, American Life in Poetry, and other literary journals and...
Connections
Causes Susan Browne Supports
Unicef
Amnesty International
Run Together, A Race to Raise Money for Leukemia and Lymphoma Society