Many thanks to the members of the Boiler House Poets Collective ’26 for a wonderful residency at the Studios at MASS MoCA and reading at the North Adams Public Library!
Join us for Linda’s One-Liner Wednesdays! Find out more here: https://lindaghill.com/2026/10/21/one-liner-wednesday-famous-last-thoughts/
(Joanne Corey reading with the Boiler House Poets Collective at the North Adams (MA) Public Library, October 17, 2026. Photo credit: Deborah Marshall)
Since Thursday, I have been at the Boiler House Poets Collective’s annual residency at the Studios at MASS MoCA (Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art).
If you look back through my archive, you will find many, many posts that I made during residencies, in most years, daily, going all the way back to the residency which formed the basis for BHPC in November, 2015. The subsequent resdiencies have been in September or October.
I’m pleased to say that our reading on Saturday at the North Adams Public Library was great. We read in alphabetical order, so I was first, which I like because I then get to relax and enjoy everyone else’s work. With ten poets, we each do a 5-minute sampler of our work, so there is lots of variety for the audience. We had an unusually lively question and answer session after the reading and time for snacks and conversation.
Admittedly, I am low on energy this year, as I await surgery for Chiari malformation later this month. (Link has a lot of good information for Chiari in people with hEDS like me but, please, ignore the pitch for the practice at the end.) My focus had been to get through the reading, and I met that goal. I have tried to do a bit more since, like visiting the Museum, but I pushed a little too hard and am now having to pull back and rest more. I regret missing most of our workshopping sessions this residency but I hope that, next year, I’ll be in better shape to participate more fully.
I’m very grateful to my fellow Boiler House Poets Collective members for supporting me in my current, challenging circumstances and look forward to our future residencies together. Long live BHPC!
North Adams, MA folks are cordially invited to the Boiler House Poets Collective reading at the North Adams Public Library on Saturday, October 17 at 11:00 AM with reading first, followed by Q&A, book sales and signing, refreshments, and conversation.
You are also invited to join in with Linda’s One-Liner Wednesdays! Find out more here: https://lindaghill.com/2026/10/14/one-liner-wednesday-leafing/
The reason I haven’t been posting much lately is that I am getting ready to have surgery for Chiari malformation in late October. There is a lot to do to get prepared, including a bunch of tests, which, along with the rest of my medical team visits has been taking up a lot of time and my limited brainpower.
I also was trying to keep some fraction of my volunteering and online advocacy going but now push has come to shove, as they say, and I am setting almost everything aside for now to concentrate on my health. I need to rest more and not tax my already over-taxed brain.
My poor brain has been spending the last 2 1/2 years without the right amount of cerebrospinal fluid and my symptoms seem to be intensifying a bit, so I need to acknowledge that. I knew I’d need to be on a long hiatus after the surgery, so I’m practicing now.
That being said, there are a few commitments that I plan to keep, the Boiler House Poets Collective residency at the Studios at MASS MoCA and the sing-along hosted by the Madrigal Choir of Binghamton. I may not be much help for either of them but it’s important for me to be there.
I’m giving myself permission to stop trying to keep up with all the causes that I usually do, so I’m up-to-date to do comments or letters to elected officials and government agencies or just contribute to conversation. I will try to read just my favorite writers and columns. I need to get used to deleting things without opening them.
Ironically, I may post here a bit more during the weeks remaining before surgery. If there is less to keep up with, I might be able to reserve some time and brainpower to post.
If I don’t manage it, you’ll know the reason.
*****
Linda’s prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday this week is “reason.” Join us! Find out more here: https://lindaghill.com/2026/09/11/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-september-12-2026/
Just proving that I made it through the reading event at the Broome County (NY) Arts Council last night.
Things went well with poems, a short story in translation, music, paintings, and a film, all represented.
Thanks to Connie, Ann, and all the BCAC staff for making the America 250 exhibition and event possible. Thanks also to fellow poet Samantha Terrell who sent me this photo that her husband took while I was reading.
Binghamton NY area folks are invited to an event celebrating the Broome County Arts Council’s America 250 project tomorrow, July 16, at 6:30 PM, in which I will be participating.
This friendly invitation is part of Linda’s One-Liner Wednesdays series. Join us! Find out more here: https://lindaghill.com/2026/07/15/one-liner-wednesday-hey-dilly-dilly/
Folks in the Binghamton, New York area can visit a special exhibition at the Broome County Arts Council, beginning today, July 3rd, and continuing throughout the month of July.
The official opening is tonight from 6-9 PM for First Friday. There will be visual and literary arts on display around the theme of our personal American heritage.
I am happy to announce that my poem, “Giovanni”, about my Italian-speaking, immigrant grandfather will be part of the exhibition.
On Thursday, July 16th at 6:30 PM, there will be a reading event in conjunction with the exhibition which will include the authors presenting their poems and personal recollections.
Please, join us, if you are able!
I miss writing.
Because of the brain fog and fatigue I’ve had over the last couple of years as a result of my extra-stetchy connective tissue from my hEDS, I can’t spend as much time writing as I would like.
Some kinds of writing, like poetry, have become almost non-existent in my life. I feel like the creative side of my brain isn’t operational the vast majority of the time – and the more analytic side is only at half-capacity, at best. Heck, I have difficulty reading literature of any kind these days. I can sometimes manage to grasp poems, if it’s in the morning and they aren’t too long. I can’t read novels because I can’t get plots and characters to stick in my head over days. I can’t even manage non-fiction books because the brain fog is too thick to remember topics over the course of days and the fatigue level is such that I can’t read very long at a sitting. I’ve been trying to keep up by reading news and commentary articles and newsletters but have been so tired lately that my inbox is overflowing with unread material.
There has been so much happening here in the US that I’ve wanted to write posts about but haven’t been able to manage, which makes me sad. I keep thinking that the next specialist visit will give us something actionable to improve my condition but, instead, it usually means more tests are needed, which means waiting for the tests to be scheduled, doing them, waiting for them to be interpreted, waiting for the specialist to see the results and interpret them – which often yields a different result than the radiology reports that land in my health portal – and get back to me with what they think is going on. Then, maybe, we get to trying a treatment that may or may not work and then onto the next option or the next specialist.
I’m grateful, though, that this year I have a specialist who was finally able to diagnose my hEDS and cerebellar ectopia and that I finally have specialists who know what to try with patients like me. Unfortunately, I might need some pretty scary treatments, like brain surgery.
So, I’m grateful and scared and exhausted and anxious and tired of all the waiting and struggling and symptoms and uncertainty.
And I miss writing and being able to make it through a day without having to spend a good chunk of it lying down and being able to take walks without having someone with me in case I lose my ability to keep my balance and going to visit family and friends and being able to concentrate and speaking without having to search for the right word in some kind of frantic brain race.
I miss the life of the mind that I took for granted as part of my identity.
And here you have an illustration of why stream of consciousness writing is so dangerous to put out there, because this is a way darker post than I thought I was going to be writing when I started out with Linda’s prompt of the word miss and decided to write about missing writing.
It is, though, on brand with Top to JC’s Mind where I usually write honestly about whatever is top of mind for me, even when that mind is more scattered and glitchy and exhausted than it used to be.
There are two big imaging studies coming up for me this week and a hugely important appointment with a specialized neurosurgeon at the end of July. Meanwhile, I’m hoping against hope to get a few significant posts written here, as opposed to the last month which has not been very substantive.
Sigh.
I miss writing.
*****
Join us for Linda’s Stream of Consciousness Saturday! Find out more here: https://lindaghill.com/2026/06/19/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-june-20-2026/
As I wrote here, I was unable to attend the Write Out Loud ’26 event at the Fenimore Art Museum near Cooperstown, NY, last month, but I’m happy to share the newly released recording.
My poem “Nor’easter Numbers” is first on the program, read wonderfully by the fabulous Sharon Rankins-Burd. If you watch the video on YouTube and click on “more,” you can see the program and timings laid out so you can easily navigate to particular pieces. Enjoy! As always, feel free to comment.
Here in the United States, April is observed as National Poetry Month. While my writing and activities are constrained by my health, it was my privilege to be involved with a couple of poetry events this month.
I was able to read a couple of my poems as part of the Tioga Arts Council‘s Poetry Out Loud event. Area poets gathered to read poems, their own or others’. I especially loved hearing from some of my friends of the Grapevine Poets and from Dante Di Stefano, whose spouse is director of the Tioga Arts Council. The amazing thing about the reading was that there were a number of participants who had never before done a reading or even attended one. We also had a wide range of work read, including a poem in Bengali which was a combination of singing and speaking.
For the third consecutive year, one of my poems was accepted to the Write Out Loud event at the Fenimore Art Museum near Cooperstown, NY. The performance was the evening before the Madrigal Choir of Binghamton’s spring concert and I knew I would not have energy to sing dress rehearsal, scoot to Cooperstown for the evening, and sing an afternoon concert the next day, so I happily ceded reading duties to Sharon Rankins-Burd, who read my poem “The Bridge” so admirably last year. This year, my poem “Nor’Easter Numbers” was the first poem on the program. I’m looking forward to the recording of the reading becoming available. I’ll post when it is! Update: the recording is now available here.
How did you celebrate poetry this month?
