Tag Archives: University of Mary Washington

Stand in the place where you live. (Now face north.)

Check out these awesome Christmas presents I received from some totally cool Roanoke friends — bookstands for displaying some of the publications that have featured my poems.  🙂

Also among the Yuletide goodies were an Irish coin and a piece of Connemara marble — ideal for setting up beside my copy of The Galway Review 12.



Trees at the University of Mary Washington, photo by Morgan Riley, 2007

Formerly Mary Washington College.  Photo taken from Campus Walk.

Photo credit: Morgan Riley, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0&gt;, via Wikimedia Commons

Hot off the press from Ireland — The Galway Review 12.

I am currently enjoying The Galway Review’s annual anthology, The Galway Review 12 — which includes my poem, “The Beach House, Early Spring.”   (The piece was published online by the magazine in October 2023.)

This really is one of the nicest honors I’ve received as a poet.  The Galway Review is the city’s leading literary magazine, with more than a half a million readers worldwide, and I was included along with just seven other poets to see my work appear in this annual publication.  I remain quite grateful to the magazine’s editors for selecting my poem.

If you’d like to peruse the anthology, you can read it online for free right here.



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Photo collage from the “Bulletin of the Normal School for Women, Fredericksburg, Virginia, April, 1920”

“The Normal School for Women” later became Mary Washington College.  There is a pernicious rumor going around that it was subsequently named “The University of Mary Washington,” but we all know that couldn’t be right.

Anyway, you can view and enlarge this image here at Wikimedia Commons.



Bulletin_of_the_Normal_School_for_Women,_Fredericksburg,_Virginia,_April,_1920_(1920)_(14762681511)

EgoPHobia features three of my poems.

What a great day, guys.  I’m honored to share that three of my poems appeared today in EgoPHobia — an independent Romanian e-journal dedicated to literature and philosophy.

The poems selected were “Industrial Revolution” (an early poem that I’d dedicated to my late father), “Ode” and “school shooter.”  All three pieces can be found at EgoPHobia right here.

I am quite grateful to Editor Stefan Bolea and the staff at EgoPHobia for allowing me to showcase my work in this important cultural resource for Eastern Europe.



The Bristol Herald Courier publishes my letter about mandatory school prayer.

I’m very happy today to see the Bristol Herald Courier publish my letter to the editor about mandatory prayer in the public school classroom.  You can read it right here.

As always, I am grateful to Managing Editor Roger Watson and his staff for allowing me to share my perspective in this leading regional newspaper for Southwest Virginia.



The Roanoke Times publishes my latest letter to the editor.

I am so happy today to see The Roanoke Times publish my latest letter to the editor:

Letter: Beware those who would criticize knowledge

As always, I am grateful to the editorial staff of this superb regional newspaper.  The Roanoke Times is the primary newspaper for Southwest Virginia, and its Sunday readership throughout 19 counties is estimated at 230,000 people.

I’m also pleasantly surprised that this particular letter seems to have struck a chord with people the way that it did.  After it was carried by a number of newspapers in Virginia and by Newsday in New York, it was shared with a combined 733,000 readers.  That would make it the most broadly circulated single item of all of my writing.



Newsday prints my letter to the editor about the word “overeducated.”

I got some more amazing news today, guys — Newsday printed my most recent letter to the editor, about the word “overeducated” being thrown around by our national politicians.  You can find it right here in yesterday’s paper.

My letter was edited down considerably for length, but I am still quite honored to see something I authored appear in this major regional newspaper.  Newsday is the America’s 10th largest paper, and the third largest in New York State.  It has a weekday circulation of 437,000 in the New York metropolitan area, and reaches nearly half of the households on Long Island.

I really am grateful to Newsday’s editorial staff for deciding that my letter merited the attention of its readers.



The Bosphorus Review of Books publishes “Delaware Sheets.”

I’m honored to share here that the Bosphorus Review of Books in the Republic of Turkey today published my poem “Delaware Sheets.”  You can find it right here.

The Bosphorus Review of Books is a bi-monthly English-language literary journal based in Istanbul.  It is a truly outstanding publication, with the goal of connecting Istanbul with the global literary community.  I am grateful indeed to Poetry Editor Maged Hussein for allowing me the opportunity to see my work appear in such a superb periodical.



I can never be “overeducated.”

So … the term “overeducated” has gained currency in the national discourse.


I myself can never be “overeducated.”


The more that I learn, the more I understand how much more I have to learn. The greater my knowledge, the smaller a fraction it seems of the vast and sprawling sum of knowledge to be gained.

It is like cresting a tall hill at the edge of my neighborhood, only to lay eyes for the first time upon distant ranges of mountains, lining a dawn horizon like endless, luminous, upward serrated silver. I am richer for having seen them there — no matter how paltry my hilltop now seems when I imagine it measured against them. And now that I know the mountains are there, there is a chance that I will someday depart to reach their feet.

I hope I never call myself an “expert” in any subject. The word is fool’s gold. Hubris clings like oil to the circumference of its rounded letters.

But shaming the pursuit of knowledge? Chiding those who’ve worked to attain it, as though their diligence and curiosity were character flaws? That is worse.


Let me tell you something that I have learned in my nearly half century on this planet. When people tell you not to think, then you should think. When people tell you not to ask questions, then you should ask questions. There is always information or a new perspective that the people behind such admonitions do not want you to gain.

And why should we trust those who would deny us so?


Adams_The_Tetons_and_the_Snake_River

Photo credit: By Ansel Adams – This media is available in the holdings of the National Archives and Records Administration, cataloged under the National Archives Identifier (NAID) 519904., Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=118192