This week, our team has been discussing the Backwords Blog roots, along with our mission and methodology. Our approach to wrestling with our own histories and personal experiences, through the deepening of research. And, yes, our sometimes-departure from that form. In light of the number of, say, “political posts” from us lately, and given the tenor of the times, the blog’s undertaking has occasionally felt like an inadequate vehicle for speaking our truth—especially to power

I had walked by it, ridden the train by it – probably hundreds of times while the show was in Portland – so it was surreal to finally be inside the “White Big Top.” But instead of my hometown, I was in Irvine, California visiting my friend and former roommate, Shonna, and the Big Top was the reason she was there. Shonna works for Cavalia – the Montreal based entertainment company – and was (and still is) working on tour with their show, Odysseo. The space inside the tent was

Right now, in this world, in this country, this state, in small liberal-minded Portland, OR–I’ve been thinking a lot. Reading. Meeting people. Listening. I’m in a gathering period. My fingernails, untended, are too long. I feel slow. I’ve turned off all my social media notifications. The fuzziness, I have faith, will give way to focus. Everything feels necessary, and time is always running out. I’m trying to synthesize everything, but I don’t want to write about it, because l

On January 30th, 2017, I attended the Oregon Symphony’s performance of Romeo & Juliet, which was composed by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. That Monday evening at Portland’s Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall followed a weekend of turmoil, coinciding with the President's (despicable) travel ban. Uncertainty, isolation, and a thick fear of what’s next, has persisted since the election. These emotions are almost palpable everywhere you turn, and because of this, I had decided that night

I was finally in Southern California. It took me a long time to get there. And I don’t mean that in a metaphorical I’d-been-waiting-all-my-life kind of way, I mean my flight was cancelled and my travel delayed by 7 hours. I’d flown south for a much needed break from my gray city life in Portland, and to visit my good friend Shonna who was living in Newport Beach for work. We’d lived together in Portland and she was always my go-to companion for hiking, camping, and general a

I’m not going to write about the “orange thing with tiny hands” that I know people in my camp are writing about, talking about, avoiding, bemoaning, resisting, marching, crying, and/or self-medicating over. I won’t mention how “orange face w. tiny hands” on his first day in office overhauled the White House website so that it’s now very clearly missing pages for climate change, civil rights, disabilities, gay rights, and health care. Other news sites have parroted “OFTH’s” th

As we move into December 2016, after a long year of enormous change (both good, bad, and in-between), our team here at Backwords Press is grateful for a mainstay: the poet and freelance graphic designer, Phillip Brown. Given that Phillip has worked with us throughout our 2015 and 2016 years, on two separate redesigns from our Inaugural Issue, and then again on the Spring 2016 Issue, he's long overdue for a spotlight here on the blog that showcases his particular talents and e

Where do I start? Do I start on Wednesday November 9, 2016 at 4:27 a.m. when I woke up to the confirmation that Donald Trump would be the next President of the United States? Do I start somewhere in the middle of my sleep-deprivation, moving through the waking nightmare that Americans elected a glorified reality TV star; a liar and a bully; who repeatedly denigrated immigrants, people of color, and assaulted women; who ran on a platform of massive deportations, on surveillanc

I had something else written. Something I felt good about, but was honestly somewhat rushed. Wordstock prep consumed me last week, and now I'm in Boston for a conference all week long. This is rushed, but the urgency feels right. After last night, I wrote this instead. I've been trying to put into words how I'm feeling about this election. Everything is overwhelming, yes. I'm sleep deprived, anxious, so many things, yes. The truth is: I'm feeling like I'm 13 again – in a

"Matty" Photo Credit: Molly Choma Matty and I are texting back and forth about the Season 7 premiere of The Walking Dead. At the end of last season, a terrifying sociopath with a baseball bat wrapped in barbed wire bludgeons someone to death, but we don’t get to see who. Tonight, we find out who dies. Even though Matty and I live together, I didn’t watch it with him.