We are the bees of the invisible.
We wildly collect the honey of the invisible,
to store it in the great golden hive
of the invisible.
--- Rainer Maria Rilke, from a letter to Halewicz
On these pages, you will find a newly active blog (The Street) that will include notes about Oakland, CA, mainly West Oakland. On this website, you will also find previously published poems from my three completed manuscripts -- Darkwood of Error, 'Alewa Drive, and Drawing Breath -- also poems from a book in progress, tentatively entitled The Tender Hour as well as several other previously published works: short stories and a critical essay and a number of my more concrete poems (see links above). A while back, I was having fun drawing, using the primitive draw program in Microsoft Word -- a bit like contour drawing twice removed – and these drawings became part of my concrete poems. I also post periodic notes on books recently read at rethinking books, a site dedicated to intelligent conversation about books. Enjoy, and if you are interested in joining rethinking books, just contact me!
I tutor young writers, edit, and provide useful advice concerning the organization and presentation of manuscripts. If you are interested in these services, please shoot me an email for more information. Apologies to those who tried to use the contact page and found it inoperable; that problem has been fixed as of today: 9.26.2011
One last thing . . . Please note that all materials, including visuals, on these pages are under copyright, but if you see something that you might like to include on your site or in your print journal, just contact me. I am reasonable and accessible. If you wish to read more work for potential publication, I have other poems and stories.
Feel free to email me if you have any questions or comments: tiaballantine@gmail.com
