Welcome to the stanza, a little room for poetry and the writing life.
For general information, CV and bio, publications, events, etc., please visit my website: www.mollyspencer.com.
As for the name, the stanza: In literature a stanza is a series of lines that comprise one unit of a poem. I like to think of each stanza as a kind of poem in and of itself. The word stanza comes from the Italian for “room” (hence the subtitle), which was derived from the Latin stantia, meaning ‘to stay.’ So, a stanza is a little room to step into, to look around in, to stay for a moment before moving on to the next place. I hope you will do just that: come by and visit, see what’s here, join the conversation if you’re so inclined, and take what you like for the next little room of your day, week, life, journey.
Thanks for reading,
Molly Spencer
A note on the header image: Detail from “Interior With Young Man Reading” by Vilhelm Hammerschøi. Public domain from Wikimedia Commons.
All original text and photos (c) Molly C. Spencer 2012 –.
A note on fair use: This blog is intended to be a place of learning. I have attempted to use any text/images by others under the guidelines of fair use. If you are the owner of a copyright on text/images used here and you feel a copyright violation has occurred, please contact me at mollycspencer (at) gmail (dot) com, and I’ll be happy to resolve the issue promptly.
the stanza 
Hi Molly,
I’ve sure been enjoying “the stanza.” I miss the almost daily contact we had during Jennifer’s course. Reading your posts is a delightful substitution.
Always,
Cylia
Hi Cylia, so nice to hear from you! I’ve missed the contact with everyone on Blackboard, too. So nice to know you’re reading along here. Take care, Molly.
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Dear Molly ~ Thanks so much for your deep reading and understanding of Earth. What you had to say about “Little Song” made my morning, here in L.A., and also made me a little weepy, to tell the truth. The blog is beautiful, thoughtful, a gift — I can’t help but wonder how people like you manage to do this, and why you do it, but I’m grateful. I’m going to share this link and pass it along to the poets in my workshops. All the best ~ Cecilia Woloch
Thank you for taking the time to read the post and comment! I just love EARTH and so much of your previous work.
I’m wondering how to subscribe to your blog
Hi Julane, I think I saw that you were able to subscribe, but just in case — there’s a field in the right margin where you can enter your e-mail address. You have to scroll down quite a bit to find the field. Thanks for your interest!
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Ms. Molly,
This is a response to a poem of yours entitled “Translation” in the Fall Zyzzyva journal. Started to read and enjoy it until I got to the line “Extraordinary circumstances is a boy face down in the street, a black boy, a four-hour pool of blood.” Why state his color? Simply for descriptive purposes? When white people point out race they need to be careful. Would you have identified the boy as white, if he had been white? For what purpose? I think more often than not, white folks want to give the subject matter more gravitas, more credibility. This is a bit exploitative and insulting. However, the painful part is that they assume that white is the norm, so they must distinguish the race if it is something other than white. Best policy is to leave the race out of the equation, unless you are making a specific point. In this case that would have been the best approach. A boy face down in his own blood….what else do you need? What else do any of us need?
Nancy
Nancy, thanks for taking the time to respond and share your thoughts on this. I appreciate your perspective and am turning it over in my head and heart. My reason for naming a skin color was to make a specific point: that it is black boy after black boy who have been killed by police; not so many white boys. But you are right that any boy face down in his own blood is awful enough. Thanks again. I may have gotten this wrong, and I appreciate the chance to think it over. Best, Molly.
Nice to meet you