“I wondered if I was the one who had taken a funny turn. One can take a turn for the worse or the better. But taking a “funny turn” is ambiguous and enigmatic. I wondered what the original Italian phrasing was for this.”

“Memories that I had buried with graduate work were now being triggered by my return. A pit grew in my stomach over the next month, prohibiting me from enjoying the most basic things…”

“This is the peace of upper atmospheres. This is the idea of flying. The dream of it, of being that eagle, the sound of wind steadily pushing past our feathers.”

I’ve never had an office, apart from the sad, windowless closet I occupied as a grad student. I don’t own a desk. Some days I work at my kitchen table, but more often I sit on my couch or in bed with my computer on my lap. Music, rather than location, is what grounds me as I write.

“By describing how the practice of writing interacts with the act of listening to music, the essays in “Music for Desks” aspire to a similar magic. These pieces will be exploratory in nature—in all senses about process, rather than result.”

All I know is, each time I read a poem that seduces my senses—that moves me to catharsis or imparts its own unique brand of wisdom—I change a little. And this fills me with gratitude because, once I mark the page, I know exactly where to locate the feeling that poem roused when I need it.