I Am
2010
I am a Hmong boy who lives to eat rice. I wonder how much rice can feed the world. I hear the sound of Mama packing the rice from the “vab” I see the steam from the freshly cooked rice that makes my mouth water...
Poem: Fall Linens
2010
You resist when I take you down, refusing to end your dance with the October breeze. Flapping, twirling in your many threaded cotton gowns, which contain the smells of maple, grass and the geese sound, which blew in and won’t release.
July
2010
Just one more day A yellow daisy day A too hot sidewalk, barefoot day A last mosquito day A sunset at the beach day One scorcher day to hold midwinter
Poem: The Strength of a Woman
2010
Founded in 1994, New Foundations is a non-profit organization located on St. Paul’s East Side that provides permanent, supportive, affordable housing and comprehensive on-site services for homeless dually diagnosed chemically dependent and mentally ill adults in recovery and their families.
A Pint-Sized Child
By Mike Hazard ● 2009
A pint of raspberries rests in the lap of a pint-sized child. Lolling in her stroller, she’s living in the lap of luxury...
Saint Paul Saints—Change-ups, Curves & Ponytails—1998
By Donal Heffernan ● 2009
As our Saint Paul Saints begin another season this year, here are a couple of stars from a bit ago. Ila Border, the first woman to play in organized baseball, and Darryl Strawberry, down on his luck from stardom from the Yankees. Both players earned the applause and joy of Saints fans in 1998.
Somewhere I’ll Find You
By Phebe Hanson ● 2008
So we moved from my small town in western Minnesota to St. Paul where I had to go to Murray High, a school with more people than in the entire town of Sacred Heart...
Trust
By Kevin FitzPatrick ● 2008
"You'll get a ticket parked that way," I called. A slim black woman in cleaning clothes that workers wear at Regions Hospital had parked her rusty car along the curb, but pointed south, the wrong way on that street.
Lament
2008
It's clear I've missed a few stellar odes on my way to do the laundry—cracks in the canon, Li Po and Heaney's gold.
Poem: Landscape
2008
I drive across the High Bridge with Saint Paul sprawling before me, built on hills like Rome itself.
Poem: Riding the 16
2008
Forty-five minutes in the 2000s Is enough time to write A small book of poems But they never seem to come Until you're furthest away from a pen.
River Prayer
By Linda Back McKay ● 2007
The old man was not really in a rowboat under the Mississippi River bridge. He was in the process of turning inside himself, as we all will do one day...