Author Archives: jillbpearlman

Vertigo, How Real You Are

Posted on May 17, 2020 by jillbpearlman

I saw the clarity of my eyesight turn to soft waves. You know the cliche about writers being sensitive flowers, taking into their bodies whatever is “in the air”?  How the external world becomes translated in various ways into their nervous systems? … Continue reading →

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Olfactory

Posted on April 24, 2020 by jillbpearlman

Olfactory  Flat and metallic, my tongue  like disinfected aluminum.  The scent conveyed from nose to throat,a sympathetic gag almost. Vapors wave before my eyes.Clorox, ghost of scents past,seemingly obsolete, you’ve come back. You were banned, like death,things we thought we’d conquered.The stink … Continue reading →

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On Missing People

Posted on April 17, 2020 by jillbpearlman

I miss people.  As a self-declared introvert, I’m surprised, pleasantly – I miss people badly.  The list of what I miss is endless.  I miss their clean smells, their dirty smells, their mop of hair, their prickly beards. The irony … Continue reading →

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A Sonnet for Seder during Lockdown

Posted on April 8, 2020 by jillbpearlman

Sonnet for Seder during Lockdown Nothing is new under the sun, not even confinement.  The sun is not new, narrow straits not new, the liberation story rolls like time in search of an ending.  With Passover we should be done but we keep … Continue reading →

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The Introvert’s Guide to the New Reality

Posted on April 5, 2020 by jillbpearlman

“Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.” Ludwig Wittgenstein Of course we introverts have feelings.  We know that real grief is sometimes too deep for words.  The Covid-19 plague blew in with a whiplash of emotional states, laced … Continue reading →

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Marfa: The lightness and drollness of being

Posted on March 11, 2020 by jillbpearlman

Marfa.  Its name precedes it as an art-oasis in the Chihuahuan Texan desert. It has a certain droll quality – and might suggest such drollness is part of its very nature. One can’t help but wonder, “What the hell are we doing … Continue reading →

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Amurika, the Open Road

Posted on March 8, 2020 by jillbpearlman

The Canadian writer Dionne Brand says when you go on a trip, you leave the table, the book on the table, everything behind; the book and the table know you’ll be an entirely different person when you get back.   … Continue reading →

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Santa Fe, La Bella

Posted on March 3, 2020 by jillbpearlman

Sometimes you miss a place as you’re there, and you’ve never been there before. Or Santa Fe, as my mother might say, slayed me. It isn’t hard to say why. 1) on my way to AWP, the literary conference this … Continue reading →

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Everyday Life: Antidote to Political Poisons

Posted on February 16, 2020 by jillbpearlman

While making dinner — or reflecting excitedly on the importance of making dinner while sipping wine — I began to shape ideas that have been pressing on me during the week.  What had been expected and feared to happen in … Continue reading →

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The New Vertigo

Posted on January 26, 2020 by jillbpearlman

I like to write, but boy, do I have trouble at times settling down.  I love to write, even, but the other pole – the love of motion – makes it rough to sit at that desk.  I’ve got to … Continue reading →

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