I used to love helping my father in his vegetable garden. It had several locations over the years—first on our farm northwest of Alexandria, between the Red River and the levee, and later at our home south of town, where the yard itself was roomy enough for a garden.

A few of the books I read all the way through last year, without skipping around (sorry, poetry, that lets you out) or tossing it aside in irritation.

Summer is my favorite season, heat and all. Here’s to the peak of summer. . . .

They always seem like a backhanded message from my brother Thomas.

. . . I couldn’t divorce my writing from the world, or my work from lived experience, even if I tried.

A powerful hurricane was headed right for the mouth of the Mississippi, and it was named Katrina.

It began as a “disturbance,” a white blur off the coast of Africa, which the man on the Weather Channel said was becoming organized.

“I’m not,” said George . . .

Do you have a favorite sentence from literature? One of my most admired is from Katherine Anne Porter's great short story "Theft."

The Arkansas Times reports that Melvin Pickens, known around Little Rock as "The Broom Man," has died. Here, in honor of Mr. Pickens's memory, I post a poem about him from my collection The Wheel of Light.