A few months ago, someone reached out to me from Malaysia asking if I might teach her spoken Tamil. At first I was deeply hesitant. There are many wonderful teachers […]
A Potent Question
Whenever I offer a talk, I cherish the opportunity for interaction and conversation. Usually this means some kind of Q&A with the audience as a whole, the more boisterous and […]
Poets As Friends
I was recently delighted to speak at the graduation ceremony of the Metroplex Tamil Academy in Dallas, Texas. A record 72 eighth graders were recognized for their achievement! Such community […]
Pushing Our Own Edges
Something that doesn’t get as much attention as it should is that learning another language can end up pushing us to the very edge of what we know and who […]
The Voices of Children
I want to tell you a little more about my upcoming free webinar with teacher and author Komathy Caandeepan. One of my favorite verses from the classical Tamil masterpiece on […]
Reading as Hospitality
In a world that feels ever more fragmented and contentious, I keep returning to what I see as one of the most powerful practices of peace that we have: the […]
Prosody and Healing
I wanted to add a note to what I wrote earlier this month about prosody, the music of meaning that can enter our own voices when we speak what is […]
The Singing of One Who Knows
A few weeks back, I wrote about what I called the music of meaning–what makes writing memorable and moving. (If you didn’t have a chance to look at it then, […]