C.M. Rivers

"The point of being an artist is that you may live." ~ Sherwood Anderson

Journal

  • Connecting Poetry With Song

    Connecting Poetry With Song

    Two powerful songs that resonate just as much now as they did decades ago Read more

  • A Short Interview

    A Short Interview

    A brief interview about poetry with Homebound Publications: HB: Why did you start writing poetry? CMR: I’m not sure which is more true: if I began writing poetry, or if poetry began writing me. All I know is, at some point, it became a necessary creative way for me to understand the world, my own Read more

  • Nine Machetes and an Earring

    When I was a boy, one of the things I loved most was a collection of 45-records, passed on to my Grandma Ruth from her dad’s jukebox and pinball machine business Keystone Amusement based in Silverton, a small Oregon town in the Willamette valley an hour’s drive south of Portland.  In the 1950’s and 60’s, Read more

  • Bobcats and Big Sur

    Reckoning appeared in the Winter 2020 issue of Stonecoast Review (University of Southern Maine).  This poem came about as an amalgam of a few different things that came together in my mind to create a snapshot of a character. The first was from a visit to Yosemite National Park, when three friends and I were Read more

  • Fritter in the Bookshop

    Just because we’re sentimental about a household object that used to belong to a grandparent, doesn’t mean the dog won’t eat it while left at home alone all day.  To him, a coaster with the Notre-Dame cathedral painted on it is – while not the preferred afternoon snack – quite suitable to chew on. “To Read more

  • Zen

    Daylight passes over the garden. Wild green things grow thick ‘round the entranceway. Spotted fawns have come by, their mother not far behind. Cat sits and watches.     Read more