Charles van Heck's Woodhull Journal

  • Poetry and Standing at the Edge of the Raccoon World

    I had the opportunity to be an early reader of the galleys of Who By Fire by Mary L. Tabor. An excerpt from my review appears at the end of this essay. What do you take with your morning coffee? What do you see in the domestic details of your life? Ours is an object-world that…

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  • Crime and the Empty Spaces Between Us

    The abduction of Nancy Guthrie has riveted national attention for 15 days. The news media and social media have given extensive coverage to the search for her. Her family’s plea, their desperation for the return of their mother, loved and respected by those who know her, disturbs the heart. We ask ourselves, who would kidnap…

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  • Grocery Shopping with Mister Lincoln’s Elephant Boys

    Grocery shopping in our home is usually done on Thursday or Friday. The upcoming week’s menu and the supermarket list are written concurrently. This saves time and money in the market. The problem with this is that we each prefer shopping in different stores. My preference is for a small grocery market. The large stores,…

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  • To be “resilient optimists” in a Time of Crisis

    In my hometown of Oakland, New Jersey, there are two lakes: Mirror Lake and Crystal Lake. My family home was on Mirror Lake, which was commonly known as “Little Lake.” I recall the summer days when we neighborhood children gathered to swim and the winter afternoons when we skated. Occasionally, I would take my bamboo…

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  • About Food and Friendship

    A friend, Eszter, invited my wife and I to breakfast at the Dexter Brunch House this past Sunday. The ambiance is comfortable and modern, and the cuisine is good. The restaurant has undergone numerous changes to its name and interior design over the years. When I first went there, it was known as The Lighthouse.…

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  • Translating Judith Herzberg

    The Dutch poet and playwright Judith Herzberg has presented the world with a body of work that reveals her sensitivity to fine details of a moment, those details she observes, and to the language required to express the subject. She discerns in the mundane what is elusive to others.  Pieter Vandermeer writes of Ms. Herzberg:…

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  • Intellectual Disability: Breaking My Silence and the Orbits I Live In

    A New York Times article by Dan Barry and Sonia A. Rao touched a nerve in me. The on-line article, published on 26 January, is titled “The ‘R-Word’ Returns, Dismaying Those Who Fought to Oust It.” The piece was republished on 29 January in the print edition under the title “Spewed by the Powerful, a…

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  • RUPTURED

    Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney is right. The prime minister is correct when he says there is “a rupture in the world order, the end of a pleasant fiction and the beginning of a harsh reality.” He is accurate when he responds to Donald Trump’s taunts by saying, “Canada doesn’t live because of the United…

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  • A World Without Rules

    A friend commented the other day that he noticed I was shifting my attention. “You’re posting poetry. Are you writing more poems?” Actually, yes. I took a hiatus from poetry to write two novels, travel, paint, garden, and begin the descent into dizzying depths of health issues. The latter comes with aging and other contributing…

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  • Still Life

    Still LifeSpreading dawnDelicate pearl-pinkFiery red weaves ragged cloudsA cardinal dartsAmong snow powderedSpruce branchesSpinkling snow dustOn grave stones Plastic Christmas flowersRibboned wreathsA mourning dove coo-oosHoney coloredLight spreads blue shadowsBeyond the wrought-iron fenceMorning rush hour trafficPasses on a gray thread of roadPoem: Still Life ©2026 Charles van HeckPhotograph: Snowy Morning ©2026 Charles van Heck

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