Claudia Putnam: Writer: Poetry & Prose

Author: Claudia Putnam

  • PTSD—What It’s Like

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    Claudia Putnam
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    Ever had stage fright? I don’t mean the good kind. Where you have some butterflies in your stomach and a bit of a metallic taste in your mouth. Maybe that’s slightly unpleasant but it can also help you focus a little better and in the end it seems to come out all right. The audience…

  • Lucky/Unlucky

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    Claudia Putnam
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    “I can’t complain, but sometimes I still do…”  –Joe Walsh   When I was a kid, I had picture book called Fortunately. As I recall, the character had, fortunately, been invited to a birthday party. Unfortunately, it was on the other side of the country. Fortunately, he had a plane. Unfortunately, it blew up. Fortunately,…

  • In Honor

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    Claudia Putnam
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    Dear little Jake, You had your great-grandfather’s nose, or so we imagined, based on photographs of him. You were alive for only three days, and writing that phrase makes me have to stop typing and cry. You were only alive for three days, and so we can only do an age-progression in our minds. When…

  • Bookshelves as GPS

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    Claudia Putnam
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    I was recently on some website reading a post analyzing the future of paper vs e-publishing (probably in relation to the iPad release), and I saw a comment from another reader who implied that the only reason anyone would keep real books around anymore was to show off how smart they were. I found this…