Today is National Poetry Day, and I feel like I’ve been caught without my school project completed. I’m stalling in the hallway, scribbling out enough verbiage to meet the word count, hoping I don’t get asked to read it out loud. I got nothing prepared, folks. But as it happens, I visited Artprize […]
MoreA Note to the Alien on Earth by Miller Williams Here, in the interest of time, some words to work with, assuming you’re pretending to be a man or woman and understand English. If this should find you, know that I’m glad to help any way I can. A letter beginning “Dear Friend” […]
MoreBriefly It Enters, and Briefly Speaks by Jane Kenyon I am the blossom pressed in a book, found again after two hundred years. . . . I am the maker, the lover, and the keeper…. When the young girl who starves sits down to a table she will sit beside […]
MoreIn a Room With Five People, Six Griefs by Jane Hirshfield In a room with five people, six griefs. Some you will hear of, some not. Let the room hold them, their fears, their anger. Let there be walls and windows, a ceiling. A door through which time changer of everything can enter. […]
MoreThe Same Inside by Anna Swir Walking to your place for a love feast I saw at a street corner an old beggar woman. I took her hand, kissed her delicate cheek, we talked, she was the same inside as I am, from the same kind, I sensed this instantly as a dog […]
MoreI always have a lot to celebrate on Mother’s Day. My mother, 88 and still funny and sharp, is a woman I’d consider myself lucky to even know, much less to claim as mother. I’ve got four older sisters who mothered me each in their own way, a wonderful mother-in-law, and an aunt-in-law I love as […]
MoreThe Robot Moves! by Nick Flynn I pretend I’m afraid, carrying you on my hip beneath the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, past all the dead saints, the floor dug up to lay pipe. I stop suddenly, grasping at a darkened corner & whisper, what was that? & your tiny hand touches […]
MoreIf you’ve got a fever and the only prescription is more Poem Elf (and you’ve already had all the cow bell you can take)– –Or– if you like poetry in very small doses and you don’t like reading long blog posts– –I have a suggestion for you. Follow me on Twitter. @Poemelf […]
MoreMarch 1912 –Postcard, en route westward by Natasha Trethewey At last we are near breaking the season, shedding our coats, the gray husk of winter. Each tree trembles with new leaves, tiny blossoms, the flashy dress of […]
MoreAlthough I’m an Irish lass by genes and inclination, my idea of a St. Patrick’s Day celebration is soda bread, black tea and Yeats. (If there’s an Irish version of “Bah humbug,” insert here.) Needless to say, I celebrate alone. But I left some poems by Yeats at the local Irish pub for those whose […]
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