Happy 20th Anniversary, Poem of the Month! I crafted this found poem to celebrate poetry and poetry lovers, and honor the beloved Annie Dillard, who died on September 15th. I took her words in Writers on Writing as a manifesto about the alchemy of passion and creativity. Try this: replace Antonio with your name, and the [...]
I love every line of this poem, how it points to radical trust using a strange metaphor for blind faith: sleepwalking. Hirsch’s short clauses create images that arrive at mandate or waking up to ourselves. And the italicized section? O, my heart! Now, say something wonderful today. XO For the Sleepwalkers Tonight I want to [...]
This poem’s a Love Song. It’s for you. Why are we here? It sure as hell isn’t to prove worth or accumulate stuff. And all the other things we do to ward off pain and death? Exercises in futility. Do you have to love or feel? Nope. But I’d rather embrace life’s heartaches than live [...]
This poem (oh, Alison Luterman, how I love thee!) inspires me to write one in response in which Luterman's speaker poses her real questions to the stranger, who frankly strikes me as a goddess, as does this gorgeous woman (I mean, just look at her face!) Read the poem, and give it a go yourself. [...]
In this lovely prose poem, we meet a grieving woman and a rescued iguana. I imagine her, shouldering the weight of her troubles, when she suddenly realizes…even this is something. This small, simple or ordinary thing, so easy to overlook or minimize, in an instant, becomes worthy of attention. Quietly, grace arrives unannounced, asks nothing [...]
with no punctuation, this free-verse poem creates a sense of immediacy and intensity. its uninterrupted flow of statements burst throughout the text block. they read as a litany that swells toward intimacy. the primary presence in the poem is love, a love is so big, even demons carry a map of heaven in their scars. [...]
Happy National Poetry & Earth Month! St. Hildegard von Bingen (1098-1179) was a polymath; a poetess and environmentalist; a nun, theologian, visionary and botanist who loved the earth. In her cosmology, Wisdom is a Cosmic Mother, a dazzling Divine Feminine whose viriditas, or greening power, gives life and sustains the cosmos. This spiritual force is [...]
This enigmatic poem suggests an intimacy with mystery; we will recognize what our poet is saying – or we won’t. It’s ok. Instead of trying to dig into meaning, let the poem work its magic. Absorb its images, its metaphors. Notice what it causes you to wonder, remember, feel, or long for. Let it gently [...]
The intelligence Rumi speaks of is Heart-centered, intuitive and innate. The great Unifier requires no study and applies to us and every species on the planet. When up against we'rethe limits of the mind’s logic and control, bewilderment unfurls and a deeper intelligence takes over: Love. Everyone now: Don your royal crown and jewel the [...]
Happy New Year! There were a billion amazing contenders to kick off 2026. Yet this poem so lit me up, flooded me with such a surge of YES, I know it had to lead the way. May you delight in Ferlinghetti’s fertile feats of creative imagination and word wizardry. Let us bow to the wondrous [...]