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 [...]
Friend, this poem is for you. Read it, and consider its question: Then why have we kept up the singing for so long? Given the line before that one - Our time seems to be up—I think I even hear it stopping - you may wonder, does he ask from despair? I think not. I [...]
I want us to read to each other, feel the power of this poem in our bones, feel the alchemy this poem works in the Heart – how it blossoms with longing, sorrow & love. Revenge At times … I wish I could meet in a duel the man who killed my father and razed [...]
The first POTM I published on October 1st 2003 was MO’s When Death Comes. 19 years later, I celebrate this milestone with another extraordinary MO poem in which she embraces the dark and the light. I want us all to blow admiring kisses to these complementary energies, like grief and joy, to move with the [...]
This poem made me laugh and cry at the same time. It’s a brilliant, scathing response by an ingenious poet to his government for their refusal to extend school meals to kids in need through the holidays a few years ago. Try this: Write a menu poem for what outrages you, then another for [...]
Life unfolds as it does without permission or consent. Frustrating, yes. But… what if, when plans are thwarted, we were to notice, as our poet does, what we’d otherwise overlook? Ask what we might learn at those times? Imagine being refreshed or released by the truth - we’re not in charge of life. Try this: Make [...]