Poem: “Overture”

Collection: Tremolo by Kelly Hansen Maher

Line: (some i named, but (i did not name them all

Response: After I had my daughter, I felt this tension. It was the most profound moment.  But some writers see it as twee, cute, domestic to write about birth. Loss. The body making. When that is the last way I see it. Maher does the devastation justice. Of loss.  And how the body holds life and grief inside. Like a parentheses. But always unevenly.   

poems????  How about AWP16!!!

Expect a lot of books in the days to come!  But today?  Today Ander Monson signed a book for me. Seriously. 

Poem: “Winter Inlet Arrangement” by Hastings Hensel

Journal: 32 Poems

Favorite line/ phrase: “the tin sheen of the pluff mud bank”

Response: This is a poem I wish I had written.  It sees both the detail in the landscape but also the meaning behind it, the way we freight what we see with who we are.  And while I can see everything he describes, and it makes perfect sense to me, I have never thought of it in those terms.  Sometimes, that is exactly what I want poetry to be: new, but understood, terms for the world around me.

My poem, “Ode to a Fat Girl,” is now available for order on Amazon in the fantastic anthology, This Body I Live in.  Check it out!

I am so thrilled to share that my chapbook, Bury the Lede, will be available in late October/ early November from Finishing Line Press.  Don’t want to wait that long?  Pre-order your copy now!

Sorry the brief hiatus- a bad flu bug is no joke when 7 months pregnant!  Anyway, back to the poetry!

Poem: “Talking Back to the Mad World” by Sarah C Harwell

Source: Poetry Foundation

Favorite Line/Phrase: “I love/ the tattered/ camisole of/ nothing.”

Response: The past few days have been a blur of fever and sleep.  And then the guilt of not executing all that the days require.  And then I find a poem like this.  A poem of rough and “lazy. garbagey magic.”  Sometimes, the right poem feels like it is written just for us.

Poem: “The Summoning” by Joshua McKinney

Source: Diode Poetry Journal

Favorite Line/Phrase: “late in the dark I hear my blind ears panting”

Reflection: The lack of punctuation in this poem is unnerving.  Which is wonderful.  In the same way the speaker is summoned by coyotes, I feel summoned by the breathless pull of the enjambment.  And the line breaks feel even more crucial with the lack of formal punctuation.  I am pretty old fashioned when it comes to punctuation, but this felt relevant and powerful.

Poem: “Silence” by Andrea Cohen

Source: Construction Lit Magazine

Favorite Line/ Phrase: “Not an absence”

Response: This is such a short poem, you have no excuse not to click on it right now.  And I think it asks how much work one image can do.  If you look at this poem, one answer is: a lot.  And it makes me wonder, what silence exists in what I see on a daily basis that I mistake for absence.