The title poem from my new collection, Watch Us Burn: Poems for a Lost Earth, just published by Kelsay Books (https://kelsaybooks.com/products/watch-us-burn-poems-for-a-lost-earth). The lines of this cento in order of appearance are by: Theodore Roethke, Elizabeth Bishop, Anne Waldeman, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Margaret Atwood, Alberto Rios, Jane Hirshfield, W.H. Auden, T.S. Eliot, Rafael Campo, Carl
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I am excited to announce that my sixth poetry collection and my first book of ecopoems has just been published by Kelsay Books. Nature and the environment have always been a central concern of mine, and I thought it high time to speak up against the unprecedented destruction of this great web of life. Muscogee
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Before I became a poet, I wrote and published children’s stories. I have always loved this quote from Henry David Thoreau that inspired my story “No Time.” Though Thoreau did write poetry, he was much better known for his other writings. But in many ways the life he expressed was one long poem that continues
I will be sharing the stage with my friend and fellow poet Sandra Luber at the next TAPS meeting on Saturday March 21, which has been rescheduled from March 28 due to the No Kings March. I will be reading some of the poems from my new collection Watch us Burn: Poems for a Lost
What kind of name is that?asks the clerk at the Motor Vehicle Department.And so it begins. I tell her it’s bastardized Lithuanian,and originally meant “God’s gift,”or maybe “God’s beetle.”But it got butchered at Ellis Island,reduced to a lower state of grace,like Lithuania itself.Invaded, occupied, and bulliedby one country after another,only to be humiliated by bureaucratswho
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One night I was in dire straits.They’re not listed on any map,though my GPS told meto take the second right after the light,then bear straightpast the ugly yellow house.Suddenly there I was,coursing down a channelof surging water. Bigger than Gibraltar or Hormuz,it was like all of themcoming together in one place.It was one tight strait.There
The Bathers, William Adolphe Bouguereau, 1884 Ignore for a momentthe sight of twocurvaceous young ladiesskinny dippingat the beach.Concentrateon the left foot of oneas she shifts her weightand turns to the left,how its flattened archis so firmly plantedin the sandyou think it will bearall the burdenwomen have had to facesince booted out of the gardenin disgraceby
Lacking a car, I often ride the bus out of necessity. But if you keep your eyes and heart open, a bus ride can help you see your fellow travelers in a new light.
Once in a while, if you are lucky, you’ll encounter a poem that will take you to an enchanted place where words can do anything and for a brief time the outside world is held in suspension. I just read this poem by Sandra Beasley and have still not come back to earth. Thank you,