Category Archives: Poetry

Writing act

Lately, I’ve been experimenting again with prose poems and with very short poems that are not quite tanka or haiku, but not much longer. Six to ten lines. Short lines. Then, the online journal Six Sentences got me intrigued about experimenting with that idea as a prompt–long sentences, short sentences, a mix of both–but only six sentences. I like playing around with words. I enjoy writing almost as much as I enjoy reading, and it’s fun to enjoy what I am doing these days, when so much else seems unenjoyable, sad, fraught, scary (another mass shooting, of children, today).

The garden offers comforts, too. Now we are in the harvest-and-rip-up phase as August nears its close. Lots of tomatoes, still a few green beans, plenty of butternut squash and sweet peppers and basil. It looks as though I will harvest a lot of hot peppers, too; although I only have one plant, it is robust and full of spicy peppers that will get hotter as they ripen. And the summer flowers, those glorious annuals, are lovely this year. We even have more butterflies than usual!

So many people have written about gardens, I sometimes find myself wondering what value there is in it, what could be political or artistic in a garden poem, what could make such a poem dangerous or antisocial. Why it is deemed necessary to yank NEA grants from poets, for example. What is it about the act of writing that makes us outliers? Can it be because any description or observation takes a perspective, possibly personal, possibly outside the norm, potentially widening another person’s viewpoint? And is that dangerous? (Perhaps.) Because a plant or animal or place name might evoke an event or person or symbolize something that might rock the boat–a sunflower for Ukraine, a bald eagle for the USA? Could that be risky? And might the interpretation be incorrect, but the writer assumed guilty of…whatever? (There is nothing new in any of this.)

Here’s a draft of a prose poem that came of my reflecting on such questions.

~~

The Act of Writing

only occurs when pen in hand meets paper, or the act is mere mechanics, pressing typewriter keys and imprinting page, or is virtual, encoded onto disk, on cloud encrypted, ephemeral, the act one of persona, a mood or dream, some moment observed, imagined, a recollection, a heart-stab, a shattered vase, anchors dragged along ocean floor, a plea, promise, letters never sent, a life of pain, a sworn compassion, or love that cannot otherwise be expressed, an argument for understanding. The act of writing rallies, rages, sets forth accusation or denial, sues for mercy, brays at nothing, pointlessly puts forth what’s known but long ignored, unacknowledged, unaccepted, an act political by proxy, being the kind of behavior those in power seek to suppress, who make the act of writing into reams of tedious fine print outlawing every fervent danger that clings to the very act of writing which is the practice of free and conflicted expression even when the reader sees only a description of deep scarlet bougainvillea arching over a poet’s unmarked grave in a landscape of olives and oleander.

~

As you wish

Photo by Ahmed u061c on Pexels.com

Discouragement, a regular visitor to this writer (and many other writers), has settled into the house with me. Summer is often, for me, a time of writing less and doing outdoor and social things more; this year, though spring was lovely despite torrents of rain, summer commenced with the deaths of two long-time friends, and I haven’t been able to shake my low mood. Now the rejection slips are arriving thick and fast, and I’m questioning the value of my work in particular and of creative writing in general. Like, why bother? What am I doing this for? For whom? What’s my purpose? And under what circumstances? Why?

Brooding certainly offers no help, nor does it change “declined” to “accepted.” Creative persons often find themselves questioning their pursuits, so I have good company. (Having just about completed the last book of Remembrance of Things Past, I can report that Proust’s narrator–largely a stand-in for Proust himself–wanders in the dark through wartime Paris pondering his own decision to try being a novelist and feels discouragement and doubts aplenty.)

Somewhere on a social media platform, I encountered these words by Virginia Woolf (from “A Room of One’s Own”): “So long as you write what you wish to write, that is all that matters, and whether it matters for ages or only for hours, nobody can say.” Good perspective, that, to stop being concerned for how long your writing matters, or to whom, as long as what you write is what you wish to write. And then if you don’t submit your work for publication? Maybe that is something you can live with. Rather, something I can live with; at this point in my life, I have had hundreds of poems and essays published, six chapbooks, and three poetry collections…maybe from now on, I should write (as I always have) for myself. Even if my work is not in fashion, or considered irrelevant, or judged as potentially lasting, it is still what I wish to write, what I find necessary to express.

Though one does write to express things, and expression seeks audience. That’s a perspective for another day, perhaps. Meanwhile, back to weeding the garden and picking cucumbers, beans, tomatoes, zinnias, and sunflowers.

Heaven, hell, & halos

After 30 years, my husband and I still take part in the Goschenhoppen Festival each August. You will find I have mentioned it in many an August blog.

The photo at left is from 2010 or thereabouts, when the festival had newly moved to the park in Perkiomenville, PA, which is where the beautiful Antes House (ca. 1736) is located. My daughter and I were enjoying funnel cake. The park’s trees have grown considerably since then, and there’s more shade for demonstrators (and visitors). We were grateful this past weekend that the sunny days were not as humid as some years and that there haven’t been downpours to churn the parking areas into mud. And though neither of my own offspring could participate this year, it was lovely to see their festival-friends now grown, married–some having kids of their own–and still showing up to volunteer at the two-day reenactment of Pennsylvania German folk life of the 18th & 19th centuries.

My demonstration is in the 19th-c household and foods area, and each year I am assigned a couple of young “apprentices,” girls ages from 12-17 in gingham work-dresses. This year a friend’s daughter was thrilled to be old enough to officially participate. She is full of wondering about life and is the sort of child who poses her questions and speculations aloud. She’s also at the age when she’s taking church classes for confirmation, and she’s interesting to talk with when she wades into her thoughts about Big Subjects. I often find myself telling her that the things she wonders about are puzzling even to grownups. Because it’s true.

Yesterday she asked about someone we knew who had died: “Do you suppose they went to heaven?” Yikes. While it might have been a good opportunity to throw a wrench into religious indoctrination, I felt her parents might not appreciate that. I merely responded that I didn’t see why not. But this little exchange reminded me of my own wrestling with the idea of heaven and hell when I was her age. From fairly early on, I just couldn’t imagine that the cartoonish heaven of winged souls wearing halos was in any way real; and though hell was also mentioned frequently in church liturgy, prayers, and hymns, my dad’s belief in a god who was forgiving made hell seem unlikely. So the information I took in was confusing.

It is no less confusing to me now, but I no longer sweat over it the way I did as a child. Anyway, the conversation with my little friend called to mind a poem I’d drafted after returning from a visit to the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s exhibit “Siena: The Rise of Painting, 1300-1350” which reminded me of how I loved Medieval and early Renaissance art when I was a youngster. All those saints and crucifixions. All that gold and iconography. I must have had a gothic tendency!

This draft may be more about art than about heaven, and more about envisioning than about anything else. It's not a finished poem, but who cares on this bright, late-summer morning?
~


Halos

What interested me most about
paintings of Jesus was
the glow around his head
because I saw such auras everywhere 
when sun silhouetted our cat
in the dining room window
or lit up dew on tall grasses.

In later years I studied art 
and learned the problem of cheating
light from solid pigments 
the paradox of density layered
so some artists applied gold dust
to depict the nimbus gleam.

Yet even my little sister’s
fine blonde curls or the hairs
on my own skin could shine
that way illuminated like crowns
of hickory trees some autumn
morning long in brightness
no art to it at all.

Reading in shade

It’s the time of year when, according to the lunisolar calendar, we move from 小暑 xiǎoshǔ–when the heat begins to get unbearable–to 大暑 dàshǔ, the hottest time of the year. It may also be the greenest time: my garden suddenly plumps out huge squash leaves, giant sunflowers, masses of beans, zinnias, basil. The tomatoes are finally burgeoning after a late start. It’s too hot to spend much time weeding and pruning: I harvest what I can and retreat to the shade as soon as possible, where I can read.

A friend recently lent me a book of short stories, Human Sacrifices, by María Fernando Ampuero, an Ecuadoran writer. It’s been ably translated by Frances Riddle, and the stories are startling and harrowing. Not something to check out for a light summer read on the beach, but memorable and thought-provoking. One critic says Ampuero’s work is South American gothic. I don’t agree–and I think it’s kind of a cheesy shortcut in a review–but perhaps that phrase does convey the flavor of some of her stories. Anyway, it’s always a treat to find a writer whose work I’m unfamiliar with and whose work is admirable.

I’ve been taking a break from reading poetry, though that wasn’t planned on my part. July brought a wedding, a death, and some travel; and now, in the intense summer doldrums, I prefer to read for entertainment or information, or just to pass the time. Poetry takes more brain and heart space for me, more “intentionality” or concentration, than most non-fiction books or novels do. This is not to say any other genre is less demanding in and of itself. It’s a personal quirk: I am more attentive when reading poetry than I am when I read other forms of literature, probably because I’m unconsciously (or consciously) endeavoring to learn something of the craft and style and context of poems by other poets. It’s a method of processing how to write poems. But as I have no plans to write fiction or non-fiction, I read such genres for entirely different reasons.

Usually I try to read outside on the porch, in the hammock, on the garden swing. Some days it is just too damned hot and humid, though, and I resort to the air-conditioning indoors. The indoor climate has no flies or gnats but also no bird songs, cicada hums, cricket calls, breezes, scents of summer. Indoors is less than ideal (except in the teeth of winter!).

Recently I’ve added a shade garden where the chicken run was in decades past, under the umbrella of our largest white oak. I haven’t yet added a bench, but a lawn chair suffices for now. Alas, it is a bit buggy, but so is the hammock. The pleasure of summer reading in shade outweighs the inconvenience of the minor fauna…most of the time.

Wet summers

Thunderstorms used to thrill me, and still do–that combination of potential damage with the relaxing sound of rain on trees and rooftops, rain rushing through downspouts, and overcast skies that seem to lull me to sleepiness. Yesterday’s rain was a doozy. We had a flash flood in our front lawn, which has never happened before. But the basement stayed dry, no trees have come down (yet), and we didn’t lose power.

Cracking loud thunderclaps with arrow-straight downpours on hot summer days remind me of childhood. Yesterday afternoon I sat on my porch for an hour just watching the rain and remembering days like this. When we aren’t in drought years, these summer storms appear commonly in the region; yet they always evoke memories of long ago, I suppose because when I was a child I could just sit around watching a thunderstorm instead of, well, doing grownup things. Like working in an office, teaching a class, grocery shopping, laundry, reading emails, whatever I’ve been doing during the past 50 summers.

I spent many a mid-summer week or two in northern Indiana, where this type of storm was common. My grandmother always appreciated them, saying, “They make the corn grow.” Which must also have been true in the coastal plains of southern New Jersey, where I spent the rest of every summer. (Sweet corn is excellent in both regions.)

So, I think of thunderstorms on days so hot we could just run around outside in sundresses or bathing suits, getting doused, or sit on a porch and read while the lightning flashed and the rain came down in torrents. And then have garden tomatoes and corn on the cob for dinner, and go outside after dusk arrived and chase fireflies in the wet grass. These are the kinds of things that I feel nostalgic about, though I am not generally a person who gives much energy to nostalgia. It has been awhile since I had enough unoccupied time on my hands that an hour on the back porch observing the rain seemed like a valuable thing to do.

But it is.

Anyway, here’s a prose poem from my book Abundance/Diminishment that I recalled to myself while I was watching the storm.

~~

Competition, Wet Summers

…so here’s this young woman practically in tears—it’s almost one o’clock
and raining harder than ever, thunder so close it’s practically grabbing us by the
shoulders and the lights dim inside each time the sky goes millisecond-bright.
It doesn’t feel like midday. Every stall is full and the horses aren’t happy.
We can hear the skittish ones hollering, pawing, kicking at the doors. It’s a squall,
I tell Sara; but she’s frustrated, fuming, has her tack cleaned and her dress breeches
on for a three o’clock show she’s convinced won’t happen now that all hell’s let
loose in the form of torrents and flash floods, and there’s a stream coursing from
the south door into the first bay of the stable—it looks like the River Jordan.

The roof leaks at a spot directly above her shampooed and just-groomed mare
and I’ve run out of cheery platitudes and patience; I just walk myself to the barn’s
far end, feel the rain splash up my legs from the puddle at the threshold, dripping
on my neck and face through rotten shingles. The wind stops. It’s a straight-
falling deluge and hot, a no-relief rain with big drops that bubble in temporary
pools of runoff by the wash stalls. The afternoon is green and grey, the puddles
a stirred-up brown, and I remember my former boss—thirty years ago—standing
in the type shop doorway on a day like this one. The look on his face was worse
than Sara’s, not frustration or mutiny but numb desolate recall, slack and empty.

“Man,” he said, “It used to rain like this in ’Nam.”

~

Blue

At one of our local used book stores,* I found a copy of William Gass’ 1976 On Being Blue: A Philosophical Inquiry. Gass writes in a style one might term prolix; but if you are like me and sometimes appreciate lists, wordplay, allusions, lengthy sentences, and fine distinctions in your sentences–as well as humor–while exploring the limits and the stretches of words and language, this book-length essay on the word/concept/color/iconography/sexual innuendo/moody attitude and conflicting meanings of the word blue might appeal. I’ve been feeling a bit on the blue side lately, hence my attraction to the book (though I do like Gass as a writer, as long as I don’t have to read too much of him at one time). And guess? It cheered me! [I will caution the reader who avoids the use of “bad language” that Gass employs such words in this essay, for purely intellectual reasons…]

Granted, my feeling blue has a different tone from other uses of the word: blue postcards, sexual meanings of blue–I’m reminded of the movie “I Am Curious (Blue)” which was considered racy and given an X rating when I was a kid, though the blue in that title referred to the Swedish flag, apparently. My blue is the blue of songs like “Baby’s in Black” or Joni Mitchell’s “Blue” album. Or just that classic music form, the blues.

And I’ll get over feeling this way. That’s what moods are: feelings that come and go, transitory. It always seems as though low moods stay around longer than neutral or cheerful ones, but many scientific studies show that it is our perception and memory of the negatives that make us think we are sadder for longer. Even Wikipedia has an entry on negativity bias, with some sources if you want to check things out yourself. As I age, I realize that bad moods and sad events and past mistakes don’t need to stick around as much as I used to think. A bit of mediation, some practice and readings in Zen and in psychology, a lengthening perspective on life’s vicissitudes, some counseling and even some medicine; whatever it is that’s brought me here, I recognize that before long the depressive hours will lift. Also I know some methods of thinking that assist me to move to more neutral ground.

I will note there are many kinds and hues of blue, enough for Gass to write 112 pages on it and for the word to appear in 85 files of my own poetry during the past 12 years–I did a quick word search just to find out. That is in the files alone, and each file contains many poems. so I can only imagine how much I have over-used the word in my writing life! Certainly, not all of those blues are sad. Many are beautiful, sunny, the blues of blueberries and balloon flowers, the New Mexico sky, mountains and oceans; teal-blues and turquoise, the bright royal blue I like to wear, the pale color of robin’s eggs.

Blue. It has always been my favorite color.

~~

*The bookstore is Apport, in Emmaus, PA. Ben has an active Instagram feed and really cool catalogues of odd books, art, and ephemera.

*The first “blue” above is an encaustic painting by Deborah Barlow; the second is at Bandolier National Monument; the third is of the Blue Ridge Mountains; the last was taken at an inlet bay, maybe in Delaware–I’ve forgotten.

Behind the arts

The regional drought has officially ended, and the rain continues. Ironic, then, that the online site Feed the Holy just posted a poem I wrote near the close of a droughty August: “Zen Gold.” Fireflies and bats, while not abundant, manage to enjoy the recent dampness. The monarch butterflies have returned to our meadow, though I don’t catch sight of them on rainy days. But the moist conditions didn’t dampen the turnout or enthusiasm of local citizens who came out in droves for peaceful “No Kings” protests here…in a decidedly “purple-red” area of Pennsylvania.

Speaking of regional, this weekend I also attended the debut showing of a documentary film about the performing arts community in Bethlehem, PA, formerly famous for Bethlehem Steel Corporation. The film is titled “Rooted,” and it follows that “roots” idea with the planting of trees at arts sites, the metaphor of the mycorrhizal network (see my references to Lesley Wheeler’s latest book–so much overlap!) and the concept of community development. Especially through works of imagination. In the 1970s, when the steelworks was beginning to slow production and lose employees to retirement and business to competitors, small groups of young, talented artists in theater, dance, music, and puppetry started performing in parks, churches, etc…and gradually found inexpensive space in the city to establish themselves and pursue their dreams. Some of those little startups, such as Touchstone Theatre, have been operating, teaching groups of children, entertaining the community, and advocating for the arts for over 50 years.

Godfrey Daniels coffeehouse/listening room and The Ice House (home of Mock Turtle Productions) have been sites for poetry as well as for music and theater-craft. I have participated in and attended poetry and one-act play readings at both of those venues. I don’t live in Bethlehem, but it isn’t too far away from me–still in the Lehigh Valley region. And I deeply appreciate the work that pioneering arts-folks have done, and that arts advocates and teaching artists continue to do, for our area. The people behind the arts deserve recognition.

I’m not the sort of person who networks well; event-planning exhausts me, and preparing for committee meetings and writing grants are not my forte–though I gladly proofread grants and PR materials for local non-profits. Thus I admire the types of people who not only create in the arts but also find creative ways to keep the arts alive through outreach and planning, often in the face of very steep odds (yes, I’m talking funding here, and board membership, and organizing the necessary minutia, and the grind of public relations). God bless them for making space for actors, musicians, dancers, visual artists, sculptors, installation artists, poets, and visionaries of numerous kinds. It’s because of folks like these that I don’t have to travel all the way to New York or Philadelphia to experience lively contemporary arts of many kinds.

You can think of local arts organizations as the independent booksellers of the performance world. You go there to discover stuff that you won’t find on best-sellers lists, for work that’s by new artists, or work that’s been rediscovered, or cool perspectives on the familiar canon of major works by the famous. That has value. That offers inspiration. That gives you the courage to keep on doing whatever kind of art it is you do. Which in my case is poetry, not generally thought of as as performance art–though it once was, and slam poetry events prove it can still be. Maybe I’m a little more of a hermit-in-the-woods writer, but that doesn’t mean I never want to venture out into the wider arts community. And when I do? I’m grateful for the people who have established the beautiful network under my feet.

image: https://truetimber.net/TrueTimber arborists

Perfumes and tunes

This time of year, certain blooms and fragrances evoke my childhood memories. I spent most of my childhood and all of my adolescence in southern New Jersey, along the Delaware Bay; the swampy coastal plains have now largely burgeoned into suburban housing developments, but in the late 1960s there were actual townships with old-fashioned suburbs–the kind with sidewalks–and many a privet hedge that bloomed in early June with small, white spires that gave off a faint scent. In overgrown areas of meadow and scrub, the sweet smell of Japanese honeysuckle perfumed muggy evenings. And while I don’t recall much scent from the mimosa trees in bloom on Harvey Avenue, once those fallen pink blossoms began to rot on the sidewalk, they added a distinct punk that meant summertime. The honeysuckle is blooming here now, making me wonder about the neuroscience behind the sense of smell. Gotta check out these books, perhaps: Kiser reviews four recent books on olfaction.

On a side note, none of these evocative plants are native to the Americas: Ligustrum vulgare, Lonicera japonica, Albizia julibrissin–and yet I associate them with South Jersey. It is almost like a refrain in my memory-mind.

To speak of associations reminds me of Alexis de Tocqueville. I’ll post a quote of his below, one that makes me think of language and poetry and science. But back to refrains:

Musical refrains also run through my brain, evoking memories and nostalgia, or just being irritating “earworms.” At any given time such tunes may include Tchaikovsky’s Serenade for Strings, strains from a late Haydn quartet, one of many Springsteen songs, Marvin Gaye’s version of “I Heard It Through the Grapevine,” or–most confounding of all–the Chock-full-o’Nuts jingle from the 1960s or some similar commercial sloganeering. Why such things wear a familiar groove in the gray matter I don’t know, though Oliver Sacks’ book on music (Musicophilia) and Daniel Levitin’s This Is Your Brain on Music offer some insights, and I’m thinking of reading this one by Samuel Markind when it comes out later this year.

Alas, I’m not gardening because once again the garden is awash in mud, so I entertain myself with endeavoring to discover how/why my brain works (and yours, and anyone else’s), since that’s one of my favorite lines of inquiry when I can’t work outside. I will take a sodden walk later and dwell on possibilities while enjoying the scent of the invasives; I’ll work on some poetry revisions; maybe I’ll listen to music…and freely associate with any and all possibilities. Here, as promised, Alexis de Tocqueville:

“When citizens can associate only in certain cases, they regard association as a rare and singular process, and they hardly think of it.

When you allow them to associate freely in everything, they end up seeing in association the universal and, so to speak, unique means that men can use to attain the various ends that they propose. Each new need immediately awakens the idea of association. The art of association then becomes, as I said above, the mother science; everyone studies it and applies it.”

Honeysuckle photo by Nadiye dabau015fu0131 on Pexels.com

Blackberries

[note] *Hmmm. Somehow, I backposted this post. It was written June 23rd, post-solstice!

Actually, they’re wild black raspberries, someone informed me. They usually ripen around the end of June, and everything eats them–orioles, robins, catbirds, deer, possums, raccoons, possibly even foxes. Black bears, if they’re in the vicinity, though we haven’t seen one here.

Humans enjoy eating them, too. Usually I don’t get more than a few for yogurt or ice cream toppings, but this year–a bonanza. Maybe the canes liked all that rain. Harvesting them is quite a task, because the canes are in the hedgerow thicket and twined about with poison ivy and cat’s-claw and other spiky and rashy flora, not to mention the thorns of the berry canes themselves. And harvesting comes as the hot, humid weather descends on this valley, making the effort a sweaty and uncomfortable one. I always think of farm workers, almost all of them immigrants, who get hired to do this sort of work–the vital work no one else wants to do. They deserve better pay and considerably more compassion than they generally receive. Half a quart of blackberries cost me half an hour of sweat, many scratches, and a swath of dermatitis; but, like Flopsy, Mopsy, and Cottontail, I had bread and milk and blackberries, (for breakfast).

Current mood: harrowing. Aghast. These two poems, though I wrote them many years ago, seem apropos to the moment.

~

Like Thumbelina

Where there’s green foliage
so dense my eyes ache
I spend an hour in shade
snacking on blackberries
the birds haven’t found.
My head hurts from the agonies
of money. The cell phone rings.
Ferns and five-leaf vines
muffle street sounds,
a little colony of feathery mosses
sits under a tree-burl shelf.
I find a hole pressed snugly
against old roots and leaf-mulch.
Like Thumbelina,
I want to curl myself inside
a sassafras leaf, sleep
beneath a toadstool
undiscovered,
unmolested,
temporarily free.

~~
Thicket

Behold the thicket:
it is deep with brambles.
It is blackberries in July,
wineberries in August.
	Move, and the thicket
	impedes you, catches
	your sleeve,
	plucks you awake.
The bee is here. The spider.
The thicket is alive, and crawling.
Green with jewelweed to salve 
rashes from the thicket’s
poison ivy. Green with prickly
horsenettle, coarse pokeberry,
the brilliant, twining nightshade:
	thickets sweat poisons
	as well as fruits.
I have brought you here to show
that you can never get through,
not unscathed, not without
brutality of some kind,
the saw, machete, knife.
This tangle no amount of patience
will ever undo—
	it will overtake you,
	grow into your hair,
	invite warblers in to nest,
	spiders to unfurl their orbs.
You must learn not to hate
before entering the thicket;
you must acknowledge all its ways
to understand its wild embrace.






Back in PA

Last year at this time, I had covid and was languishing in bed, unable to tend to the garden. A regional drought meant I really should have been watering the new plants; and it also kept the weeds firmly rooted, fighting for dominance in the vegetable patch. This year, I timed a trip to New Mexico just when I ought to have been harvesting spinach and planting out tomatoes, beans, and squash. Oops. And then it rained buckets the whole time I was away (much-needed rain, but…). Therefore, the garden situation was not ideal. But garden situations seldom are ideal because Nature does its own thing regardless of my plans.

At any rate, eastern Pennsylvania finally moderated its weather enough that I got the weeds and the seeds and transplants more or less under control this past week–“control” being a general term subject to, well, Nature. The peonies bloomed gorgeously on schedule, as did the nefarious multiflora roses and Russian olives that plague the hedgerow. The catbirds and Eastern kingbirds are back; the robins’ first brood has hatched; the orioles are insistent in the walnut trees and brilliant in the garden, chasing the barn swallows. I’m not doing much writing, though I drafted one or two beginnings of poems. Outdoors takes precedence–not that I can’t write out of doors, I often do so. But poems can wait in a way the garden cannot.

And, speaking of poems (and Pennsylvania), I returned from my trip to find this Keystone Poetry anthology awaiting: https://www.psupress.org/books/titles/978-0-271-09990-3.html–the followup to 2005’s Common Wealth anthology, also edited by Marjorie Maddox and Jerry Wemple.

The new anthology, 20 years after the initial one, has poems by about 180 poets–yes, I am one of them–covering the corners and the center of the Keystone State. I like it even better than the first collection, and it is clear the editors learned much from the experience of curating poems and creating a cohesive “experience” of the regions. Granted, since I know both of the editors personally and appreciate their poetry and their visions, I may be biased. But that’s okay. Objectively, I truly get how huge an undertaking this was and how well it has turned out. For educators, there is a section at the close of the anthology full of suggestions for reading, writing critically, and writing creatively based on this anthology, and even in comparison with the previous one. As both editors are college professors who teach creative writing and critical writing, these appendices are well-thought out and worthwhile.

I miss the aridity of New Mexico, which seems to benefit my overall health. And I miss my daughter immensely. But springtime in eastern PA has many compensations, not the least of which are blooming even as I write.