Z is for Lisa Zaran:

For those who haven't played along before, the AtoZ Blogging Challenge asks bloggers to post every day during April (excepting Sundays), which works out to 26 days, one for each letter of the alphabet. In my opinion, it's the most fun if you choose a theme.

This will be my 5th year participating.

• In 2014, I wrote about evocative words. 
• In 2015, I wrote about my publication journey and the release of my first novel. 
• In 2016, I wrote about my favorite superheroes. 
• In 2017, I wrote about the places of my heart. 

My theme this year is Poets I Love all about some of the poets whose work has touched me over the years.

For my regular readers, you'll see more than the usual once-a-week posts from me this month. I'm having a great time writing them, so I hope you enjoy reading them, too. Be sure to check out some of the other bloggers stretching their limits this month to share their passions with you, too. With over 600 participants, there is bound to be something you'd love to read.
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As was true for my entries for the letter I and the letter Q, I didn't come to this AtoZ project with a poet in mind for Z. So, once again, I took the opportunity to read someone new (to me). I found Lisa Zaran, an American poet living in Arizona, best known for her book, The Sometimes Girl.

If you've been reading my other posts in this series, then you already know that I am a sucker for an intriguing opening line when it comes to poetry. Zaran has some humdingers in this regard:

Death is not the final word.

-from "Talking to My Father Whose Ashes Sit in a Closet and Listen"

In the room

where I learned how to lie, 

-from "Rivers"

She said she collects pieces of sky, 

-from "Girl"

As if we have

any answers.

-from "Hair"

Simple, declarative, sure. Each of these lines caught my ear and eye and pulled me in, made me want to read the rest to see what that line might end up meaning when it was fully explored.  I'm so glad I took on this challenge which let me visit 23 old loves, and find 3 new ones. Thanks for traveling with me! 

Y is for Yusef Komunyakaa: Revealing a deeper layer

For those who haven't played along before, the AtoZ Blogging Challenge asks bloggers to post every day during April (excepting Sundays), which works out to 26 days, one for each letter of the alphabet. In my opinion, it's the most fun if you choose a theme.

This will be my 5th year participating.

• In 2014, I wrote about evocative words. 
• In 2015, I wrote about my publication journey and the release of my first novel. 
• In 2016, I wrote about my favorite superheroes. 
• In 2017, I wrote about the places of my heart. 

My theme this year is Poets I Love all about some of the poets whose work has touched me over the years.

For my regular readers, you'll see more than the usual once-a-week posts from me this month. I'm having a great time writing them, so I hope you enjoy reading them, too. Be sure to check out some of the other bloggers stretching their limits this month to share their passions with you, too. With over 600 participants, there is bound to be something you'd love to read.
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Most of the Yusef Komunyakaa poems I've read are intensely personal. Through his verses, I've learned more about his childhood, his war experiences, and his joys and disappointments than I know about people that I see every day in real life. In each poem, the speaker is there, front and center, no distancing, letting me know what has happened and how he is affected. And I, in reading the lines, am affected, too. 

Here's one of his poems, about visiting the Vietnam War Memorial, an intensely emotional experience for many, but I can only imagine how intense it must be for a veteran of that war.

On the surface, Komunyakaa is only describing what he sees: what is and isn't reflected in the glossy stone of the memorial, but the still-biting experiences are in there, too in the word choices, the descriptive details. Hiding. Reflection. Bird of prey. Profile of night. Depending on the light/to make a difference. Flash. Smoke. Cutting. Lost his right arm. 

There's a second poem in those details, giving you the ghostly after-image of his service experience. That deeper layer that pushes forward, almost feeling like he let it slip by accident and revealed more than he meant to. 

Genius.

X is for XJ Kennedy: Bringing the Fun

For those who haven't played along before, the AtoZ Blogging Challenge asks bloggers to post every day during April (excepting Sundays), which works out to 26 days, one for each letter of the alphabet. In my opinion, it's the most fun if you choose a theme.

This will be my 5th year participating.

• In 2014, I wrote about evocative words. 
• In 2015, I wrote about my publication journey and the release of my first novel. 
• In 2016, I wrote about my favorite superheroes. 
• In 2017, I wrote about the places of my heart. 

My theme this year is Poets I Love all about some of the poets whose work has touched me over the years.

For my regular readers, you'll see more than the usual once-a-week posts from me this month. I'm having a great time writing them, so I hope you enjoy reading them, too. Be sure to check out some of the other bloggers stretching their limits this month to share their passions with you, too. With over 600 participants, there is bound to be something you'd love to read.
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XJ Kennedy's verses are fun. Sometimes leaning towards sardonic, but always with a eye to the humor in a situation. Maybe because he also writes for children, he's held onto a playfulness with language and imagery that pulls me in.

I like him better than Shel Silverstein because the underlying feeling is more positive. I guess I'm attracted to the energy and joy that runs through much of his work.

This poem, for example, has a man imagining himself as a dog and plays with that metaphorical dog of a man who won't commit and marry.

It's a silly idea, but the punny language and imagery is appealing.

When I want to look on the lighter side, I turn to XJ Kennedy.

W is for Walt Whitman: Always in Love

For those who haven't played along before, the AtoZ Blogging Challenge asks bloggers to post every day during April (excepting Sundays), which works out to 26 days, one for each letter of the alphabet. In my opinion, it's the most fun if you choose a theme.

This will be my 5th year participating.

• In 2014, I wrote about evocative words. 
• In 2015, I wrote about my publication journey and the release of my first novel. 
• In 2016, I wrote about my favorite superheroes. 
• In 2017, I wrote about the places of my heart. 

My theme this year is Poets I Love all about some of the poets whose work has touched me over the years.

For my regular readers, you'll see more than the usual once-a-week posts from me this month. I'm having a great time writing them, so I hope you enjoy reading them, too. Be sure to check out some of the other bloggers stretching their limits this month to share their passions with you, too. With over 600 participants, there is bound to be something you'd love to read.
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In 2017, I decided I would read a poem every day and post about it. Poetry was such a central part of my life when I was younger, but it had drifted almost entirely out of my life, and I realized I missed it. The inspiration for that project was Walt Whitman. My eldest daughter was reading Leaves of Grass for a literature class she was taking, and I LOVED talking with her about the verses of his I loved most, and about his place in the history of American poetry. It seems fitting that it was Whitman who brought me back to reading poetry after an absence of many years.

One of his poems that I remembered fondly was "I Sing the Body Electric." There's that part in Bull Durham where Susan Sarandon remind us how sexy some parts of it are when she reads it aloud to her lover.

When I revisited the whole poem, the first thing I noticed is that it's a lot longer than I remembered. It's a nine part poem! 

The next thing I noticed was the range of it. It's all a celebration of human form, but it waxes philosophical, scientific, personal, and political in turns. It's a sweeping, epic vision, and you can get pulled up into the beautiful maelstrom of words. 

Whitman in his verses always seems to be love. His joy, fascination, and celebration are contagious. Reading him, I fall back in love, too, and see my fellow human beings as the wondrous creations they are. 

V is for César Vallejo: The Personal and the Political

It's April! Time for the AtoZ Blogging Challenge!

For those who haven't played along before, the AtoZ Blogging Challenge asks bloggers to post every day during April (excepting Sundays), which works out to 26 days, one for each letter of the alphabet. In my opinion, it's the most fun if you choose a theme.

This will be my 5th year participating.

• In 2014, I wrote about evocative words. 
• In 2015, I wrote about my publication journey and the release of my first novel. 
• In 2016, I wrote about my favorite superheroes. 
• In 2017, I wrote about the places of my heart. 

My theme this year is Poets I Love all about some of the poets whose work has touched me over the years.

For my regular readers, you'll see more than the usual once-a-week posts from me this month. I'm having a great time writing them, so I hope you enjoy reading them, too. Be sure to check out some of the other bloggers stretching their limits this month to share their passions with you, too. With over 600 participants, there is bound to be something you'd love to read.
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I'd heard of César Vallejo before, but not read his work until recently. When my former poetry professor lost her battle with cancer last year, I revisited her work and found a poem she'd written "after César Vallejo." That sparked my curiosity so I looked him up. My curiosity is still sparked, so I'll be looking for more by this poet.

The nineteenth century was politically rough in a lot of Spanish-speaking countries, including Vallejo's homeland of Peru. Every poet or writer I read about from that time period faced a great deal of turmoil and persecution, sometimes for their art, sometimes for their lives. Bohemian artist-types are not always welcome. That pain and tragedy is reflected in his work, which is both personal and political in tone.

U is for Miguel de Unamuno: Quiet Passion

It's April! Time for the AtoZ Blogging Challenge!

For those who haven't played along before, the AtoZ Blogging Challenge asks bloggers to post every day during April (excepting Sundays), which works out to 26 days, one for each letter of the alphabet. In my opinion, it's the most fun if you choose a theme.

This will be my 5th year participating.

• In 2014, I wrote about evocative words. 
• In 2015, I wrote about my publication journey and the release of my first novel. 
• In 2016, I wrote about my favorite superheroes. 
• In 2017, I wrote about the places of my heart. 

My theme this year is Poets I Love all about some of the poets whose work has touched me over the years.

For my regular readers, you'll see more than the usual once-a-week posts from me this month. I'm having a great time writing them, so I hope you enjoy reading them, too. Be sure to check out some of the other bloggers stretching their limits this month to share their passions with you, too. With over 600 participants, there is bound to be something you'd love to read.

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I haven't looked deeply into the life of Miguel de Unamuno, but I get the impression he was a quiet, scholarly sort of man with deep passions running beneath. The embodiment of "still waters run deep."

He saw tumultuous times in Spain's history, suffering exile (without his beloved family) and returning in triumph only to get himself in trouble with the next government and die while under house arrest. Throughout it all, he wrote: plays, essays, novels, and philosophy.

What his poetry is like depends on what part of his career we're talking about, but a lot of his work has a serious bent, with a touch of mystic and melancholy. Here's one of my favorites.

T is for Sara Teasdale: Timeless Universality

It's April! Time for the AtoZ Blogging Challenge!

For those who haven't played along before, the AtoZ Blogging Challenge asks bloggers to post every day during April (excepting Sundays), which works out to 26 days, one for each letter of the alphabet. In my opinion, it's the most fun if you choose a theme.

This will be my 5th year participating.

• In 2014, I wrote about evocative words. 
• In 2015, I wrote about my publication journey and the release of my first novel. 
• In 2016, I wrote about my favorite superheroes. 
• In 2017, I wrote about the places of my heart. 

My theme this year is Poets I Love all about some of the poets whose work has touched me over the years.

For my regular readers, you'll see more than the usual once-a-week posts from me this month. I'm having a great time writing them, so I hope you enjoy reading them, too. Be sure to check out some of the other bloggers stretching their limits this month to share their passions with you, too. With over 600 participants, there is bound to be something you'd love to read.

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Sara Teasdale was my grandmother's favorite poet. When I first told her that I wanted to write poems (when I was six or seven years old), that's who she said I should read. She showed me some of her verses on greeting cards, including a mushy one from Grandpa.

I wasn't much of a judge when I was seven, but I always smile when I come across one of Teasdale's poems, thinking of Grandma.

Teasdale's poetry, like that of Edna St. Vincent Millay, is underestimated sometimes. Simplicity can be mistaken for a lack of sophistication. A lot of Teasdale's work is more contemplative than dramatic, but I still get that little gasp of recognition reading her lines, and that's half of what I read poetry for.

Teasdale's poems have a timeless universality. They're not confessional or philosophical, neither focused on the narrow individual experience nor taking a god's eye view overlooking the cosmos. I don't, at the end of the poem, know why the poet is drawn to broken things at the moment, but I feel with her nonetheless, taking the same quiet comfort alongside her. She finds the emotional center of a moment and gives us room to find ourselves in it. 

S is for Edna St. Vincent Millay: Sincere and Direct

It's April! Time for the AtoZ Blogging Challenge!

For those who haven't played along before, the AtoZ Blogging Challenge asks bloggers to post every day during April (excepting Sundays), which works out to 26 days, one for each letter of the alphabet. In my opinion, it's the most fun if you choose a theme.

This will be my 5th year participating.

• In 2014, I wrote about evocative words. 
• In 2015, I wrote about my publication journey and the release of my first novel. 
• In 2016, I wrote about my favorite superheroes. 
• In 2017, I wrote about the places of my heart. 

My theme this year is Poets I Love all about some of the poets whose work has touched me over the years.

For my regular readers, you'll see more than the usual once-a-week posts from me this month. I'm having a great time writing them, so I hope you enjoy reading them, too. Be sure to check out some of the other bloggers stretching their limits this month to share their passions with you, too. With over 600 participants, there is bound to be something you'd love to read.

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When I first encountered the poetry of Edna St. Vincent Millay, I dismissed it without reading much of it. Because it was direct, sincere, and easy to understand, I thought it simplistic and less meaningful than the complex and cynical work I admired at the time. 

I probably inherited a bit of this attitude from the literary scene. She wasn't one of the poets people mentioned as an influence, and some poets were downright dismissive of her work. I can remember one conversation when someone called her work "greeting card drivel."

She had once been so popular and admired a poet, but by the time I was studying poetry, no one was talking about her work.

But more recently, her poems have come across my radar from time to time and I found them beautiful and moving. I am older now, which may have something to do with it, and my views have changed about those complex and cynical works I once admired. A lot of it seems contrived and pretentious to me, and sincerity and honesty is exactly what I'm looking for. She feels like a breath of fresh air to me in that way.

She's better technically than I ever gave her credit for, too. Her formal sonnets have all the right beats and rhyme schemes, yet feel as fresh and natural as free verse. That's quite a feat!

I feel I owe her an apology for judging her when I was younger based on reputation alone instead of reading for myself. Luckily, it's never too late to read her work and admire it.

R is for Robert Browning: Dramatic Monologue

It's April! Time for the AtoZ Blogging Challenge!

For those who haven't played along before, the AtoZ Blogging Challenge asks bloggers to post every day during April (excepting Sundays), which works out to 26 days, one for each letter of the alphabet. In my opinion, it's the most fun if you choose a theme.

This will be my 5th year participating.

• In 2014, I wrote about evocative words. 
• In 2015, I wrote about my publication journey and the release of my first novel. 
• In 2016, I wrote about my favorite superheroes. 
• In 2017, I wrote about the places of my heart. 

My theme this year is Poets I Love all about some of the poets whose work has touched me over the years.

For my regular readers, you'll see more than the usual once-a-week posts from me this month. I'm having a great time writing them, so I hope you enjoy reading them, too. Be sure to check out some of the other bloggers stretching their limits this month to share their passions with you, too. With over 600 participants, there is bound to be something you'd love to read.

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I love dramatic monologues. They bridge the space between poetry and theater, allowing the poet to take on a character completely separate from themselves and put words in their mouth. Like Shakespearean soliloquies, they can give real insight into a character while wowing you with gorgeous language and metaphor.

One of my favorite dramatic monologues ever was written by Robert Browning: My Last Duchess. It's a creepy thing, a slow reveal. At first it seems to be merely an art collector showing off his collection. But there are all these small red flags that creep up, until you find yourself wondering if the Duke in question killed his wife.

"That’s my last Duchess painted on the wall,
Looking as if she were alive."

It's there even in the opening lines. The ominous feeling. The next few lines have the Duke insisting strongly that the listener sit and examine the portrait, that he notice the look of warmth in her eyes.

"Sir, ’twas not
Her husband’s presence only, called that spot
Of joy into the Duchess’ cheek"

Jealousy reared its ugly head. 

"She had
A heart—how shall I say?— too soon made glad,
Too easily impressed; she liked whate’er
She looked on, and her looks went everywhere."

Yikes. Dangerous jealousy. I start to wonder if I misread and this is actually by Edgar Allan Poe. 

"Oh, sir, she smiled, no doubt,
Whene’er I passed her; but who passed without
Much the same smile? This grew; I gave commands;
Then all smiles stopped together. There she stands
As if alive."

 Shudder. 

This poem amazes me for all it says by not saying, for all that is suggested, threatened, or implied. When he finishes and it is revealed that the visitor is there to discuss the Duke's intentions to marry again, a Count's daughter, I find myself hoping the emissary has the wit to refuse the match, lest this turn into Bluebeard's castle. Masterful work.

Q is for Nizar Qabbani: Dramatic Declarations of Love

It's April! Time for the AtoZ Blogging Challenge!

For those who haven't played along before, the AtoZ Blogging Challenge asks bloggers to post every day during April (excepting Sundays), which works out to 26 days, one for each letter of the alphabet. In my opinion, it's the most fun if you choose a theme.

This will be my 5th year participating.

• In 2014, I wrote about evocative words. 
• In 2015, I wrote about my publication journey and the release of my first novel. 
• In 2016, I wrote about my favorite superheroes. 
• In 2017, I wrote about the places of my heart. 

My theme this year is Poets I Love all about some of the poets whose work has touched me over the years.

For my regular readers, you'll see more than the usual once-a-week posts from me this month. I'm having a great time writing them, so I hope you enjoy reading them, too. Be sure to check out some of the other bloggers stretching their limits this month to share their passions with you, too. With over 600 participants, there is bound to be something you'd love to read.

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Confession time. I didn't have a poet I love for the letter Q. At least in English (which is the language I read best) there aren't that many names that start with Q, let alone names that were given to people who became poets and whose work I love. 

So I had to go searching. 

I found a Syrian poet, Nizar Qabbani. A lot of his work is available in translation.

As I clicked on poem after poem, I found short, tight little love poems, full of sweeping passion and glamorous hyperbole. His work made me think of the part from Dead Poet's Society about what poetry is for: 

There was something really refreshing about such direct and flirtatious words. Sometimes the cynicism we live in wears me out and I just want to pick up the beautiful parts of a fairy tale and live there. Qabbani would be the court poet.

P is for Edgar Allan Poe: Macabre Magic

It's April! Time for the AtoZ Blogging Challenge!

For those who haven't played along before, the AtoZ Blogging Challenge asks bloggers to post every day during April (excepting Sundays), which works out to 26 days, one for each letter of the alphabet. In my opinion, it's the most fun if you choose a theme.

This will be my 5th year participating.
In 2014, I wrote about evocative words.
In 2015, I wrote about my publication journey and the release of my first novel.
In 2016, I wrote about my favorite superheroes.
In 2017, I wrote about the places of my heart.

My theme this year is Poets I Love all about some of the poets whose work has touched me over the years.

For my regular readers, you'll see more than the usual once-a-week posts from me this month. I'm having a great time writing them, so I hope you enjoy reading them, too. Be sure to check out some of the other bloggers stretching their limits this month to share their passions with you, too. With over 600 participants, there is bound to be something you'd love to read.
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I'm not sure how old I was when I found Edgar Allan Poe. I'm pretty sure I was still in elementary school. I can remember coming home from school and telling my mom about "The Raven."

I was a bit of a macabre little thing, with a fascination with ghosts, witchcraft, demons, and other spooky things. That poem had me at Hello, or in this case, at "Once upon a midnight dreary."

If you are going to grow up a bookworm, it helps if someone near and dear to you shares your addiction and my mom was and is a total bookworm, too.

When I told her about "The Raven," she told me about his short stories and took me to the library to borrow a collection. I stayed up late into the night scaring myself silly (and occasionally pulling out my dictionary to find out what some of his fabulous words meant).

Sadly, this led to a long period of me writing terrible poems with overwrought vocabulary and lots of exclamation points. I'm sure my parents must have bitten the insides of their cheeks raw trying not to laugh at some of my efforts.

Happily, this led to my lifetime love affair with language, with words like languid, quaint, sepulchre, lattice, and tintinnabulation. That man had a vocabulary and could weave it like magic, casting a spell over a reader that lasts a lifetime.

O is for Mary Oliver: Soul Salve

It's April! Time for the AtoZ Blogging Challenge!

For those who haven't played along before, the AtoZ Blogging Challenge asks bloggers to post every day during April (excepting Sundays), which works out to 26 days, one for each letter of the alphabet. In my opinion, it's the most fun if you choose a theme.

This will be my 5th year participating.

• In 2014, I wrote about evocative words. 
• In 2015, I wrote about my publication journey and the release of my first novel. 
• In 2016, I wrote about my favorite superheroes. 
• In 2017, I wrote about the places of my heart. 

My theme this year is Poets I Love all about some of the poets whose work has touched me over the years.

For my regular readers, you'll see more than the usual once-a-week posts from me this month. I'm having a great time writing them, so I hope you enjoy reading them, too. Be sure to check out some of the other bloggers stretching their limits this month to share their passions with you, too. With over 600 participants, there is bound to be something you'd love to read.

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Are there any poetry readers who don't love Mary Oliver? Heck, even people who don't read poetry read Mary Oliver. There's this acceptance in her work, this reassurance.

Her words comfort me like Judy Blume's did when I was a kid.

She feels like that rock-steady friend that you know you can't shock and who won't think less of you no matter what you're thinking or feeling.

How many times have I turned to Wild Geese in times of trouble?

So many of her poems are calm contemplations in the face of nature, small epiphanies that bring peace and understanding. 

Dang. I think I want to be Mary Oliver when I grow up. 

N is for Pablo Neruda: Love in Small Things

It's April! Time for the AtoZ Blogging Challenge!

For those who haven't played along before, the AtoZ Blogging Challenge asks bloggers to post every day during April (excepting Sundays), which works out to 26 days, one for each letter of the alphabet. In my opinion, it's the most fun if you choose a theme.

This will be my 5th year participating.

• In 2014, I wrote about evocative words. 
• In 2015, I wrote about my publication journey and the release of my first novel. 
• In 2016, I wrote about my favorite superheroes. 
• In 2017, I wrote about the places of my heart. 

My theme this year is Poets I Love all about some of the poets whose work has touched me over the years.

For my regular readers, you'll see more than the usual once-a-week posts from me this month. I'm having a great time writing them, so I hope you enjoy reading them, too. Be sure to check out some of the other bloggers stretching their limits this month to share their passions with you, too. With over 600 participants, there is bound to be something you'd love to read.

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Pablo Neruda came across my radar in a Spanish textbook. Oda al tomate (Ode to the Tomato) was selected probably because the verbs are mostly in present tense, making it more possible for a beginning Spanish student to be able to parse the poem, but I didn't care about that. I was drawn in by the absurd imagery and the humor.



I began to seek out Neruda's other odes. Ode to my Socks brought such joy to my heart, with its celebration of the commonest of comforts in life: a good pair of socks given in love. Ode to Broken Things full of domestic remembrance and familial love.

Neruda did not only write odes, though. He wrote lyrically of sadness and loss. What I always feel in all his lines is the love.

Some favorites:

Here I Love You. 
Tonight I Can Write the Saddest Lines.
His sonnet: I Do Not Love You.

He's good in translation and a reason to learn to read Spanish!

M is for Michelle Boisseau:

It's April! Time for the AtoZ Blogging Challenge!

For those who haven't played along before, the AtoZ Blogging Challenge asks bloggers to post every day during April (excepting Sundays), which works out to 26 days, one for each letter of the alphabet. In my opinion, it's the most fun if you choose a theme.

This will be my 5th year participating.

• In 2014, I wrote about evocative words. 
• In 2015, I wrote about my publication journey and the release of my first novel. 
• In 2016, I wrote about my favorite superheroes. 
• In 2017, I wrote about the places of my heart. 

My theme this year is Poets I Love all about some of the poets whose work has touched me over the years.

For my regular readers, you'll see more than the usual once-a-week posts from me this month. I'm having a great time writing them, so I hope you enjoy reading them, too. Be sure to check out some of the other bloggers stretching their limits this month to share their passions with you, too. With over 600 participants, there is bound to be something you'd love to read.

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Michelle Boisseau was my teacher once. She and George Eklund were the two poets on the teaching staff at Morehead State University during my tenure there. 

Michelle lost to lung cancer last year, so can now only teach me through the words she left behind now. 

 Counting was the first of her poems I loved. "After a while, remembering the men you loved/is like counting stars." I think it might have been the line about the lover whose skin still smelled of milk that got me, back then. 

She was always so good at that striking and powerful first line. 

Another one, Eurydice, is my favorite retelling of that particular myth. "It isn't you he wants, but the getting you out." This poem might be why I've become such a lover of back and side door stories, that reinterpret stories I already know and love. 

Michelle was the person who turned me on to Louise Glück, who remains one of my favorite poets. 

The Fury that Breaks with that lovely structure, where the object one line becomes the subject of the next. 

This poem sent me off to explore the work of César Vallejo, for whom the poem bears a dedication. So, even there on the other side of the veil, Michelle is still telling me who to read, knowing just who will speak to me. And she's right, too. I'll miss her. 

L is for Li-Young Lee: Lyrical Loneliness

It's April! Time for the AtoZ Blogging Challenge!

For those who haven't played along before, the AtoZ Blogging Challenge asks bloggers to post every day during April (excepting Sundays), which works out to 26 days, one for each letter of the alphabet. In my opinion, it's the most fun if you choose a theme.

This will be my 5th year participating.

• In 2014, I wrote about evocative words. 
• In 2015, I wrote about my publication journey and the release of my first novel. 
• In 2016, I wrote about my favorite superheroes. 
• In 2017, I wrote about the places of my heart. 

My theme this year is Poets I Love all about some of the poets whose work has touched me over the years.

For my regular readers, you'll see more than the usual once-a-week posts from me this month. I'm having a great time writing them, so I hope you enjoy reading them, too. Be sure to check out some of the other bloggers stretching their limits this month to share their passions with you, too. With over 600 participants, there is bound to be something you'd love to read.

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Li-Young Lee earned his place in my pantheon of poets with The City in Which I Love You, which is both the title of a poem and of one of his collections.

I found this collection during my searching years: my early twenties. A time when I didn't yet know what I wanted, but was starting to understand what I did not want out of life. A time when I sought strange horizons to explore, the better to find myself contrasted in unfamiliar surroundings.

I was romantically lonely, even while with friends, in the same way Lee's poetry was.

Lee's poems pull from both the personal and the political to give a vision of a wanderer seeking home. I'm drawn in by the yearning of the poems, because there's an echo of it in my own heart, still, even now that I am older and much more settled. His work touches the melancholy in me, without dragging me down into depression or burning me in anger. 

Immigrant Blues: 

Persimmons: 

Re-reading his poems now, it is the pathos of these narrative moments that strikes me. The directness, the seemingly emotionless uncolored and stark portrayal of painful moments, made that much more powerful by understatement. Amazing. 

K is for Maxine Kumin: Seeking Connnection

It's April! Time for the AtoZ Blogging Challenge!

For those who haven't played along before, the AtoZ Blogging Challenge asks bloggers to post every day during April (excepting Sundays), which works out to 26 days, one for each letter of the alphabet. In my opinion, it's the most fun if you choose a theme.

This will be my 5th year participating.

• In 2014, I wrote about evocative words. 
• In 2015, I wrote about my publication journey and the release of my first novel. 
• In 2016, I wrote about my favorite superheroes. 
• In 2017, I wrote about the places of my heart. 

My theme this year is Poets I Love all about some of the poets whose work has touched me over the years.

For my regular readers, you'll see more than the usual once-a-week posts from me this month. I'm having a great time writing them, so I hope you enjoy reading them, too. Be sure to check out some of the other bloggers stretching their limits this month to share their passions with you, too. With over 600 participants, there is bound to be something you'd love to read.

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I first found Maxine Kumin in her prose, in particular a collection of essays and stories called Women, Animals, and Vegetables which centers around her experience in transplanting her family from an urban to a rural setting. I felt a kinship with the woman I found in these pieces, a woman seeking a life of meaning, a woman drawn to nature, with an underlying whimsy in her thoughtfulness. Like me, she seeks connection.

A poem from that collection remains one of my favorites by Kumin. The Word. It describes an encounter with a doe while on a horse ride and captures some of that joy and longing that such an encounter can elicit, a feeling of awe intermixed with more complex emotions like jealousy and loss. A feeling of being lucky and wanting to be that lucky again.

My favorite lines are in the middle:

Part of why I read poetry is for that feeling of recognition, when a poet articulates something I have also felt but could not explain, even to myself, nearly so well.

J is for John Donne: Spiritual Matters

It's April! Time for the AtoZ Blogging Challenge!

For those who haven't played along before, the AtoZ Blogging Challenge asks bloggers to post every day during April (excepting Sundays), which works out to 26 days, one for each letter of the alphabet. In my opinion, it's the most fun if you choose a theme.

This will be my 5th year participating.

• In 2014, I wrote about evocative words. 
• In 2015, I wrote about my publication journey and the release of my first novel. 
• In 2016, I wrote about my favorite superheroes. 
• In 2017, I wrote about the places of my heart. 

My theme this year is Poets I Love all about some of the poets whose work has touched me over the years.

For my regular readers, you'll see more than the usual once-a-week posts from me this month. I'm having a great time writing them, so I hope you enjoy reading them, too. Be sure to check out some of the other bloggers stretching their limits this month to share their passions with you, too. With over 400 participants, there is bound to be something you'd love to read.

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If you ever took a British Literature survey course, as many high school students of the United States have, then you've probably read some John Donne. A deeply serious poet, concerned with matters of the spirit and of morality, he has the distinction of having written one of poetry's oft-quoted lines: Death be not Proud. It comes from one of his Holy Sonnets:

It's a poem I've taken comfort in, when mortality is knocking louder than usual on my peace of mind. I also deeply admire Meditation 17, which includes the immortal lines "No man is an island" and "ask not for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee." Meditation 17 is maybe not a traditional poem in structure, but in feel and sound, it certainly is poetic. 

But, what I love about Donne is the chance he gives me to contemplate G-d and spirituality, separated from politics and particular religions. He approaches these topics as an individual person, with passion and anger and seeking of peace. And in that, I find more connection than in the words of someone who no longer grapples with the big picture. 

I is for David Irwin: Nostalgia in Smells

It's April! Time for the AtoZ Blogging Challenge!

For those who haven't played along before, the AtoZ Blogging Challenge asks bloggers to post every day during April (excepting Sundays), which works out to 26 days, one for each letter of the alphabet. In my opinion, it's the most fun if you choose a theme.

This will be my 5th year participating.

• In 2014, I wrote about evocative words. 
• In 2015, I wrote about my publication journey and the release of my first novel. 
• In 2016, I wrote about my favorite superheroes. 
• In 2017, I wrote about the places of my heart. 

My theme this year is Poets I Love all about some of the poets whose work has touched me over the years.

For my regular readers, you'll see more than the usual once-a-week posts from me this month. I'm having a great time writing them, so I hope you enjoy reading them, too. Be sure to check out some of the other bloggers stretching their limits this month to share their passions with you, too. With over 400 participants, there is bound to be something you'd love to read.

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When planning out my list of poets, I often had to choose between six or seven beloved poets for a single letter, but there were a few letters where I couldn't think of anyone. The Letter "I" was one of those. With a little research, I found a few: David Ignatow, Isaac Rosenberg, Holly Iglesias, Isaac Watts,  Ingrid Jonker. But the truth is, that none of these were poets I already knew and loved, not like the rest of the poets I'm writing about in this series. 

At first I was frustrated, but then I realized that I had just handed myself an excuse to read a bunch of new poets and find out who spoke to me. Turns out it was Mark Irwin. I've still only read a few of his poems, but I'll be seeking out more. 

This one is my favorite of what I've read so far: "My Father's Hats." 

It captures that feeling of your dad is someone epic and strong and large that some of us experienced as children. In that way, it reminds me of Theodore Roethke's poems about his father, in particular "My Papa's Waltz." I love the part about smelling the inner silk crowns of the hats. So intimate. And what the smell evoked for the speaker. 

Any other poets starting with "I" (first name or last) that I ought to check out? Let me know in the comments! 

H is for Langston Hughes: America Singing

It's April! Time for the AtoZ Blogging Challenge!

For those who haven't played along before, the AtoZ Blogging Challenge asks bloggers to post every day during April (excepting Sundays), which works out to 26 days, one for each letter of the alphabet. In my opinion, it's the most fun if you choose a theme.

This will be my 5th year participating.

• In 2014, I wrote about evocative words. 
• In 2015, I wrote about my publication journey and the release of my first novel. 
• In 2016, I wrote about my favorite superheroes. 
• In 2017, I wrote about the places of my heart. 

My theme this year is Poets I Love all about some of the poets whose work has touched me over the years.

For my regular readers, you'll see more than the usual once-a-week posts from me this month. I'm having a great time writing them, so I hope you enjoy reading them, too. Be sure to check out some of the other bloggers stretching their limits this month to share their passions with you, too. With over 400 participants, there is bound to be something you'd love to read.

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I didn't find Langston Hughes until I was a teacher and in my early twenties. 

I discovered his work alongside my students through verses like "Dreams," "Theme for English B," "Mother to Son," and "I, Too." 

My students at the time were mostly Y'upik, and I'm a white woman from Kentucky, but we found that the struggles of race and place in the world spoke to all of us, even though we were years and miles away from the Harlem he knew and wrote in. 

Most of Hughes work is short and to the point and written in very accessible language, a real selling point when introducing poetry to people who don't normally read it. You don't have to untangle what Hughes is trying to say, but it is deeply affecting and will stick with you a long time. 

Just a couple of months ago, I was able to attend a multi-media show at the Carolina Theatre of the Langston Hughes project. The show, Ask Your Mama: 12 Moods for Jazz,  combined live jazz performance with readings of Hughes's verses, against a backdrop of images of the time period. It reignited my interest in this poet and his work. 

In fact, I have a dream poetry anthology project that stems from Hughes poem, "I, Too." "I, Too" is a response to Walt Whitman's anthem "I Hear America Singing" pointing out the America that Whitman didn't hear singing back in the 1800s. 

I'd love to get other poets to write their own "I, Too" poems, elucidating the other songs Whitman didn't hear that make up our nation now. Maybe someday when I'm rich and famous, that's something I can fund.