Poetry is the synthesis of hyacinths and biscuits.

Carl Sandburg

April is National Poetry Month. I have made it a practice for a long time to find and write about poetry. From celebrating the craft of Poet Laureates, to mining the riches of new poets’ work, to collecting Presidential Inaugural poems, to exploring the cracks and crevasses of my favorite poets’ verse, poetry has been root and bud, figure and ground, breath and imagination, blood and tears, grace and precision, hyacinth and biscuit.

Poems are everyday prayers. Let me explain. Paying attention can be painful. Our days can be beautiful and hard. Remembering to breathe can be too much. Poetry slows us down. Poetry makes space for it all to be held and observed. Poet Ruth Forman writes about wearing prayers like shoes. Poems are my shoes. They are my as if, my I am, and my not yet. They are the generative force creating, building, remembering, connecting, and loving.

I celebrate poetry this month and beyond. I celebrate falling asleep hearing Wynken, Blynken, and Nod 1,000 times as a child. I celebrate finding Naomi Shahib Nye, Carl Sandburg, Mary Oliver, Ross Gay, Emily Dickinson, Kahlil Gibran, Adrienne Rich, Pádraig Ó Tuama, Ada Limón, Pablo Neruda, Natalia Tretheway, Ocean Vuong, Joy Harjo, and … I celebrate all fearless, beautiful, heartbreaking poems and their poets. I celebrate the way poems explore the contours of language, leaving me breathless and amazed. I celebrate punctuation in a world where things fall apart and back together. I celebrate metaphor and simile in a world that celebrates the literal. I celebrate magic in a world that is starved for imagination.

MONDAYS ARE FREE EXERCISES 021 — 025

Language. History. Humor.

EXERCISE 021: SPEAK ANOTHER LANGUAGE

a poem that embeds

Write a poem that embeds a language other than English inside of it.

“Bien dans sa peau.” She said.

Comfortable in your own skin.

“Bien dans sa peau.” She said.

I thought I understood. Then life.

“Bien dans sa peau.” She said.

Birth. Diagnosis. Education. Work. Die.

“Bien dans sa peau.” She said.

Falling apart. Back together. Falling apart. Back together. Falling apart. Back together.

“Bien dans sa peau.” She said.

The root. The bud. The root. The bud. The root. The bud.

“Bien dans sa peau.” She said.

Create. Emerge. Create. Emerge. Create. Emerge.

“Bien dans sa peau.” She said.

I am. I am. I am.

“Bien dans sa peau.” She said.

Miracles and sweetness. Miracles and sweetness. Miracles and sweetness.

“Bien dans sa peau.” She said.

Stars and scar tissue. Stars and scar tissue. Stars and scar tissue.

“Bien dans sa peau.” She said.

Wordlessness, Oneness, Forming. Wordlessness, Oneness, Forming. Wordlessness, Oneness, Forming.

“Bien dans sa peau.” She said.

We stand on the shoulders. We stand on the shoulders. We stand on the shoulders.

“Bien dans sa peau.” She said.

I love you. Do you know how much I love you? I love you. Do you know how much I love you? I love you. Do you know how much I love you?

“Bien dans sa peau.” She said.

You don’t have to carry that weight. You don’t have to carry that weight. You don’t have to carry that weight.

“Bien dans sa peau.” She said.

Ohm Shanti. Ohm Shanti. Ohm Shanti. Ohm.

Strength, Courage, and Wisdom

An ecstatic delight. Thank you Indie Arie.

It’s been inside of me all along, the quiet voice that knows, the abiding hands that hold, the fearless heart that breaks — in the cracks and crevasses of a body seeking to breathe in peace, breathe out love, breathe in peace, breathe out love, breathe in peace, breathe in love — we know what it means to break, we know what it means to cry tears flowing deep through yesterdays, todays, and tomorrows and all that was, is, or ever will be, we know what it means to be hungry, angry, lonely and tired and keep going: that is the delight, the delight is that strength, courage, and wisdom find me, shake me to the core when I am standing at the edge, hitting a wall, building monuments to doubt, burning everything down to escape pain (or maybe to sit in pain longer because chaos is comfortable): They find me in a corner paralyzed, doubled down in all that is, not seeing anything beyond fear’s horizon: strength, courage, and wisdom are all about perpetual morning, dawn is in me, So let it be, So let it be, So let it be.

Taking A Walk #6

MoLI. Poetry. Language.

It is National Poetry Month so my walks will take a literary turn. We will stroll through the Museum of Literature Ireland(MoLI). In August of 2024, I spent two weeks in Ireland. One day began at the MoLI. I have loved Irish writers forever. The novelists, poets, and playwrights I have read and watched through the years stir something deep in my soul. They sit square in the middle of sadness, fear, hopelessness, and isolation, and allow me to feel something else. I feel joy, reverence, belonging, connection, and more. The MoLI is a small museum next to St. Stephen’s Green Park. It houses a carefully curated collection of Irish writers’ works. It artfully walks visitors through Ireland’s literary history at an intentional, deliberate, lyrical, poetic pace. Visitors can watch film loops of Irish poets reading their poetry, read books written by Irish writers in a reading room, title the novel they have inside in a writing lab, follow a timeline of James Joyce’s tumultuous life, and have tea at a lovely garden side cafe. Indeed, the MoLi is a familiar and peaceful square inch of Dublin.

My April/National Poetry Month walks will focus on words from the MoLI walls.

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