Poetry Friday: "Notes on the Art of Poetry" by Dylan Thomas

My mom passed away a year ago today. Oh, how she loved to read! One of the greatest gifts she gave her children was a love of books. I don't know if I ever gave her these words from Dylan Thomas, but it's never too late. I'm giving them to her today. 

This is from the preface to The Poems of Dylan Thomas — an essay called "Notes on the Art of Poetry." The "poem" is often found online in an edited form, but it originated in Thomas's response to a college student who, in 1951, asked him five questions about poetry: 

"My first, and greatest, liberty was that of being able to read everything and anything I cared to. I read indiscriminately, and with my eyes hanging out. I could never have dreamt that there were such goings-on in the world between the covers of books, such sandstorms and ice blasts of words, such slashing of humbug, and humbug, too, such staggering peace, such enormous laughter, such and so many blinding bright lights breaking across the just-awaking wits and splashing all over the pages in a million bits and pieces all of which were words, words, words, and each of which was alive forever in its own delight and glory and oddity and light."

And here's a lovely clip, that I think my mom would love, of Sean Bean reading the shortened version: 

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Join Marcie Flinchum Atkins for the Poetry Friday round-up this week, and for plenty of other bookish and poetical news. 

Photo courtesy of EliFrancis at Pixabay. 

Poetry Friday: "Spring (Again)"

One of my favorite very-very-short poems about spring: 

Spring (Again)
by Michael Ryan

The birds were louder this morning,

raucous, oblivious, tweeting their teensy bird-brains out.
....

(Read all five lines here, at Poets.org. The final line is perfection.)

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Rose Cappelli at Imagine the Possibilities

is hosting a very spring-y Poetry Friday round-up this week.

Photo courtesy of kidmoses at Pixabay. 

Poetry Friday: "An Interruption" by Robert S. Foote

Continuing last week's theme of empathy and kindness: 

An Interruption
by Robert S. Foote


A boy had stopped his car
To save a turtle in the road;
I was not far
Behind, and slowed,
And stopped to watch as he began
To shoo it off into the undergrowth—

This wild reminder of an ancient past,
Lumbering to some Late Triassic bog,
Till it was just a rustle in the grass,

....

(Read the rest here.) 

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Kind and wonderful Janice Scully is hosting the Poetry Friday round-up this week at Salt City Verse. 

Photo thanks to giorgos250 at Pixabay. 

Poetry Friday: "Kindness" by Naomi Shihab Nye

Empathy is not a weakness.

Empathy is never weakness. 

Empathy for other human beings is the heart, mind, and soul of genuine strength and leadership. 

Make America empathetic again. 

Kindness 

by Naomi Shihab Nye 

Before you know what kindness really is

you must lose things,

feel the future dissolve in a moment

like salt in a weakened broth.

What you held in your hand,

what you counted and carefully saved,

all this must go so you know

how desolate the landscape can be

between the regions of kindness.

....

(Read the rest here, at Poets.org.)

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The lovely and kind Margaret Simon is hosting the Poetry Friday round-up this week. 

Poetry Friday: "A New Poet"

This month's challenge to and for the Poetry Peeps was to write  "____ is A Word Poems" (a wordplay exercise created by poet Nikki Grimes and shared here by Michelle Barnes.) 

I didn't have time to rise to the challenge, but I'm sharing a poem about meeting new poets, which is one of the things I love about Poetry Friday.

Denise Krebs at Dare to Care is hosting the Poetry Friday round-up this week, and she's daring to care about the state of our country and some rapidly vanishing liberties. Thank you, Denise. 

A New Poet 

by Linda Pastan 

Finding a new poet
is like finding a new wildflower
out in the woods. You don't see

its name in the flower books, and
nobody you tell believes
in its odd color or the way

....

(Read the rest here, at Library of Congress/Poetry 180.) 

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Photo thanks to Hazi54, Pixabay

Poetry Friday: "300 Goats" by Naomi Shihab Nye

I wanted to share this one by Naomi Shihab Nye for a few reasons: 

• It's Naomi Shihab Nye. 
• It's about goats. I've always liked goats, and now they make me think about Severance, and I'm obsessed with Severance. 
• It's Naomi Shihab Nye. 

So. Poetry. Goats. Severance. 

You're welcome. 

300 Goats
by Naomi Shihab Nye

In icy fields.
Is water flowing in the tank?
Will they huddle together, warm bodies pressing?
(Is it the year of the goat or the sheep?

....

(Read the rest of this short, delightful poem here, and you can listen to the poet reading it here.) 

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The Poetry Friday round-up this week is being hosted by Laura Purdie Salas. 

Photo thanks to RitaE at Pixabay. 

Poetry Friday: VII by Wendell Berry

This ("Sabbaths, 2005, VII") is a beautiful one from Wendell Berry. 

It begins like this:

I know I am getting old and I say so,
but I don't think of myself as an old man.
I think of myself as a young man
with unforeseen debilities. 

and ends like this: 

...And you, who are as old
almost as I am, I love as I loved you
young, except that, old, I am astonished
at such a possibility, and am duly grateful.

And now you must go here to read the dozen or so lines between that exquisite beginning and that sublime ending. 

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Carol Varsalona has the Poetry Friday round-up today at Beyond LiteracyLink. 

(Image by Mirka at Pixabay.)

Poetry Friday: Sustenance (and happy anniversary, Atticus)

Atticus and I celebrated our 41st anniversary this week. 

And all those skeptics thought we'd never make it, (tsk, tsk.) But here we are, and here we'll stand, and here we go, shooting for another forty-one. (Well, umm, maybe at least another 30? We'll take what we can get, I suppose.) 

Here's a poem I wrote quite a while back, one I sometimes recycle on our anniversary. 

Happy anniversary, Atticus. Thank you for the bread and promises. 


Sustenance
by Karen Edmisten 

Bread,
like marriage,
requires the promise
of leavening.

There is flour and water —
foundation — yes,
but it begs
something more:
fermentation, lather,
messiness
and growth.
It must take on life,
risk failure,
swell in size,
though never
sloppily escape
its necessary confines.

My husband
mixes flour
and water,
baking bread for me.
It is nothing,
he says.

It is everything,
I counter,
as I watch him
measure, stir yeast
and add salt,
carefully constructing a promise.

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The Poetry Friday round-up is being hosted this week by Jan at Bookseed Studio. 

Photo credit: Giulio Perricone, Pixabay

Poetry Friday: It Ain't Me, Bob (a found poem)

Photo: Wikimedia Commons

Poetry Friday crept up on me this week, so I jumped into my archives and pulled this one out. I wrote this (well, found it — it's a found poem made up of Bob Dylan song titles) in 2008, for Jama Rattigan, who was celebrating (as she is often wont to do) the freewheelin' Dylan. 

Have you seen A Complete Unknown? Atticus, Ramona, and I saw it earlier this month. Timothée Chalamet was marvelous as Dylan, of course, but if Edward Norton doesn't get the supporting actor Oscar for his uncanny portrayal of Pete Seeger, I'll storm out of the ceremony. (Oh, wait. I won't be there. But I'll rail like a cranky old man from the comfort of my living room because I loved Pete Seeger and I love Edward Norton for playing him.) 

Admittedly I didn't give this bit of found poetry extensive thought back in 2008 — I just strung a few titles together and hit "Publish" because I thought it would give Jama a smile. But, as I consider how many songs Dylan has written (you can find the staggering list here), I think it would be great fun to give it another go. 

It Ain't Me, Bob

Karen Edmisten 

Just like a woman,
the times they are a-changin'
and like a rolling stone
the answer's blowin'
in the wind.
A hard rain's a'gonna fall
but don't think twice,
it's alright.

It's not dark yet.
Mr. Tambourine Man

is knockin' on heaven's door. 
I've got the Highway 51 blues
but all I really wanna do 
is have
one more cup of coffee
and shelter from the storm.

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The Poetry Friday round-up this week is being hosted by the marvelous Tabatha at The Opposite of Indifference. 

Poetry Friday: Overthinking my 2025 Word of the Year

Photo by Markus Spiske

When it's time to choose a guiding/inspiring/motivational/comforting/perfect (aye, there's the rub) word to take me through the upcoming year, I do what I do with everything: Overthink it and paralyze myself.  (Do you think that little "perfect" requirement has anything to do with that? Naaaaah.) 

For 2024, I chose "Hope" but also stre-e-e-etched Hope out, seeking maximum mileage: 

Healing
Overcome
Patience
Emerge 

Hope, healing, overcoming, patience, emerging: it was good advice to myself. I needed all that and more in and from 2024. 2023 and 2024 were rough. After a couple years of intense caregiving and the deaths of both of my parents six months apart, I felt like an abandoned shell of myself. Time to reclaim ... something? I headed down that Hope road and it's been helping. (True, I have often felt derailed, especially since November 6th, but that's another subject and another post, a different kind of rough time to come.) 

For my 2025 word, I did an online quiz to see if I was inspired by the word it gave me. I took the quiz three times and every time it gave me Create. I was tempted to fight it, as I often do with that kind of thing. I'm a Gretchen Rubin Questioner/tipping-to-Rebel and I thought: 

"Why should I trust a random online quiz? Shouldn't I find my own word? Wouldn't that be more authentic? Am I lazy to use a quiz? But some quizzes are great, like the Four Tendencies. After all, 'Questioner' nails it. But this is different. Or is it?" 

And then I thought: 

"Shut up and just adopt the word, Karen. Create feels just right after the healing, the overcoming, the patience, and the emergence. JUST USE THE WORD." 

So I will. But I wasn't done (over)thinking it. 

I stre-e-e-etched the potential of Create a little further, and here's what I came up with: 

Conceive
Realize
Envision
Actualize
Truthfulness
Express

I like what it invites me to and I have all kinds of ideas about all kinds of writing I want to create going forward. 

Overthinking, apparently, isn't all bad. 🤔 I even decided it was worth writing an acrostic poem in its honor: 

On January first, I 

Veer into it, the inevitable

Everlasting, maddening 

Routine of it.

Turning to words for direction, to guide me

Hoping one little word can transform twelve months

Into a new creation. 

Nothing, though, not even an all-encompassing word, can 

Know what's to come. Still, I try. 

It's in our bones, in our blood, we can't help it. We

Try. One little word that can transform a year. 

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Tricia at The Miss Rumphius Effect is hosting the Poetry Friday round-up this week. 

Poetry Friday: Hope perching in our souls (Thanks, Emily)

I've got a little more Emily Dickinson for you this week — a well-known classic that I turn to often. It's the perfect way for me to kick off 2025, a year in which we'll need lots of hope perching in our souls to keep us motivated and moving forward. As one wise woman often says, "Don't agonize, organize." 

“Hope” is the thing with feathers
by Emily Dickinson

“Hope” is the thing with feathers -
That perches in the soul -
And sings the tune without the words -
And never stops - at all -

(Read the rest here, at The Poetry Foundation.) 

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The incredible Mary Lee Hahn (she of "herd the poetry cats every six months, create a Poetry Friday schedule, and put together the code that many of us post on our sites" fame) is hosting the round-up this week at A(another) Year of Reading. Thanks, Mary Lee, for your dedication and service to the Poetry Friday community (not to mention your marvelous poems)! 

(Photo thanks to Ray Hennessy at Unsplash.)

Poetry Friday: "Emily Dickinson at the Poetry Slam"

I was whining earlier today that I didn't know what to do for Poetry Friday this week. I'm currently a zombie because I'm suffering — as I always do — from Christmas Sugar Syndrome. I lumber around in a stupor for several days because we indulge in too much delicious, mind-numbing sweetness. 

So, Ramona quickly composed this haiku and suggested a postponement: 

I had too much fudge. 

Come back next week for a poem. 

I'm on Christmas break. 

That was tempting. (As tempting as the chocolate itself.) But then, she also said, "Why not some Emily Dickinson?" For Christmas, Ramona gave me the beautiful Emily Dickinson book I shared above. As I was paging through random poems this morning, I was reminded of this Dickinson quote: 

“If I read a book and it makes my whole body so cold no fire can warm me I know that is poetry. If I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off, I know that is poetry. These are the only way I know it. Is there any other way?”

She's just so good. (How's that for a writerly description?) 

And so, this poem by Dan Vera, which pulls it all together, is a right and proper fit for this week. Enjoy! 

Emily Dickinson and the Poetry Slam 

by Dan Vera 

I will tell you why she rarely ventured from her house. 

It happened like this:

One day she took the train to Boston,

made her way to the darkened room,

put her name down in cursive script

and waited her turn. 

When they read her name aloud

she made her way to the stage

straightened the papers in her hands —

pages and envelopes, the backs of grocery bills,

she closed her eyes for a minute,

took a breath, 

and began. 

From her mouth perfect words exploded,

intact formulas of light and darkness.

....

(Read the rest here, at The Poetry Foundation.) 

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The final Poetry Friday round-up of 2024 is 

being hosted by the lovely Michelle Kogan. 

Find her (and the Poetry Sisters, whose December Challenge was to write a Haibun) 

at Michelle's blog, here. 

Poetry Friday: "December" by Gary Johnson

This is a lovely, short, just-right piece. I especially like the last lines: 

And my hopes and fears are met/In this small singer holding onto my hand./Onward we go, faithfully, into the dark...

December
by Gary Johnson


A little girl is singing for the faithful to come ye
Joyful and triumphant, a song she loves,
And also the partridge in a pear tree
And the golden rings and the turtle doves.
In the dark streets, red lights and green and blue
Where the faithful live, some joyful, some troubled,
Enduring the cold and also the flu,

....

(Read the rest here.) 

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Join Jone for the Poetry Friday round-up this week. 

Happy December! (How is it almost over already?) 

Poetry Friday: "Looking at the Sky" by Anne Porter

I missed Poetry Friday last week. If you did too, check it out at Tanita Davis's {fiction, instead of lies}. The Poetry Pals used Jane Hirshfield's "Two Versions" as a mentor poem and crafted their own takes (inspired by Hirshfield's theme, structure, or lines). They created some stunners, so do hop over and read your way through those beauties. 

This week, Carol at The Apples in My Orchard is hosting. Carol has been caring for her aging father, spending 16½ hours on the road (in one day!) and dealing with a lot (I see you, Carol!) Send her some virtual hugs and love today and enjoy all the poetry she's rounded up for us here. 

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I missed PF last week because we spent Thursday and Friday out of town. My daughter and her husband hosted Thanksgiving. My middle daughter, whom I blog-named "Betsy Ray" (after our beloved Betsy in Maud Hart Lovelace's Betsy-Tacy books) was nine years old when I started this blog in late 2005. She was NINE. And now she and her husband are killing it as Thanksgiving hosts. We had a marvelous day and a marvelous meal. (I told her to marry a man who cooks, and she did. Yay!) The only parts of the meal we provided were the pumpkin pie (my mom's extra-spice recipe), gluten-free/dairy-free biscuits, and gf/df chocolate chip cookies. Anne-with-an-e (who was twelve when I started the blog — TWELVE!) and her fiance brought the dairy-free mashed potatoes, which Ramona (who was THREE when I started the blog) pronounced the best ever. When she was three, she didn't like "mashed-potatoes-with-the-skin-on, eww" but her culinary palate expanded over the years. Sadly for her, a few years back, just as she was perfecting the ultimate pepperjack grilled cheese sandwich with marinara dipping sauce, she needed to go gf/df, as Betsy had to a few years before. We're still working on perfecting the gf/df diet but overall we've made huge progress.

Aaaaaanyway...that's where I was last week. Enjoying the many pleasures of spending time with all my favorite people. Counting gifts and blessings. Giving thanks for beauty seen and unseen. "Looking at the Sky" and getting my thirst for a touch of heaven quenched. (Stealing the imagery of a thirst quenched from the last line of the poem. It's a short and perfect piece.) 

Looking at the Sky
by Anne Porter

I never will have time
I never will have time enough
To say
How beautiful it is
The way the moon
Floats in the air
As easily
And lightly as a bird
Although she is a world
Made all of stone.
....
(Read the second part here.) 

Photo courtesy of AdamNir, Pixabay.

Poetry Friday: Rudy Francisco, "A Series of Gentle Reminders"

My youngest daughter ("Ramona," the artist and poet) introduced me to Rudy Francisco, and if I haven't shared his stuff on Poetry Friday yet, I've been terribly remiss. He's marvelous, and this one is so good: 

Learn more about Francisco here, and on his Instagram. 

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Ruth has the Poetry Friday round-up at 

There is no such thing as a Godforsaken town.