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. 

~~~~~~~~~~

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.) 

~~~~~~~~~~

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.) 

~~~~~~~~~~

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.) 

~~~~~~~~~~

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. 

~~~~~~~~~~

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. 

~~~~~~~~~~

Ruth has the Poetry Friday round-up at 

There is no such thing as a Godforsaken town. 

Poetry Friday: "Any Common Desolation" by Ellen Bass (and I'm hosting)

I've been quiet here lately but I'm popping in to host Poetry Friday this week, and to share this beauty by Ellen Bass. This poem spoke to me, especially after the results of the election, and I hope it might speak to you too. 

Hug each other, stand for what is right and good, and keep creating and embracing beauty. 

And one other note on hope: Go listen to Dolores Huerta on Julia Louis Dreyfus's podcast, "Wiser Than Me." 

Any Common Desolation
by Ellen Bass

can be enough to make you look up
at the yellowed leaves of the apple tree, the few
that survived the rains and frost, shot
with late afternoon sun. They glow a deep
orange-gold against a blue so sheer, a single bird
would rip it like silk. You may have to break
your heart, but it isn’t nothing
to know even one moment alive. The sound
of an oar in an oarlock or a ruminant
animal tearing grass. The smell of grated ginger.

....

(Read the rest here, at Poets.org.) 

~~~~~~~~~~

Leave your links with the ever-helpful Mr. Linky: 

Poetry Friday: "How to Build a Life in Ten Steps"

Last month, Tanita Davis shared the October challenge the Poetry Pals/Sisters/Princesses (and anyone else who'd like to join in) are tackling. Tanita says: 

Here’s the scoop: We’re building! Our prompt comes from p. 139 of The Practice of Poetry: Writing Exercises from Poets Who Teach, edited by Robin Behn and Chase Twichell, and we’re writing a poem in which we literally build and/or take apart something – large or small. Our focus will be on constructing or deconstructing, taking into account technical terms, instructions, and perhaps even material sources. 

I didn't entirely stick to the prompt, as my building isn't literal, but, hey, no one's grading us, so here's what I came up with.  

How to Build a Life in Ten Steps
Karen Edmisten

Step 1
Be born. Cry, because that’s an appropriate response to encountering the world. (Other, more complicated, feelings will come later.)

Step 2
Grow a bit. Move forward. (You've no choice in this step, though know you will take some steps backward.)

Step 3
Look at the world around you. Marvel. Despair. Be wide-eyed. Stomp your feet. Wander down some roads not taken.

Step 4
Grow some more. Consult the manual. (Admit you’ve been ignoring it.) Be tempted to throw it in the trash because some of the hardware it mentions is missing.

Step 5
Fall in love. Laugh. Swear off falling in love. Sob. Fall in like, lust, loneliness, lackadaisy. Be a childless cat lady and shout it from the rooftops. Fall again, and now again. Write it all down in your diary.

Step 6
Learn cliches and use them recklessly:
“How time flies!”
“Where do the years go?”
“You’re all grown up!”

Nod at the truth and the lies of them.

Step 7
Consult the manual again. This isn’t going the way you planned. Things look wobbly, wonky. There aren’t enough dowels, or nails, or latches (see Figure B). Are you missing the shelf (Part C)? Where is Part D, the foundational backing that’s supposed to hold the whole structure in place?

Step 8
Persevere through the love/hate thing you have with this project. Improvise. Stick those wobbly bits together with duct tape.

Step 9
Call in a friend for a consultation. Have a beer. (“Does this look wonky to you? Be honest.”)

Step 10
Put the manual down. Drop the hammer (but not on your foot.) Stop trying to build this life. This life has been building you.

 
“It looks unique and beautiful!” your friend says.

 
Choose to believe her.

~~~~~~~~~~

The Poetry Friday round-up this week is being hosted by the lovely Carol Varsalona at Beyond LiteracyLink. 

Photo courtesy of Pexels. 

Poetry Friday: Mary Oliver and that Gatsby quote, of course

There are just too many quintessential poems for autumn and yes, I find myself repeating my favorites, and yes, I assume you don't mind (do you?), and yes, I need to share, along with this quintessential Mary Oliver, the quintessential Gatsby quote about autumn that I share every, single fall: 

"What'll we do with ourselves this afternoon?" cried Daisy, "and the day after that, and the next thirty years?"

"Don't be morbid," Jordan said. "Life starts all over again when it gets crisp in the fall."

 

So here we are. I'm being predictable again, fall is ushering in the crispness, and Mary Oliver is being her Mary Oliver-est. 

Song for Autumn
by Mary Oliver

Don’t you imagine the leaves dream now
how comfortable it will be to touch
the earth instead of the
nothingness of the air and the endless
freshets of wind? And don’t you think
the trees, especially those with
mossy hollows, are beginning to look for

....

(Read the whole thing here, at The Poetry Foundation.)

~~~~~~~~~~

The never-predictable, always delightful Jama Rattigan 

is hosting the Poetry Friday round-up this week at Jama's Alphabet Soup. 

(Photo courtesy of Jill Wellington at Pixabay.)

Poetry Friday: "First Fall" by Maggie Smith

Last week I wrote about motherhood (with a little help from Wallace Stevens) and this week Maggie Smith (the other one, the poet) is doing the talking on the subject. This short piece is poignant and beautiful. Enjoy "First Fall." 

First Fall
by Maggie Smith

I’m your guide here. In the evening-dark
morning streets, I point and name.
Look, the sycamores, their mottled,
paint-by-number bark. Look, the leaves
rusting and crisping at the edges.
I walk through Schiller Park with you
on my chest. Stars smolder well
into daylight. Look, the pond, the ducks,

....

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

~~~~~~~~~~

The Poetry Friday round-up this week is being hosted by the terrific

Tabatha Yeatts at The Opposite of Indifference. 

Photo courtesy of Pixabay.

Poetry Friday: Thirteen Ways of Looking...

I'm joining the Poetry Pals/Sisters/Princesses for their monthly challenge. Tanita shared this prompt for September: 

Poetry Peeps! You’re invited to our challenge for the month of September! Here’s the scoop: We’re wandering through Wallace Stevens’ “13 Different Ways of Looking…” at something. Maybe it’s not 13 ways – maybe it’s only seven. Maybe it’s not a blackbird or anything alive, but something inanimate. Whatever happens, your way of looking will be different than mine, and I’m here for it. Are you in? Good! You have a month to craft your creation and share it on September 27th in a post and/or on social media with the tag #PoetryPals.

I'm cheating a little because I wrote this one a while ago, when my daughters were young. And saying I "wrote" it is a wee bit of a stretch since I borrowed lines from Stevens and interspersed them throughout my version. But I've always liked it and thought it would be fun to share it again, especially given this month's challenge. 

If you joined in the challenge, let us know! 

(Original lines from Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird are in italics. All the good lines belong to Stevens, but hey, the children are mine.)

Thirteen Ways of Looking at an Interruption 
Karen Edmisten
(with apologies and thanks to Wallace Stevens)

I
In the stillness of night,
The only moving thing
is a child.

II
I was of three minds:
sleep, motherhood, sleep.

III
I pretended not to care that I was awakened.
It was a small part of the pantomime.
There is my "to do" list, and then there is God's.
These are not the same thing.

IV

A man and a woman
Are one.
A man and a woman and a child
Are one.
Add, mix and stir: my daughters' "to do" lists are mine.


V
I do not know which to prefer,
The beauty of inflections
Or the beauty of innuendoes,
The life with the child
or the thought of that life.

VI
Chatter filled the long day
The company of children
Transformed a mood. Sometimes
for better. Sometimes ... not.


VII
O, dear control-freak-self,
Why do you imagine a different life?
Do you not see how the life
you've been given is unspeakable gift?

VIII
I know of a tidy life,
of elegance, rhythm and control.
But I know, too, That a child is involved
In what I know.

IX
When my children have grown,
They will mark the edge
Of one of many circles.
I will be grateful for their imprint.

X
At the sight of children
I used to say, "Not for me, please.
An unwelcome interruption."
But something shifted. I gave myself
Over to motherhood, and held on tight.

XI
Once, a fear pierced me,
that I would never rise to this task,
would not die to self.


XII
3:20 a.m.: A nightmare. She needs me more
than I need this sleep. 
I rise. I go.
A child will not wait for morning.


XIII
It was nighttime all day.
I loved her and I was going to love her.
The child sat entwined in my limbs.
The interruption sweetly complete.

~~~~~~~~~~

Join the #PoetryPals and loads of other bloggers and poets for the Poetry Friday round-up. The incomparable Irene Latham is hosting this week at Live Your Poem. 

Poetry Friday: "To Autumn" by John Keats

Autumn sweeps in, her official debut on Sunday, so Keats makes his official reappearance here on the blog, courtesy of a suggestion from Atticus. An excellent choice from my better half. 

To Autumn
by John Keats

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
  Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
  With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;
To bend with apples the moss’d cottage-trees,
  And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
   To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
  With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,

  For summer has o’er-brimm’d their clammy cells.

Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?

  Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find
Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,
   Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;
Or on a half-reap’d furrow sound asleep,

  Drowsed with the fume of poppies, while thy hook

   Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers:
And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep
  Steady thy laden head across a brook;
  Or by a cider-press, with patient look,
   Thou watchest the last oozings, hours by hours.

Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?
  Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,—
While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,
  And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;
Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn

  Among the river sallows, borne aloft
   Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;

And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;

  Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft
  The redbreast whistles from a garden-croft,
    And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.

(This poem is in the public domain.)

~~~~~~~~~~

The marvelous Linda Baie has the Poetry Friday round-up at TeacherDance. 

Photo Courtesy of Pixabay. 

Poetry Friday: Wendell Berry

I don't have much to add to this one, other than:

1. It's Wendell Berry. Win/win. 

2. It's lovely imagery. 

3. It's Wendell Berry. 

Before Dark
by Wendell Berry

From the porch at dusk I watched
a kingfisher wild in flight
he could only have made for joy.

He came down the river, splashing
against the water’s dimming face
like a skipped rock, passing

on down out of sight. And still

....

(Read the rest here.) 

~~~~~~~~~~

Heidi Mordhorst has the Poetry Friday round-up at My Juicy Little Universe. 

Apparently, I often think of Wendell Berry in September, and Heidi often hosts in September, because three years ago, I shared another Berry poem on the day she hosted. Berry-endipity. 

What I've been reading: a handful of NetGalley ARCs

I love NetGalley 

If you're not familiar with it, check out this appreciated-by-all system for getting new books into readers' and reviewers' hands. Here are a few things I've read of late, thanks to NetGalley ARCs: 

I Promise It Won't Always Hurt Like This: 18 Assurances on Grief by Clare Mackintosh

A gorgeous, honest, heartfelt memoir that I could endlessly relate to. I would never say, "I know how you feel" to Clare Mackintosh, because I don't exactly how she feels. After my five miscarriages, I was in a different situation and had experienced a different kind of grief than Mackintosh and her husband endured, having lost their son Alex when he was five weeks old. What I share with her is simply this: we were both  grieving, we needed to heal, it would take a long time, and we needed the promises of others who had walked this path before us. Mackintosh pays it forward and offers that comfort and assurance. 

~~~~~

No Two Persons by Erica Bauermeister 

This one's from 2023, but I don't think I ever blogged about it. A marvelous book about the power of writing and the magic of connecting through storytelling. At first, I felt slightly disappointed by the varying points of view, but I was quickly won over, immersed in each new story-within-this-story. Bauermeister subtly pulled threads from here and there, weaving them into surprising new places.

The epigraph, a quote from The Writings of Madame Swetchine, is, "No two persons ever read the same book, or saw the same picture." This truth is elegantly illustrated as we dip in and out of the lives of disparate readers of a fictional author's book. One character doesn't even read the book but uses it in a brilliant way.

Some favorite quotes:

But he understood the feeling of living in a world where few questions had a single, solid answer. Understood, too, that in that world, creativity often dwelt next to confusion.

Science heard that fragment of a second and wondered how to make it fit into a whole. Fiction wondered what hearing it felt like.

...but that was the beauty of books, wasn't it? They took you places you didn't know you needed to go.

Ignoring the fact that grief is not a stalker but a stowaway, always there and up for any journey.

A gorgeous, moving, and fully satisfying read.

~~~~~

When Religion Hurts You: Healing from Religious Trauma and the Impact of High-Control Religion by Laura E. Anderson 

An excellent guide to understanding, dealing with, and healing from AREs (adverse religious experiences) and HCRs (high-control religions) and the trauma that can result. While Anderson doesn't go into extensive personal detail, she includes just enough of her own painful story to establish her credibility, authenticity, and empathy as a survivor of religious trauma. Her personal story/understanding of the issues and her professional credentials as a trauma-informed therapist come together for a compelling and helpful read. 

~~~~~

The Borrowed Life of Frederick Fife by Anna Johnston

A sweet (sometimes bittersweet) tale that kept me wondering how Fred, a lonely widower with no one to turn to, would resolve a unique dilemma. Mistaken identity and good intentions lead to second chances for these warm, likable characters. Surprise reveals, and a satisfying, lovely ending add to the charm of this poignant story about family, aging, loss, and forgiveness. 

I'll be back soon with a couple of picture books that made their way to me through NetGalley too. 📚

Photo thanks to Pixabay.

Poetry Friday: "To the Light of September" by W.S. Merwin

Mullein 

Here's a bit of perfection, a knowing nod to September, from the incomparable W.S. Merwin. 

To the Light of September
by W. S. Merwin

When you are already here
you appear to be only
a name that tells of you
whether you are present or not
....

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

~~~~~~~~~~

The Poetry Friday round-up is being hosted this week by Buffy Silverman. 

(Photo thanks to Hans at Pixabay.)