I Will Write a Love Poem - pre-orders are open now
Plus a baby in a basket, zest, & anger in poems
1. I Will Write a Love Poem
My mind is having trouble keeping up with the fact that it’s really fall. Like, really really. It’s so fall that in less than a week, it will be my birthday. I’m turning 40, which feels momentous partly because the wider culture has been telling me my whole life that it will be, and partly because, well, it does feel that way. Things have definitely changed since I was 20. And 30. (Thank all the gods.)
One thing that’s changing is that I have two chapbooks coming out in the next few months. One of them is available for pre-order now through Porkbelly Press.
One fun fact about this wee little book is that the artwork on the cover is from a painting done by my oldest child. (I asked him for permission to use it for this.)
The second fun fact has to do with the mysterious ways inspiration and ideas sometimes arrive.
2. Golden Girls &
Pretty early on in the pandemic, I was still finishing my bachelor’s degree at Smith College, and I was really stuck in my poetry. Really stuck. I wasn’t reading anything I felt excited by, and I wasn’t writing anything that felt alive. It’s always scary when the juice leaves, because even if it’s happened time and again, I’m always afraid it won’t ever come back.
That fall, I attended an online workshop run by the incredible poet (and human) Jericho Brown. He asked the attendees to start by naming one thing they loved (answers ranged from gummy bears to pets). And later, when he was doing a Q&A after reading his poems, the moderator asked Jericho Brown how he was taking care of himself in these challenging times. Brown answered that he was reading love poems, and that every night before bed, he watched The Golden Girls, to make sure he got some laughs in. It sounded like a good recipe for life, honestly.
I had never successfully written a love poem. I honestly didn’t think I could do it. But it seemed like a useful exercise to try. This might not make any sense at all, but at the same time that I decided I would try to write some love poems, I also decided to give up, at least temporarily, on poetry. I just decided to get some words on the page and I gave up on the idea that they were poems. I told myself, in fact, that they were not poems.
I Will Write a Love Poem came out of that time—attempts to reckon with what love is, the places it takes us, the places it cannot take us. I am super excited to share these poems with y’all - I’ll have more news about readings in the coming weeks, both in person and virtual. But in the meantime, go ahead and order your copy - they’re on sale for pre-sales! Each one is beautifully handsewn by Nicci at Porkbelly Press.
3. Zest
My sweetheart, speaking of love, once said that if he ever walked into my kitchen and saw me cooking with a lemon that hadn’t been zested, he would know I’d been replaced by a body snatcher.
Zest is one of my easiest, most beloved kitchen hacks. If you have a lemon, lime, or orange around, then you already have zest. I add it to salad dressings, salads or slaws, and basically any type of sauce.
4. Baby in a basket
One of our cats, Mary, is particularly fond of baskets. We got her as a kitten and still sometimes just call her “baby”—which means that we often call out, upon finding her in yet another basket, “Baby in a basket!” This was the most baskets she ever managed to be in at one time.
5. Angry Poems
Meanwhile, I’ve gotten really interested in angry poems. I have an exciting Q&A on this topic coming to this space soon, but for now, I would love to hear from you - what’s an angry poem that’s moved you?
That’s all for this round - thank you for reading. And remember to subscribe if you haven’t, share with a friend, all that good stuff. Hoping you have some cats in baskets and zest of all kinds in your week ahead. And poems!