May I invite you into my newly painted office, with a gallery wall of book cover art? We patched all the nicks from its previous life as the rec room, and picked a warm white (called "Adorn") to cover the light blue that got tired. I call this post "Placeholder" before I share what is going on with writing and events for June and July! Here are the covers for Meet Your Muse: The Dance of Creativity, art by Kate Kroska, and Striking Light from Ashes, art by Rahela Majidi. How did Frida Kahlo (art by Kaylee Collinson) get in there? She was a gift from my daughter, and seems to belong, a special guest.
The Writer's Center of Bethesda, Maryland is hosting The Capitol Hill Poetry Group for a reading and sharing of poetry craft. Get the inside scoop on the creation of poems now featured in our anthology, The Other Side of the Hill. I'm sorry to be away for this event! My high school reunion in New York is calling... for the very same date... and there are rumors I may be our class speaker for the occasion. Do not hesitate to hear my fellow poets, all brilliant at their craft. They are my poetry family, and it was a tough decision to choose my reunion over their company. Here are the details:
Well, not technically a picture window, but isn't it? This is how azaleas light up a basement office. At this time of year, each year, I walk into my office stopped by the view. Take it in, ephemeral spring. Wait to turn on the lights. A stack of papers on my desk will outlast the season anyway. Azaleas allow for getting less done.
Wishing you more flower encounters...
My 2026 choice for poetry month:
An April Rain Song
Let the rain kiss you.
Let the rain beat upon your head
with silver liquid drops.
Let the rain sing you a lullaby
with its pitty-pat.
The rain makes still pools on the sidewalk.
The rain makes running pools in the gutter.
The rain plays a little sleep tune
on our roof at night,
and I love the rain.
by Langston Hughes
Ah, timing. And, rhyming. When a new prompt for a sonnet showed up at The American Scholar, I was ready. The theme? Resolutions or Regrets. It warms my heart that an experience of personal loss settled into a poem that David Lehman saw fit to share in his column "Next Line, Please." Praise the art form (three quatrains and a couplet, abab/cdcd/efef/gg)! Your call on whether my poem rhymes...
https://theamericanscholar.org/a-photographer-in-words/
Rely on Rumi, 13th century Persian poet, for our times:
Man, man, man,
what kind of lightning are you, setting farms on fire?What kind of cloud are you, raining down stones?
What kind of hunter?Caught in your own trap—a thief stealing from your own house.You’re sixty years old, you’re seventy years old,and you’re still uncooked?Still won’t let Love’s flames near,won’t let them burn you up?Enthralled by stuff and status,the crown, the turban, the king’s beard—thorns pricking your hands,but where is your flower?
Gazing in the mirror,you tilt your hat like a crescent moon—but where is your light?
Poem translated by Haleh Liza Gafori and kindly shared by Pádraig Ó Tuama.