Writer's Center Event

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:

Kindly reserve at this link (it helps determine how many chairs and how many cookies to offer): https://writer.org/event/other-side-of-the-hill/

Cheers,
Charise

Picture Window

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...

Cheers,
Charise

April Showers for Langston Hughes

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

"Open-Ended"

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/

Warm wishes,
Charise

"Where is Your Flower?"

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. 

A Portable Identity... Anew

This may not be a book of poetry, but it is the first book in my repertoire, newly revised with the addition of a third co-author. If you are an accompanying spouse (or you know someone who is), this is the handbook to have. And, this time around, while redoing some writing, a new poem was born. That poem, "121 Heatherdown Lane," is included in Inheritance of Flowers. Endeavors do cross-pollinate! 

A Portable Identity, released January 5 this year, is ready for you. For a few months, some bonuses are offered from our lead page (a-portable-identity lead page). Soon, soon, one of these bonuses will be a reading of the poem that gives voice to leaving my home country. 

Warm wishes,

Charise

Wintering

 

two deer rest on ice

fur warming frigid site/sight

what fresh peace is this?

~CMH 

One of the deer in my backyard

(Note: last line takes after Dorothy Parker's "what fresh hell is this?")