Latest Poetry Articles

Poetry Unbound

Dec 1

Poetry Unbound returns this week!

A quick note

Dear friends,

Pádraig Ó Tuama ∙ 151 LIKES

Jonathan Auyer

•

Dec 1

Let me riff for a second: it makes me think of Audre Lorde’s phrase that poetry (and all of art really) is not a luxury. It’s not an “add on” or just the topping we throw on to make something pretty. It is the ground, it is the bones and sinew, it is what makes it all worth it.

Amy Collier

•

Dec 1

Like guests arriving for a dinner party, I join others here in eagerly anticipating the new season! Although I'm neither writer nor poet, Poetry Unbound has been an Inhabitation How-To manual for me through the pandemic, during separation and divorce, in the unknown of my mom's cancer, and also in the joys of parenting two teens into near-adulthood, turning fifty, and finding new love. In other words, life. I cherish the space for noticing and being, for recognizing and inhabiting both the beautiful and the terrible. Thank you Padraig (and team!) for the invitation to join in the feast!

Poetry Unbound

Dec 8

Poetry and the time it takes

(Time and the poetry it makes)

Dear friends,

Pádraig Ó Tuama ∙ 226 LIKES

Jenn Hope

•

What I didn’t expect is that in adulthood you don’t leave being a child behind. I spent so much time as a child dreaming of growing up and escaping, but when I did, I took myself with me. I’m glad I did now, but it would have terrified me then.

David Levy

•

As a child I didn’t know about or experience my own mortality; how vulnerable the flesh can be. This is something I imagine AI will probably never fully feel, experience, and know. This is now, as an adult, a very precious and valuable quality. “In this very moment, this very second, I am quietly celebrating, with much gratitude, my own vulnerability, my mortality.” My whole life, up until two weeks ago, I never broke a bone, nor had stitches. Then, after a rigorous liquid diet/prep for an upcoming colonoscopy, on the day of the procedure, I stepped into the shower. I suddenly felt very exhausted. I gently lowered myself to the floor of the shower stall and sat quietly for a couple of minutes. Feeling ready, with some uncertainty, I stood up. Immediately I blacked out. Quite a new, mysterious experience. Gone. When I came to there was blood everywhere, it seemed. I had fractured my nose, punctured it as well, deeply cut my left pointer finger, banged my chin, right elbow, and a rib curving into my back. Doing what I could to slow the bleeding, my partner actually drove me to the colonoscopy office. Needless to say the kind doctor said we can’t do this procedure today, you need to get to the ER in a nearby hospital. Most importantly for me the doctor gently placed a hand on my shoulder and said “this is not your fault”.

So a few hours in the ER, getting an IV for hydration, stitches for my finger, glue on my nose wound, and meeting very thoughtful, caring medical staff, a doctor from Nigeria, a nurse from China, and other wonderful people.

I never, as a child, or an AI, could have been more in awe as I am now, watching the body do its healing miracles. My daily routine as an adult took a two week vacation. I find myself Very grateful in thinking this could have been much worse. Who would have thought such an experience could be So rich in “being in the moment”, reality, downright thusness. 🏮

Our lives are breathful poems just waiting to be honored and praised.

Poetry Unbound

Nov 24

Fragments

and snippets

Dear friends,

Pádraig Ó Tuama ∙ 288 LIKES

Silas Wilder

•

Nov 24

I don’t know why but this has stuck with me for over a decade now— I was in a Chipotle in West Virginia, waiting outside of the bathroom for quite a long time, and finally a 7ish year old girl blasts out the door and she looked me right in the eye and said, “By the way! The soap is blue!”

When I entered the bathroom the sink was full of blue soapy foam. I sat on the toilet and just laughed & laughed.

Kat C

•

Nov 24

There is something utterly delightful about a short poem or snippets of poems. My grandfather recited Fog by Carl Sandburg so many times, I know it myself and I can still hear him recite it when I read those words. And "I think that I shall never see a poem as lovely as a tree..." and "Hope is the thing with feathers..." are two of my favorite snippets! A favorite modern day poet, Billy Collins has so many short "snippet-able" poems but his collection, Musical Tables, is brilliant. One perfectly fits my almost 64-year-old life most days:

3:00 AM

by Billy Collins

Only my hand

is asleep,

but it's a start.

Poetry Unbound

Nov 17

The past

Has things to say

Dear friends,

Pádraig Ó Tuama ∙ 217 LIKES

maeve.fior

•

Nov 17

My middle brother, with whom I have a difficult past, shared an evening with me last night, the first time he'd visited me at my home in decades (because I usually see him in our home state). Warmed and emboldened by some bourbon, I began to ask about his memories of our old neighborhood, and the wild -- really, quite feral -- upbringing we had in the woods of Kentucky.

We approached the topic tentatively, as we do most discussions of the past, having shared so much beauty and horror both, yet interpreting them differently, sometimes in baffling and hurtful ways. We reminded each other of neighbors long forgotten, as well as injuries both physical and psychic, along with memories of the magical acres we explored -- free to wander at ages 5 and 6 and 7! -- in the caves and gulleys and woods and bottomlands.

I suppose the liquor "unarmed" me -- and my question unarmed him -- but this time we approached the topic with curiosity and kindness, maybe a benefit of having reached our fifth decade together? I was well pleased that old ammunition of "this is my truth" had faded and we simply existed in each other's wisdom, acknowledging that both warp and weth create the fabric of life.

Kathryn

•

Nov 17

Yes, the past has things to say. I often feel ambushed by a memory of something my younger self did or said, and feel a tremendous wave of regret and shame and sorrow. I'm not talking about serious crimes, but of the everyday failures of presence and wisdom that are common in the young. In my case, because I was so young when my children were born, I feel that they were the ones who suffered from my selfishness and immaturity. Learning to forgive myself and have compassion for that young girl is an on going challenge. I am trying to be open to the snipper fire from the past, to have a more expansive view, to remember the good times, to learn what I need to learn from the past so that I can live more in the present.

Holy Poetry

Dec 11

Christmas Tree

A spruce green against the grim winter gray A forest scent to perfume a closed in day. Each year a fresh green stage for the pageant of the family’s archive of ornaments. A red and gold angle blowing its horn. The crayoned card hanging from yellow yarn. The antique glass tube with a curlicue tip, the years recorded by missing paint chips. A fri…

Holy Poetry ∙ 15 LIKES

Peggy Sherertz

•

10h

Such a lovely way to describe the yearly adventure of decorating the tree.

Irene Holly

•

17h

Beautiful poem of a Christmas tree. Each year decorated with ornaments that bring memories of joy, love, and comfort.❤️

Poetry Bulletin

Dec 11

Poetry Bulletin: December 2024

15+ deadlines, writing experiments, and the 2025 update is on the way

“Our service is needed as writers. Our service is needed as human beings, in every room, in every space. Especially where there is something to risk, or there is an opportunity to be lost, or that courage will really cost you. That’s what’s most needed. I don’t want to write anything that is a consolation. I don’t want to console.”

Emily Stoddard ∙ 12 LIKES

Poetry Unbound

Nov 10

Art and coalition

The survival of surprise

Dear friends,

Pádraig Ó Tuama ∙ 230 LIKES

Jen G

•

Nov 10

This week, I keep coming back to this quote (Toni Morrison, 2004, after Bush re-elected): “This is precisely the time when artists go to work. There is no time for despair, no place for self-pity, no need for silence, no room for fear. We speak, we write, we do language. That is how civilizations heal.

I know the world is bruised and bleeding, and though it is important not to ignore its pain, it is also critical to refuse to succumb to its malevolence. Like failure, chaos contains information that can lead to knowledge — even wisdom. Like art.”

I tidied my workspace. I rage-cleaned my bathroom. Many texts, emails, calls and walks with friends; and we are determined to get back to our creative work, and to find an action (local or otherwise) to engage in going forward. That network of connections is important in sustaining us…

David Levy

•

Nov 10

Wang Wei, Chinese poet/painter, lived in the 700’s. I was recently introduced to this poet via learning about David Hinton who translated Wang Wei’s poems into English. Lately, slowly, I have been exploring the Japanese Shakuhachi bamboo flute. One way of working with this flute is to take a poem that interests me, compose a simple music piece that resonates with the poem. Thus daily as I learn to play this flute I get to recite the poem, then play and listen to the flute sounds that “translate” the poem; the poem once written in Chinese, then translated into English, and now “translated” into flute sounds. What truly fascinates me, and keeps calling me into this poem is this line from the poem:

“A blossom’s heart is grief-torn? In all this

spring color, who could fathom the heart?”

My mind struggles to understand this first part. Can a flower feel such emotions? Given the recent elections in the US, given our shared climate challenges, my heart quietly weeps with this blossom. Who am I to believe or disbelieve the blossom’s capacity to be grief-torn? What I can do is stand next to the blossom and be still, and weep. Together, we thrive.🏮

Poetry Pals

Dec 8

Stock up on Winter Poetry

Poetry (pen) Pals #46

Hey, I don’t think this needs much of an introduction. Poetry on Winter. It’s time.

Nelly Bryce ∙ 28 LIKES

Angela Joy

•

Not a poem but I really love these words from Katherine May’s gorgeous book ‘Wintering:’ 🩵

'"When I started feeling the drag of winter, I began to treat myself like a favoured child: with kindness and love. I assumed my needs were reasonable and that my feelings were signals of something important. I kept myself well fed and made sure I was getting enough sleep. I …spent time doing things that soothed me. I asked myself: What is this winter all about? I asked myself: What change is coming?"

Gloria Horton-Young

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Desert Light in Winter

——

First, we bundle up like pros

when the mercury drops below forty,

our desert blood having thinned

to something closer to sunset light—

that same light that sets the mountains ablaze

each evening in impossible shades of rose and gold.

The winter sunrise arrives like a watercolor,

painting the clouds in layers of amber and violet,

while we clutch our coffee mugs with gloved hands,

watching our breath form halos in the dawn.

The cold makes the light sharper somehow,

as if the clarity of winter air

could slice the sky into ribbons of color.

But nothing prepares us for that January morning

when the snow clouds part at daybreak,

and the whole valley glows like an opal—

pearl-white ground reflecting coral-pink sky,

every Joshua tree wearing diamonds,

every saguaro crowned in crystalline light,

while we abandon our desert dignity,

dancing beneath the painted heavens.

Watch the great migration:

parents calling in "sick" to work,

children pressed against windows,

neighbors who never speak

now gathering in driveways at dusk,

when the setting sun turns snow to rose quartz

and sets each flake afire with dying light.

The mountains wear their sunset colors

like royal robes: purple, amber, crimson,

their snowy peaks holding the last rays

long after the valley has dimmed to blue.

We stand in our yards, necks craned back,

trying to catch snowflakes that sparkle

like falling stars in the fading light.

Tomorrow, the sun will return to rule,

the snow will retreat to memory,

but for now, we are witnesses

to this rare convergence of elements—

desert light and winter snow,

painting the sky in watercolors

while we remember how to wonder,

how to welcome the impossible,

how to believe in magic

falling softly from a painted sky.

Living Poetry

Nov 28

"Poetry is prose in slow motion"

On making your own poetry anthology & definitions. Plus, a virtual + cozy “third space” opening soon for heartfelt conversation.

Welcome to Living Poetry. I’m Allie, a poet with roots in the chaparral and desert of Southern California.

Allie Rigby ∙ 5 LIKES

Jeffrey Yamaguchi

•

Dec 5

Another fantastic newsletter, Allie, and really love this new program you are building to further the inquiry of living poetry.

Poetry Pals

Dec 1

A roundup of Substacks that teach poetry!

Poetry (pen) Pals #45

A slightly different one this week.

Nelly Bryce ∙ 60 LIKES

Margaret Ann Silver

•

Dec 2

Such a good list! I'm now following so many more teachers and eager to hear what they have to say. Thank you, Nelly! (and just FYI, I consider you part of this list).

Antonia Taylor

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Dec 2

Gorgeous selection Nelly! I'm biased but Maya C. Popa's group is incredible xo

Rabbit Room Poetry

Dec 2

Holiday Poetry Promotion: We're Giving Away Poetry Books to New Paid Subscribers in December

First, we want to say thank you to all of the nearly 6,000 (!) of you who have subscribed to this Substack. It has been a year full of poetry.

The Rabbit Room ∙ 17 LIKES

Michelle Pehlman

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Yeah, I think there should be one free giveaway for those of us who are already subscribed...You know, in the spirit of Christmas and all.

Jerry Foote

•

Dec 4

I tried to give a subscription, but got message "plan not available." What do I do next?

poetry camera

Nov 29

new poetry camera! now taking custom orders

our biggest update yet

Someone emailed us recently asking, “Are you still working on Poetry Camera?” Oh boy, are we ever:

kelin ∙ 12 LIKES

Poetry Trapper Keeper

Dec 11

DISCORD(ANT)

By C. M. Gigliotti

Hello lovely bugs! Last week we brought you a buzzworthy bee man poem by Charlotte Kerr, this week we have the great pleasure of bringing you something which echoes deeply the internet anthill (discord?). We love this piece by C. M. Gigliotti and we hope you will too… I mean, there goes another day, another poem, another think piece about thirst trappin…

Poetry Trapper Keeper ∙ 5 LIKES

Uplift Poetry

Nov 18

Upcoming poetry events

Check out poetry events happening near you!

Welcome to Uplift’s monthly free events newsletter, featuring poetry events in Meanjin (Brisbane), Queensland, and Australia-wide.

Uplift Poetry ∙ 2 LIKES

Scattered Scholar

Dec 9

English Poetry vs. Arabic Poetry: What's the Difference?

Why the difference is subtle, yet leads to a substantial misunderstandings.

Some time ago, in the depths of the winter blues, a relative of mine and I discussed poetry over tea. Not necessarily the writing portion itself, but everything pertaining to the art of poetry, with a heavy emphasis on the writer's life.

The Scholar ∙ 56 LIKES

Shazad Khan

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Nice to meet a kindred spirit.

Marian L Thorpe

•

Thank you! Informative and useful to me as I begin to read more Arabic poetry (in translation).

The Wee Sparrow Poetry Press Newsletter

Dec 11

Ekphrastic Challenge 9

The winning poem and a selection chosen by editor and judge, Emily Tee

Artwork by Eoin Lane

The Wee Sparrow Poetry Press ∙ 5 LIKES

Christine

•

Such a beautiful painting, and the responses are all lovely. It is easy to see why the one that won did so--very powerful and descriptive.

River Ripa

•

Incredible the unique yet interconnected expressions 💕💕

They Say Poetry is Dead...

Dec 8

Virtual Winter Workshops

Check out my upcoming, generative poetry workshops online!

Upcoming Virtual Winter Workshops

Joan Kwon Glass ∙ 4 LIKES

Atticus Poetry

Nov 29

A Dose Of Inspiration 🖤

A little magic to spark your soul—poetry, musings, and things I couldn’t keep to myself.

I hope you found moments of peace, gratitude, and maybe even a little magic yesterday. After the whirlwind of Thanksgiving, today feels like the perfect time to pause and reflect. Life moves quickly, but we can find stillness in the spaces between the noise—whether in the quiet of a morning or through the words we share. This week, I wanted to offer som…

Atticus ∙ 12 LIKES

Of Trees & Poetry

Dec 6

Advent Week I

Reflecting on hope

Dear friends,

Of Trees & Poetry, Julia McMullen, and E R Skulmoski ∙ 18 LIKES

Michelle Pehlman

•

Thank you for this.

Jody L. Collins

•

I remember hearing about the chiastic (letter 'x'-chi) in the Psalms via Beth Moore several years ago....the way the Psalmists used the form to write phrases that reflected one another. What a wonderful reflection you've written here! and I love the red and green.....

Better Together

9:01 AM

Poetry of Incarnation

A ONE Church Devotional

Friends, we’ve spent this week with Mary and the Angel Gabriel and a wild-eyed prophet called John who, in God’s reign, outranks the highest of earthly powers. But this is Friday, and we by custom turn for help to the poets of incarnation.

Allen R Hilton ∙ 4 LIKES

Ron Kessler

•

Thanks Allen. Love these timely poems. Blessings.

Sakari The Author

Dec 8

1009 Days: Poetry Pack

Poetry for my email subscribers

*** (Artist Unknown)

Sakari Lacross

Write Conscious

6:04 AM

Nature Poetry Course: Intro

Write Nature Poetry With Ian

What's up, everyone? I am back! We have two book clubs tomorrow, but I wanted to kick off our new course, The Nature Poetry Course.

Ian Cattanach ∙ 19 LIKES

Bodhi

•

15h

Love Ikkyū.

Margo’s Letters

Dec 8

New Poetry Series?

Would you say that poetry has gone out of style? The trends pass us by so quickly today and yet I still, somehow, have found poetry and continue to find it. I suppose poetry is something you never really have an absence of. It’s in everything and every moment, if you choose to look for it.

Margo ∙ 6 LIKES

Michelle

•

There's a great resource called https://teachlivingpoets.com for any educators out there.

Chirag

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Looking forward to seeing your poems collection. :)

Poetry & Ponderings with Julia Fehrenbacher

Nov 27

The Poetry Inside the Pain

A poem & other delightful things. And also—thank you. xo

Julia Fehrenbacher ∙ 14 LIKES

Claire Coenen

•

Nov 27

♥️♥️♥️ Thanks for all of this Julia! Very grateful for you!

Thomas DeFreitas

•

Dec 2

Water and poems. Savouring them this early-morning.

My body is ridiculously tired, friend. It is in dire disrepair. I'm not super-optimistic of making it out of my fifties (4.5 years remaining). But what is true of me is true of everyone: every day one wakes up is gift, is grace, is miracle.

There are many "thankworthies" each day. Yesterday, seeing friends at St James's. Bob and Sarah. Katia and Anne, both over ninety. Hilary of the restorative hug. Debbie and Jackie at the diner after church. Getting errands done. Coming home to nap.

Julia (and Claire, and others), I hope your thanksgiving was graced. Thank you (both!) for your poetry.

Atticus Poetry

Dec 6

A Little Magic to Start Your Weekend ✨

A sneak peek into the words, songs, and stories that lit up my world—maybe they’ll spark something in yours too.

This week, I found inspiration in the quiet corners and the unexpected moments—words that lingered, melodies that stirred something deep, and stories that felt like home. Here are a few little sparks that lit up my days. Maybe they’ll find a place in yours, too.

Atticus ∙ 12 LIKES