The last poems posted on my blog, prior to today's post, are all serious and intense and powerful. Each one tells a bit of a woman's...

A Drink with Something In It by Ogden Nash There is something about a Martini, A tingle remarkably pleasant; A yellow, a mellow Martini;...

Enough by Suzanne Buffam (from her 2010 book, The Irrationalist, published by Canarium Book) I am wearing dark glasses inside the house...

I have been very interested in aubades lately--both reading and writing them. I think what is drawing me to them is all of the...

Aubade with Ravens by Jessica Lynn Suchon (published in Pinch, Fall 2019) When you sleep, the moon plucks hurt from my palm like a loose...

Across Wyoming by Kari Despain (published in Rockvale Review, November 2019) driving for dawn, a wind storm shaking the November...

For your inspiration this week, take a headline from the news--don't read the article (unless you really, really want to) and use the...

Scars by Truing Tran (published in North Dakota Quarterly, Summer 1993) My father’s body is a map, a record of his journey. He carries a...

Tired Sex by Chana Bloch (published inThe Atlantic, December 1997) Trying to strike a match in a matchbook that has lain all winter under...

Today's blog poem, A.E. Stringer's "Sunday Morning, Cumberland Gap" conjures up both movement (through space and through time) and...

Sunday Morning, Cumberland Gap by A.E. Stringer published in Still, Summer 2015 Black cat appears under my roadside picnic table....

Autumn by Siegfried Sassoon October's bellowing anger breaks and cleaves The bronzed battalions of the stricken wood In whose lament I...

Autumnal by Louise Glück (from her 1976 book, Descending Figure, The Ecco Press, NY) Public sorrow, the acquired gold of the leaf, the...

Louise Glück died on Friday, October 13, 2023, at the age of 80. She grew up in Hewlett, a Nassau County hamlet on Long Island. She...

October by Robert Frost O hushed October morning mild, Thy leaves have ripened to the fall; Tomorrow’s wind, if it be wild, Should waste...

As usual (although not always), this week's prompt takes its cue from today's blog poem, Middle-Aged Karaoke by Timothy Houghton. But you...

Middle-Aged Karaoke by Timothy Houghton Published in SNReview, Spring/Summer 2008 A big woman jumps out of a booth deftly, avoiding...

The Fury of Beautiful Bones by Anne Sexton (from The Complete Poems, Houghton Mifflin, 1982) Sing me a thrush, bone. Sing me a nest of...

Two choices this week . . . or combine this two things for more of a challenge! Choice one: describe the end of a storm as Jean Toomer...

Storm Ending by Jean Toomer (from his 1923 poetic novel, Cane) Thunder blossoms gorgeously above our heads, Great, hollow, bell-like...