Poetry Month is Half Over! Poems Up at Menacing Hedge, Plus Ilya Kaminsky and Mark Doty visit a Seatte coffee shop, and More Blooms

Pink Dogwood

Poetry Month is Already Half Over!! Don’t Panic.

“Eek! I haven’t done enough poetry!” Some of you might be thinking. Hey, relax! April is not just poetry month, it’s also a beautiful season of flowers (and here: rain, rain, and more rain) and my birthday month! It’s time to do some fun stuff outdoors, plant some flowers, write some poems, buy some poetry books you might have been wanting, sit around, relax. Spend time convincing me they’re not trying to turn Daenerys into a villainess. Read a little, write a little. Go to a reading…

From the latest issue of Menacing Hedge

  Three New Poems in Menacing Hedge

The new issue of Menacing Hedge is out, and I have three poems in there, along with other poet friends like Maya Zeller! Sneak peek at left, to one of the poems that forms the theses of my next manuscript-in-progress!

And another poem tells you how to make a narrative poem work.

Natasha K. Moni, me, and Ilya Kaminsky

Ilya Kaminsky and Mark Doty Read at a Seattle Coffee Shop, and I Was There For It

We’ve had a number of terrific readers in Seattle recently, but I hadn’t been well enough (or free of doctor’s appointments enough) to make it to any until yesterday. Last night Ilya Kaminsky read from his terrific new book, Deaf Republic, and Mark Doty read poems, and it was wonderful to see them plus say hi to a punch of local poets I don’t see often enough. Thanks are due to Susan Rich for arranging the reading!

Me with Cherry Trees

Glenn shot this pic on the way to the reading. We pulled over in a school parking lot because the cherry trees were so astounding! I have been hibernating a bit lately due to cold weather and being slightly under the weather, but it was so cheering to hear such great poetry and see so many friends in a warm setting. And there’s something rejuvenating about getting out, dressing up a little, being around humans who aren’t trying to take blood or give you a prescription!

More cherry pouf blossoms

I am wishing you all cherry blossoms, good poetry luck, and some happiness is a world that seems to be always on fire. Take a breath. Listen to the birds whistling in the rain.