While Shaving

When my sister and I were kids and my family would take vacation, my father used to get into the pool with us and play Marco Polo. Everyplace we went, there was always a gaggle of kids who wanted to play with us—our cousins, our friends, or kids we didn’t know who yearned to take part in the fun. My dad welcomed them and led us, and round and round the pool we went shouting and shrieking and running away in the water that slowed us down.

When I think of my youth and of water, my dad is always a part of it—lakes, pools, oceans, water parks. I don’t know that my father was trying to teach me something, but what I learned from him was how important moments were, and that they add up to something greater.

This tender poem by Alfredo Aguilar is about moments between a parent and son. I’ve always appreciated a poem that is quiet and gentle yet filled with depth.

This poem was first published in Waxwing and is posted here with permission from the poet. You can learn more about Alfredo Aguilar here. Thank you, Alfredo, for letting me share this beautiful poem.

It’s National Poetry Month! During the month of April, I will be sharing poems I love from contemporary writers. I hope to pique your interest in poetry, if it needs to be piqued, and to show you that a really great poem can be accessible to all. 

“See” you soon with another poem.

Photo credit: Lance Asper from Unsplash.com

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Upcoming Online Writing Workshops

Prompt-Writing like Speed-Dating: Prompt, Write, Next, Prompt, Write, Next (online)
Sunday, April 23, 1-3:00 PM Eastern on Zoom
If you’ve attended Let’s Write Together with me, you’ll recognize the format: I’ll share a piece of writing to inspire you, offer a prompt related to it, and you will have time to write. Except I’ll be offering a new piece and prompt every 10-12 minutes during this two-hour workshop. Think of it like speed dating—there’s another piece and prompt ready to inspire you just around the corner, with plenty of time for sharing at the end. This workshop is in partnership with Press 53. Cost: $45. Register here.

Ignite Your Flash (Nonfiction) via Three Essays
Wednesday, May 3, 11:30 AM-1 PM Eastern on Zoom
Learn the joy of writing brief personal essays. We’ll look at three powerful pieces: a list essay, a profile essay, and an object essay. You’ll then choose one of the given prompts to start your own flash first draft in class. Facilitated by Shuly Xóchitl Cawood. Cost $45. Register here for this workshop only.

This workshop is part of May Is for Moments: A Flash Nonfiction Workshop Series.

Flash in a Dash: Exploring the Micro Essay
Wednesday, May 24, 11:30 AM-1 PM Eastern on Zoom
Small essays can still have a big impact. We’ll look at flash essays that pack a punch in under 300 words and explore why they work. You’ll also be given a prompt to dive into your own micro draft in class. Facilitated by Shuly Xóchitl Cawood. Cost $45. Register here for this workshop only.

This workshop is part of May Is for Moments: A Flash Nonfiction Workshop Series.

May Is for Moments: A Flash Nonfiction Workshop Series
Five Wednesdays: May 3-31, 11:30 AM-1:00 PM Eastern on Zoom
Dive into flash nonfiction (VERY SHORT PERSONAL ESSAYS!) every Wednesday in May with this series of five workshops:
—Ignite Your Flash (Nonfiction): an Intro in Three Essays (facilitated by Shuly Xóchitl Cawood)
—Breathlessness: The Power and Purpose of One-Sentence Flash (facilitated by Tracy Rothschild Lynch)
—Mapping and Memory: The Power of the Visual (facilitated by Tracy Rothschild Lynch)
—Flash in a Dash: Exploring the Micro Essay (facilitated by Shuly Xóchitl Cawood)
—Telling Your Story Sideways, Upside-down, Inside-out: Alternative Forms in Nonfiction (facilitated by Carla Rachel Sameth)

Learn more about the series here.

TICKETS: Individual workshops: $45
SERIES Tickets (all five workshops): $199
SERIES EARLY BIRD RATE (until 4/15): $175

What to Look for in a Horse

For a time when I was in my twenties, I dated a guy I called (not to his face, and not exactly affectionately) “Jekyll & Hyde.” He could be tender and sweet and then from one moment to the next turn angry and shadowy. I called him Jekyll & Hyde not to the world, only to my one friend. She and I sat together in a booth at a Bob Evans halfway between the places we lived—an hour and a half apart—and I would tell her stories about the storms between him and me.

What I remember best about that time in my life is how my friend showed up for me, no matter what. There’s a line in this week’s poem that reminds me of that kind of loyalty. The poem talks about someone/something being “willing / to trample anyone who was mean to you / in your childhood.”

Mostly I love this poem because it made me laugh and it also hit me in the heart, the way all poems I love do. I hope you enjoy it as much as I have:

This poem was first published in The Sun and is posted here with permission from the poet. Brett Elizabeth Jenkin’s first full-length poetry collection is forthcoming from Riot in Your Throat press. Thank you, Brett, for allowing me to share this poem. I have loved it ever since I first read it.

It’s National Poetry Month! Every week during the month of April, I will be sharing poems I love from contemporary writers. I hope to pique your interest in poetry, if it needs to be piqued, and to show you that a really great poem can be accessible to all. 

“See” you next week with another poem.

Photo credit: ce xu from Unsplash.com

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Only ONE WEEK Left to Get the Early Bird Discount

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Other Upcoming Online Writing Workshops

Visiting Her in Queens

I’ve always believed that when life gets a little (or very) challenging, it’s trying to teach me something. I lose my favorite ring? Maybe the lesson is detachment. I get stuck in a massive traffic jam? Maybe the lesson is patience, and gratitude (after all, I’m not the one in the wreck). I get diagnosed with something scary? Maybe the lesson is that living for the moment is what matters.

So it’s probably no surprise that when I read Michael’s Mark poem, “Visiting Her In Queens Is More Enlightening Than A Month In A Monastery In Tibet,” I loved it. My favorite kind of poem is one that tells a story, and I always appreciate when a poem injects humor and levity into a serious subject, all providing more depth to the meaning.

Here is Michael’s poem:

Visiting Her In Queens Is More Enlightening
Than A Month In A Monastery In Tibet

For the fourth time my mother
asks, “How many children
do you have?” I’m beginning

to believe my answer,
“Two, Mom,” is wrong. Maybe
the lesson is they are not mine,

not owned by me, and
she is teaching me about
my relationship with her.

I wash my dish and hers.
She washes them again. I ask why.
She asks why I care.

Before bed she unlocks and opens
the front door. While she sleeps,
I close and lock it. She gets up. Unlocks it.

“What I have, no one wants,” she says.
I nod. She nods.
Are we agreeing?

My shrunken guru says she was up all night
preparing a salad for my breakfast.
She serves me an onion.

I want her to make French toast
for me like she used to.
I want to tell her about my pain,

and I want her to make it go away.
I want the present to be as good as
the past she does not remember.

I toast white bread for her, butter it,
cut it in half. I eat a piece of onion.
She asks me why I’m crying.

This poem was first published in The Sun and is posted here with permission from the poet. You can learn more about Michael Mark here. The poem appears in his prize-winning poetry chapbook, Visiting Her in Queens Is More Enlightening than a Month in a Monastery in Tibet, published by Rattle.

A big thank you to Michael Mark for allowing me to share this poem.

It’s National Poetry Month, y’all! If you’re new to my blog, then you should know that every week during the month of April, I share poems I love from contemporary writers. I do this because I have been writing poetry most of my life and reading it just as long, and it’s a genre that is often misunderstood. I hope to pique your interest in poetry, if it needs to be piqued, and to show you that a really great poem can be accessible to all. 

And for those of you who have been longtime blog subscribers, you know the drill. Hold on to your hats for this month-long poetry ride! See you next Saturday…

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Upcoming Online Writing Workshops