Write Around the World

I was live today with the supremely talented Martha Conway who has a new book out this week. You can order WE MEET APART at Square Books or an indie shop near you. And if you’re a writer, don’t forget: sneak time for your art. Tiptoe around. Meet your manuscript for lunch or after dark. Have a love affair with your creative life. Hat tip to the Queen Maureen Wanket for telling me this theory during one of my favorite morning walk-and-talks.

3 Joys and a Mystery -- aka Writing As the Great Love Affair of Your Life -- w/Annmarie Kelly & Martha Conway A recording from Annmarie Kelly's live video

When I first decided to send out 30 poems in 30 days, I mostly just wanted to see if I could do it. As an adult, I love poetry but it took me a while to arrive at that love. I figured it might feel nice to spread good news and support all the writers I adore along the way. No matter where you live, I’ll bet there are poets out there poet-ing all around you. So if you enjoyed our month of poetry together, keep seeking them out, go to an open mic, or attend a reading in the public gardens. Spread the joy -- we need it so much!

April Poetry Shower – Day 30 Plus Upcoming Workshops

Someone asked the other day why I became a writer, and I had some trouble at first pinpointing the reasons. I think I write because I was a dramatic child. The oldest, the one with whom my mother liked to say, they “made the most mistakes.” Like in kindergarten, when they let me watch that Michael Caine movie The Killer Bees, and I arrived twenty minutes late to school the next day because I had to tiptoe past every dandelion. Or how in first grade, when I split open my pants climbing a rope in gym class, I got sent back to class with un**es hanging out, since no one was home to bring me new clothes.

April Poetry Shower – Day 28 Why I Write

The end of the school year is often an exercise in tatters and fumes. So it’s a good time to acquaint ourselves with one antidote to that: be less. Show up in yesterday’s hairdo. Repurpose your fifth favorite pair of pants. There is beauty in asymmetry and peace in knowing that however you move through this day, whether shiny or ragged, rough or sublime, it is enough. You are always enough.

April Poetry Shower – Day 27 You Don’t Have to Be Everything

There’s a certain poetry to the friendships of our youth. Maggie was the friend who held the door closed on my janky stick-shift car when the door froze open, and she was the friend who helped me rig up a hair dryer and an extension cord when that same door froze shut.

We quoted lines from Say Anything like it was the Bible, crooned lovesick ballads in the school talent show, and once won a “Mony Mony” lip-sync contest in a church basement.

We shared Homecoming dresses and cherry lip smackers and all our secrets. And she was my ride-or-die before I’d ever even heard that phrase, back when happiness meant Madonna on the radio, five bucks in my pocket, and my bestie by my side.

April Poetry Shower – Day 25 Love poem for Say Anything, Billy Idol, and Taco Bell

In the hourglass of that last difficult spring, Dad and I took to wandering the yard. While ravens gronked overhead, we’d spend half an hour recoiling the hose. Another afternoon, we’d unspool it again to water the garden we hadn't gotten around to planting.

April Poetry Shower – Day 22 Birds of the World

Today is the anniversary of my dad’s death. He would have been 78 this year.

Sometimes, this day lands gently. I remember treehouses and froggy jumps and watching thunderstorms from the front porch. Other years, it’s an angry day. I feel jealous of friends who still have fathers to watch ballgames with and play cards. Mostly, despite the passage of time, I still can’t quite believe he’s gone.

April Poetry Shower – Day 20 John Paul Kelly

Beauty is free. And it's for all of us.

April Poetry Shower – Day 17 Rainbow Connections

Growing up, my family didn’t fly much except to funerals. And once to visit my Uncle Tom before his divorce. In fact, each of my parents only took one flight alone in their entire lives, both of them separately to visit me.

Even fogged in at LaGuardia or sidelined by a tornado watch in Orlando, I never tire of walking gate after gate of possibilities. Ireland, Iceland, Greenland, Detroit. There are more cities in the world than I’ll ever be able to visit. How lucky am I that I get to try.

April Poetry Shower – Day 16 Traveling Mercies