A Visit to the Smash Roomby Joyce PeseroffDonated TVs, microwaves,printers, trophies, vases on tables. Baseball bats and mauls ready by the wall. $50/hr to playwith your boyfriend or alonewhen it’s hard to be a goodMom during the workday, gas up the...
Blog
Karen Elizabeth Sharpe’s “How Hunger like the Kingfisher” and Catherine Stearns “As Heron Is To Patience”
How to Know Hunger like the Kingfisher by Karen Elizabeth SharpeMake yourselfhigh on a perchplunge headfirstbelow muscled waves,a plummet of halcyon gashand dagger-shaped bill.30 feet or more. Pluck the silverslipper craving of fish.Fan your wings and rise.High on a...
Getting to Know Cammy Thomas & her new book Tremors
When did you first encounter poetry? How did you discover that you wanted to write poems? The first time I remember poetry making a deep impression on me was when I had the measles at age eight. My mother had them along with me, and we lay in her bed with...
Ellen Steinbaum’s “Summer 2021 Cicadas”
Summer 2021 Cicadas Ellen Steinbaum They’re my last cicadas, though who can be sure, of course. Given my age and their infrequent outings,like scheduled comets and eclipses, they could be penultimate, but most likely my concluding swarm. Every seventeen...
The Hard Work of Justice
In light of recent events, this week’s issue of The Hard Work of Hope will be a little different. We are always trying to offer poems that meet the moment, and the current crisis in Haiti—along with its long history of instability and the United States’ involvement in...
Getting to Know David P. Miller & His New Book, Bend in the Stair
When did you first encounter poetry? How did you discover that you wanted to write poems? I’ve been a reader of poetry for my entire life. My parents read to me, but I was an early reader too, so I was able to take in A. A. Milne and Robert Louis Stevenson, for...
Margot Douaihy’s “Love is a Battlefield, Literally, Because the Planet is on Fire”
Love is a Battlefield, Literally, Because the Planet is on Fire Margot Douaihy & I’m too in love with this world & its creatures, even though it feels like I’m choking sometimes,burning in a mote of gold smoke, until I’m nothing, I’m a shadow licking the...
Richard Hoffman’s “Refugee” & Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz’ “Raw Enlightenment” (Trans. Talia Franks)
Refugee by Richard HoffmanA man carries his door,the door of his house,because when the war is overhe is going homewhere he will hang iton its hingesand lock it, tight,while he tries to rememberthe word for welcome.If his house is gonewhen he returns,he will raise it...
Getting to Know John L. Holgerson & His New Book, Convictions of the Heart
When did you first encounter poetry? How did you discover that you wanted to write poems? My first real encounter with poetry was in the 8th grade when, one day, I was called upon to stand next to my desk and read out loud to the rest of the class Part Two of The...
Meet the September U35 Readers
Elisa Rowe What is most important to your writing process? Doubt and wonder, equally. What about you comes across most in your writing? Maybe my sensitivity? To emotions, experiences, objects, how my senses process the world and the way it shapes me in big and...
Jill McDonough’s “Cindy Comes To Hear Me Read”
Cindy Comes To Hear Me Read by Jill McDonoughCindy: not her real name. I met herin prison, and people in prison I givethe fake names. I taught her Shakespeare, rememberher frown, wide eyes, terror of gettingthings wrong. Her clear, arguable thesison Desdemona’s...
Merryn Rutledge’s “Mad Libs” and Gail Thomas’ “Granddaughter Interprets the World”
Mad Libs by Merryn RutledgeAs fall lumbers into winter,my grandson fills more and more of the blank spacesin our mad lib tales with hibernating bears.In COVID-crazy weekly callswe two hermits try to claim as comicthe incomparably absurd:Remote first grade--an...
Getting to Know Blake Z. Rong and His New Book I Am Not Young And I Will Die With This Car In My Garage
When did you first encounter poetry? How did you discover that you wanted to write poems? For the longest time, truth be told, I had no idea that I ever wanted to write poems: I had joined the MFA program at the Vermont College of Fine Arts as a fiction writer, and my...
Thomas Mixon’s “What Anticipated Wonders We’d Have Summed”
What Anticipated Wonders We’d Have Summed by Thomas MixonWhat tallied courtesies, hedged bits of reaffirming pushnotifications we will never eat, foreverlodged between incisors of what could have been.I’ve found warm columns of an august Aprilwe will never live, next...
Amy Manion’s “The Sky’s Reflection” & em’s “Outside In”
The Sky's Reflection by Amy ManionWhen will I let myself outside?My back faces the window; acomputer screen faces me.Barricaded in a glass cage.And there she is: with her piercingeyes. Still through glass she sees me. Featured in the Massachusetts Coalition for...
Getting to Know Kali Lightfoot and Her New Book Pelted By Flowers
When did you first encounter poetry? How did you discover that you wanted to write poems? I think my first encounter with poetry was in nursery rhymes and jump-rope chants. Through them I learned about rhythm and rhyme. Then in high school, I fell in love with the...
Sarah Del’s “Dreamed Wedding”
Dreamed Weddingby Sarah Delice melts in boot treadsdrips onto the floor forming a puddle below the high table in the bar area empty, save for twograndparents, a six year-old...
Getting to Know Philip K. Kowalski & His New Book Canine in the Promised Land
When did you first encounter poetry? How did you discover that you wanted to write poems? I started studying poetry because I felt I knew nothing about it. I have an extensive background in American literature, and I made sure that when I began teaching at the college...
Carolyn Oliver’s “I overhear a boy humming “Jolene” while he practices long division” & Mary Ellen Redmond’s “All Summer Long”
I overhear a boy humming "Jolene" while he practices long division by Carolyn Oliverand, sudden as a train’s blue note—I know I don’t deserve it—Dolly Parton becomes the president.The West Wing’s garlanded in rhinestones, fringedin bushels of Tennessee River...
Laura Rodley’s “Groundhog”
Groundhogby Laura RodleyThe groundhog’s fur is silver, silkily rippling in the windas she chomps ends of grasses, clover, not yet have I seen her eat anything that causes consternation;she has scoured the walking path festoonedwith acorns that have...
Ed Meek’s “How to Skip Stones” and Wendy Drexler’s “And I Say Yes to the Way the Grass”
How to Skip Stones by Ed MeekDo you remember keeping your eyes openfor flat, oval rocks to pocketon walks to the pond?Saving the best for last, you’d leanto one side and flick your wristflinging the stones just off the water.It isn’t easy to defy gravityand make a...