The Crazy Wisdom Poetry Circle, based in Ann Arbor, Michigan, but offered now through Zoom, offers workshops every second Wednesday and readings by poets every fourth Wednesday. Hosted by Michigan poets David Jibson, Lissa Perrin, and Ed Morin, each reading is followed by an Open Mic opportunity, and all events are free and open to the public.
On Wednesday, January 22, 2025, I participated in a Crazy Wisdom reading, followed by one with my friend, Michigan poet Katherine Edgren. These two readings are now available on the Crazy Wisdom YouTube Channel (along with a host of others.) If you missed the live event, you can see it NOW. (See below for a list of poems read.)
The next reading, scheduled for February 26, 2025, is with a phenomenal poet, Ron Koertge who has had poems twice in Best American Poetry and grants from the NEA and California Arts Council. His novels for young adults won two P.E.N. awards. An animated film made from his flash fiction, Negative Space, was shortlisted for the 2018 Academy awards. Billy Collins calls his presentations “deliciously smart and entertaining.”
For more information, please visit the Crazy Wisdom blog.
Poems I Read on January 22, 2025
"The Craft of Poetry" "Ice" "The Book of Quilts" "Geranium Lake" "A Necklace of Fat Pearls" "Music So Loud We Can't Hear" "Notes on Design" "A Gesture of Peace" "Ichthyography" "Lady Tashat's Mystery: Sections I & II" "Self as Portraits"
Beginning in 2016, I have each year taken up the National Poetry Writing Month (NaPoWriMo) Challenge. Each April for the past five years, I have celebrated National Poetry Month by writing a new poem each day and then posting it here on my personal blog.
And I have loved doing this! I have learned so much–about poetry, about my own process and capacity as a poet, and about the world around me. I have gained confidence as a poet, and have exploded, for myself, at least, the myth of “writer’s block” for the lie that it is. I have also made some new friends in far-flung corners of the world. I am grateful to poet Maureen Thorson for facilitating this international enterprise since 2003, and invite you to take another look at her website dedicated to NaPoWriMo. (Perhaps you, too, would like to take up the challenge? If so, please let me know so I can cheer you on!)
And yet…almost from the first day of my participation, I have wrestled with an inherent conundrum, that of generating interesting and sometimes inspired work that is published before it can be revised and (possibly) submitted to journal editors for possible publication, since, perforce, it is already published on the day it is first hatched. Since 2016, I have written 150 poems, none of which would have come into being without the NaPoWriMo Challenge, many of which I would like to share with journal editors, but which are ineligible.
What to do?
Over the past year, I have dreamed up an experimental alternative. In 2021, I will again write one new poem each day in April. I will not, however, publish it here. Instead, for those who would like to read the new poems, I will share the poem via email. On this blog, I will share the context for the poem, any backstory and photographs that make sense.
If you would like to receive the April poems, one each day as they are written, please send me an email letting me know that before the end of March. My email is winonapoet@gmail.com.
I am cautiously optimistic about this approach. To test it out in advance, last fall I arranged to send a new poem each day for one week and a day (eight days in a row) to a poetry-loving friend. (Thanks, Beth!) The experience worked for me (though I missed some aspects of publishing the poem more widely and graphically and sharing the backstory.) I did write eight new poems. To date, one of these has been accepted by a journal and will be published this month. (More on that in a future post!)
Sometime after April, I will consider how it has gone from my point of view and will share that here. I would be glad to know, too, from your point of view, should you wish to share, how it is to receive the April poems as they are circulated privately, a modern way of sharing in manuscript form.
Meanwhile, on April 1–no joke!–let the games begin!
As many of you know, I was born in the frozen part of the year, just a few breaths after all the holidays, at the time when the light is dimmest. I also live in a region prone to ice and snow.
I have found–increasingly so–that by the time my birthday rolls around I feel too tired to enjoy it. And I want to enjoy each launch into a new year fully! Even as a child, I longed for a summer birthday–and have continued to do so for almost six decades now. 2020 is the year I turn 60 years old. I am pretty excited about this! And, as my gift to myself, I am transplanting my birthday from the brrrrrrrs of January to the aahhs of June warmth. This year, and every year after, I am celebrating the years behind and the adventures ahead on Midsummer’s Day, June 21. (My official-purposes date will remain the same but for celebratory purposes–woo-hoo!–there will be the maximum of light, blooms in the garden, and flowing water in the river.)
Here’s to entering my sage years with a new point of view!
(Many thanks to Tim for taking the photographs and overseeing the planting of this prairie sage, to Julia Uleberg for the gift of sage from her garden at Dacie’s, to Marea for the “Birthday Girl” magnet I enjoy 365 days a year, and to all of you for your good company on this journey through life!)
It’s here! If you, like me, need a bit of comfort and joy as the mercury plummets and the days grow darker yet, take heart: The Orchards Poetry Journal (Winter 2019 issue) is now available and is more gorgeous than ever.
My own small poem (just six lines) is a tiny sliver of biography, an ode to the comfort and joy of an evening at home. Similarly, my longtime friend, Sally Nacker, has a poem in the issue that offers a quiet and quietly content view of the years to come, titled “Old Age.” (It was Sally who sent me the bouquet last March, centered in the photo below.)
As usual, this issue is packed full of skillful and startling poems in a range of forms and moods. If my count is accurate, there are thirty-nine poems by thirty-one poets.
Right up front are four poems by Jean Kreiling, including her winning entry to the Kelsay Books Metrical Writing Contest (“Elegy: One Year in Plymouth”–an elegy from a daughter to her mother celebrating their last year together on the Atlantic coast in language fresh and keen as salt breeze.) The other poems that placed in the contest are included–all very accomplished. I was especially taken with “The Last Dandelion” by Aline Soules and “Pileated Woodpecker” by Barbara Loots.
There are so many other poems I enjoyed (and plan to reread) that if I were to list them all I would be replicating the table of contents. Despite that, I will mention two by Robin Helweg-Larson (“Winter Night Roads” and “Smoke on the Wind”) and two with different but complimentary inspirations from rivers (“My River” by Ace Boggess and “Aware of My Beauty” by Wendy Patrice Williams). Finally, a six-line gem by Neil Kennedy called “When Juliet” wows me–inspired by a famous scene from Shakespeare and calling to my mind Robert Herrick’s “Upon Julia’s Clothes,” these few lines turn all that tradition into something fresh, new, and dazzling.
If you need a moment of insight to light up the blue shadows of some long winter’s night, do dip into this issue of The Orchards Poetry Journal.
