Stand Off

Every once in a lucky while, I read a piece of writing that changes me, and by change I don’t mean that I become a completely new person. What I mean is I understand life in a different way: maybe I gain a new insight, or I step into someone’s perspective, or maybe I learn something about humanity that makes me feel more connected to the whole of this world, not just my little part of it.

“Stand Off” by Nancy Miller Gomez is a piece of writing that changed me. I’ve studied and taught this poem—and while I won’t get into the architecture here or why the artistic choices she made work so well—I can tell you right now that I felt those choices as I read the piece, and if a writer can make a person feel deeply, they have accomplished a big thing.

Here is Nancy’s poem:

This poem is from Nancy’s chapbook, Punishment, published by Rattle and featured on Rattle. You can learn more about Nancy Miller Gomez here. She has a new collection, Inconsolable Objects, forthcoming from YesYes Books.

Thank you so much, Nancy, for having written this astounding poem and for allowing me to share it.

It’s the end of National Poetry Month. Thank you to all my blog subscribers and readers who went along with me on this poetry journey during April. And thank you to all the poets who allowed me to share their work. (You can find links to all of the poems on the sidebar of my blog.)

And now we’ll return now to our regularly scheduled program.

(But don’t forget to read a poem now and again. Feel free to check out my latest poetry collection, Something So Good It Can Never Be Enough.)

Photo credit: Jonathan Cooper from Unsplash.com

Farmhouse by the Highway

When I got married (the first time), I remember teaching myself to notice the things I loved about my husband and to focus on those over the things that gave me pause or had the capacity to annoy me. The truth is there was very little if anything that annoyed me about him—I don’t know now whether that was just because of him or because of the lens through which I chose to view him. We had many happy moments, I think, back in those early days before our marriage fell apart. After we split up, because of my own hurt place, I shoved away every single happy memory that surfaced because remembering good times and good things about him only made everything hurt more. I only wanted to remember the “bad” stuff—that was my way of propelling myself toward healing.

Later, after many years, I was ready to remember the good things again, but I had done such a good job of shoving it all away that I couldn’t remember any details of the happiness, only that it existed.

Now that I am married again, I still choose to view my husband through a lens of love, but I think I also view him realistically, just as I think he views me (though, let’s face it, I’m pretty perfect!). But it takes work to also understand that most personality traits have a positive and negative side, and each person is immensely complex.

This next poem is, for me, about what we choose to remember, and about how we view each other and the world around us. This prose poem is also a story, which I love.

This piece was reprinted here with permission of the poet. It was originally published in The Sun (November 2022). You can learn more about Matt Barrett and his writing here.

Thank you so much, Matt, for allowing me to share this wistful and moving poem.

It’s National Poetry Month, y’all. Every week on my blog during the month of April, I share 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 fabulous poem—our last for the month!

Photo credit: Annie Spratt from Unsplash.com

A Man I Didn't Sleep with Asked What Word Defined Me

I must have been around fourteen years old when my family took a trip South for spring break. We all got together with a friend of my parents and that friend’s new family—he had gotten divorced and remarried and now had stepchildren who were about my age. It was our first time meeting the kids, and those kids asked me and my sister if we wanted to go see a movie, and we said yes.

The parents didn’t go with us—theirs or ours—and somehow I ended up sitting next to the stepson of my parents’ friend at the theater. I was there to see the movie, but the stepson spent a lot of the screen time trying to make a move on me. I don’t remember exactly how I stopped something from happening, only that I didn’t confront directly, and when the outing was over, I didn’t tell my parents what had happened, but now I cannot figure out why. Sometimes I think back on that time and remember how young I was, and then I think about how later in life I was able to stick up for myself in new ways, how life taught me more about what was mine and no one else’s.

Which leads me to this next poem by Melissa Fite Johnson, a poem about becoming who we are meant to be. I have loved this poem for well over a year, and I am thrilled I can feature it this month on my blog (thank you, Melissa!):

This was poem was originally published in Ploughshares and is reprinted here with the poet’s permission. The poem is also in Melissa’s newly released poetry collection, Midlife Abecedarian. Learn more about Melissa Fite Johnson here.

It’s National Poetry Month! Every week on my blog during the month of April, I share 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 fabulous poem.

Photo credit: Tomas Jasovsky from Unsplash.com