The Blog

Last month, Monty and I had to get dressed up to take some family pictures for my parents’ 50th wedding anniversary. I couldn’t find a pair of shoes to wear that were both dressy and stable. I am, to put it mildly, a clumsy person. I have broken my ankle twice just by tripping over my own feet. So I …

Every Sunday when I was growing up, my parents took my sisters and brother and me to church. My love affair with poetry started there. During the sermons, I read the hymns in the hymnal. I noticed patterns with rhythm and rhyme. I saw how ordinary words, put together in a thoughtful way, became lines that made my heart sing. …

I started my day today the same way I start every day. I signed onto Facebook and checked Words With Friends. I have a friend that I’ve played that game with for six years—we always have a game going. This morning, Words With Friends had a new message for me, one I’ve never seen. It said my friend had resigned. …

April 10th, 1912. The British passenger liner RMS Titanic leaves Southampton, England on its maiden voyage. On board are 2,224 passengers. One of those passengers is 33-year-old Wallace Hartley, a British violinist who has just been hired to be the bandmaster. Hartley and his fellow passengers have an uneventful voyage for the first four days. But late on the night …

My best friend has moved on and seems to have left me behind, for reasons I don’t understand. I’m in a season of extraordinary physical pain, and my doctors have no answers. I’m facing loss and change. It’s inevitable. It’s necessary. But it’s incredibly hard, and I hate it. People I love are hurting. And I am powerless to change …

Today is a day of celebration in our household. It’s National Adopt a Shelter Pet Day! Our boys are all rescues, so I love having a day to celebrate that and share the story of our boys with you. When Monty and I had been married for two weeks, we decided that we needed a cat or a kitten. So …

Everyone has a backstory–a story about how they came to be who they are. This is mine.

For those of you who subscribe to this newsletter but aren’t on Facebook, let me give you some background about my absence. In February, Facebook flagged a post I put on my Poetic Blessings Facebook page. In this post, “Carrick” said he liked to play a game where he jumped on Seamus. Facebook said this was hate speech, and they …