Via Negativa

April 28, 2026April 28, 2026 by Luisa A. Igloria

Second Wind

river in November light between bare woods and mountain

Each time any of us comes back
from the brink, what kind of triumph
is it? Is it the soul or the muscles
trained a lifetime to hold things in,
to burble and breathe under water?
And those of us who have pulled
someone back, or stood in a hallway
after the chaos has settled, how
did we find the strength to return 
again and again to this work? 
What made it possible to steady 
our voices, our hands, to open 
the purse-strings a little wider, 
a little closer to the bottom? 
We're taught love is generous. 
Or it gives without making a tally, 
doing up sums. But love is also 
the crumpled bag under the sink, 
every shred of Kleenex in the bin, 
bottles of Acetaminophen+
Caffeine, endless hours before dawn 
wondering what helped and what didn't. 
Sometimes this is called patience. 
Other times, watchfulness and waiting. 
Maybe it's the soul, unfurling damp 
wings over everything it can reach, 
or the body stretching before what 
it believes could be the last long 
stretch it can run without stopping.

April 27, 2026April 27, 2026 by Dave Bonta

Poetry Blog Digest 2026, Week 17

A personal selection of posts from around the Anglophone blogosphere, including Substack, with a commitment to following a somewhat haphazardly chosen selection of poets, poetry lovers, literary critics and publishers over time. Although I tend to quote my favorite bits, please do click through and read the whole posts. You can also browse the blog digest archive at Via Negativa or, if you’d like it in your inbox, subscribe on Substack (where the posts might be truncated by some email providers).

This week: the clay-dusted air of the workshop, the rambling treasure hunt for a poem, writing nothing but sonnets for a year, the poets on the farthest end of the table, and much more. Enjoy.

April 27, 2026 by Dave Bonta

Derelict

Up betimes and to my office, where doing business alone a good while till people came about business to me.
Will Griffin tells me this morning that Captain Browne, Sir W. Batten’s brother-in-law, is dead of a blow given him two days ago by a seaman, a servant of his, being drunk, with a stone striking him on the forehead, for which I am sorry, he having a good woman and several small children.
At the office all the morning, at noon dined at home with my wife, merry, and after dinner by water to White Hall; but found the Duke of York gone to St. James’s for this summer; and thence with Mr. Coventry, to whose chamber I went, and Sir W. Pen up to the Duke’s closett. And a good while with him about our Navy business; and so I to White Hall, and there alone a while with my Lord Sandwich discoursing about his debt to the Navy, wherein he hath given me some things to resolve him in. Thence to my Lord’s lodging, and thither came Creed to me, and he and I walked a great while in the garden, and thence to an alehouse in the market place to drink fine Lambeth ale, and so to Westminster Hall, and after walking there a great while, home by coach, where I found Mary gone from my wife, she being too high for her, though a very good servant, and my boy too will be going in a few days, for he is not for my family, he is grown so out of order and not to be ruled, and do himself, against his brother’s counsel, desire to be gone, which I am sorry for, because I love the boy and would be glad to bring him to good.
At home with my wife and Ashwell talking of her going into the country this year, wherein we had like to have fallen out, she thinking that I have a design to have her go, which I have not, and to let her stay here I perceive will not be convenient, for she expects more pleasure than I can give her here, and I fear I have done very ill in letting her begin to learn to dance.
The Queen (which I did not know) it seems was at Windsor, at the late St. George’s feast there; and the Duke of Monmouth dancing with her with his hat in his hand, the King came in and kissed him, and made him put on his hat, which every body took notice of.
After being a while at my office home to supper and to bed, my Will being come home again after being at his father’s all the last week taking physique.

dead drunk
with a stone for a woman

one summer
white with sand

in a garden gone
too high

out of love
like a fallen king

letting in the wind
and dancing with it

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Monday 27 April 1663.

April 26, 2026 by Dave Bonta

In darkest Britain

(Lord’s-day). Lay pretty long in bed talking with my wife, and then up and set to the making up of my monthly accounts, but Tom coming, with whom I was angry for botching my camlott coat, to tell me that my father and he would dine with me, and that my father was at our church, I got me ready and had a very good sermon of a country minister upon “How blessed a thing it is for brethren to live together in unity!” So home and all to dinner, and then would have gone by coach to have seen my Lord Sandwich at Chelsey if the man would have taken us, but he denying it we staid at home, and I all the afternoon upon my accounts, and find myself worth full 700l., for which I bless God, it being the most I was ever yet worth in money.
In the evening (my father being gone to my brother’s to lie to-night) my wife, Ashwell, and the boy and I, and the dogg, over the water and walked to Half-way house, and beyond into the fields, gathering of cowslipps, and so to Half-way house, with some cold lamb we carried with us, and there supped, and had a most pleasant walk back again, Ashwell all along telling us some parts of their mask at Chelsey School, which was very pretty, and I find she hath a most prodigious memory, remembering so much of things acted six or seven years ago.
So home, and after reading my vows, being sleepy, without prayers to bed, for which God forgive me!

a long coat
of a country minister

to take a walk beyond
the fields of cows

with some old lamb
there in parts

the mask I remember
in my sleep

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Sunday 26 April 1663.

April 26, 2026April 25, 2026 by Luisa A. Igloria

Weariness

It settles behind your eyes

It rests its forehead against the door jamb 
and listens to the hum of laundry machines

It's the sound of a spoon 
absently circling the rim of a cup

The residue under fingernails that speaks of trying

The way branches droop even after they 
have given up their fruit

The inside of a coat pocket 
where receipts have been stuffed

The pot of mint on the sill cranes toward light
that only partially filters through blinds

Still, you want to praise it for bringing you 
back into the smallness of a moment

Not asking to witness, not speaking in tongues

Proof of how you train your body toward something 
so real it leaves an undeniable mark

April 25, 2026 by Dave Bonta

Elemental hermeneutics

Up betimes and to my vyall and song book a pretty while, and so to my office, and there we sat all the morning. Among other things Sir W. Batten had a mind to cause Butler (our chief witness in the business of Field, whom we did force back from an employment going to sea to come back to attend our law sute) to be borne as a mate on the Rainbow in the Downes in compensation for his loss for our sakes. This he orders an order to be drawn by Mr. Turner for, and after Sir J. Minnes, Sir W. Batten, and Sir W. Pen had signed it, it came to me and I was going to put it up into my book, thinking to consider of it and give them my opinion upon it before I parted with it, but Sir W. Pen told me I must sign it or give it him again, for it should not go without my hand. I told him what I meant to do, whereupon Sir W. Batten was very angry, and in a great heat (which will bring out any thing which he has in his mind, and I am glad of it, though it is base in him to have a thing so long in his mind without speaking of it, though I am glad this is the worst, for if he had worse it would out as well as this some time or other) told me that I should not think as I have heretofore done, make them sign orders and not sign them myself. Which what ignorance or worse it implies is easy to judge, when he shall sign to things (and the rest of the board too as appears in this business) for company and not out of their judgment for. After some discourse I did convince them that it was not fit to have it go, and Sir W. Batten first, and then the rest, did willingly cancel all their hands and tear the order, for I told them, Butler being such a rogue as I know him, and we have all signed him to be to the Duke, it will be in his power to publish this to our great reproach, that we should take such a course as this to serve ourselves in wronging the King by putting him into a place he is no wise capable of, and that in an Admiral ship.
At noon we rose, Sir W. Batten ashamed and vexed, and so home to dinner, and after dinner walked to the old Exchange and so all along to Westminster Hall, White Hall, my Lord Sandwich’s lodgings, and going by water back to the Temple did pay my debts in several places in order to my examining my accounts tomorrow to my great content. So in the evening home, and after supper (my father at my brother’s) and merrily practising to dance, which my wife hath begun to learn this day of Mr. Pembleton, but I fear will hardly do any great good at it, because she is conceited that she do well already, though I think no such thing.
So to bed.
At Westminster Hall, this day, I buy a book lately printed and licensed by Dr. Stradling, the Bishop of London’s chaplin, being a book discovering the practices and designs of the papists, and the fears of some of our own fathers of the Protestant church heretofore of the return to Popery as it were prefacing it.
The book is a very good book; but forasmuch as it touches one of the Queenmother’s fathers confessors, the Bishop, which troubles many good men and members of Parliament, hath called it in, which I am sorry for.
Another book I bought, being a collection of many expressions of the great Presbyterian Preachers upon publique occasions, in the late times, against the King and his party, as some of Mr. Marshall, Case, Calamy, Baxter, &c., which is good reading now, to see what they then did teach, and the people believe, and what they would seem to believe now.
Lastly, I did hear that the Queen is much grieved of late at the King’s neglecting her, he having not supped once with her this quarter of a year, and almost every night with my Lady Castlemaine; who hath been with him this St. George’s feast at Windsor, and came home with him last night; and, which is more, they say is removed as to her bed from her own home to a chamber in White Hall, next to the King’s own; which I am sorry to hear, though I love her much.

a book of rain in the raw
book of my hand

a thing so long
it is not fit to publish

too wise to change water
into content

a book covering so much
it touches on

I shall read and believe
whatever wind came last

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Saturday 25 April 1663.

April 25, 2026 by Dave Bonta

Mariner

Up betimes, and with my salt eel went down in the parler and there got my boy and did beat him till I was fain to take breath two or three times, yet for all I am afeard it will make the boy never the better, he is grown so hardened in his tricks, which I am sorry for, he being capable of making a brave man, and is a boy that I and my wife love very well. So made me ready, and to my office, where all the morning, and at noon home, whither came Captain Holland, who is lately come home from sea, and has been much harassed in law about the ship which he has bought, so that it seems in a despair he endeavoured to cut his own throat, but is recovered it; and it seems whether by that or any other persuasion (his wife’s mother being a great zealot) he is turned almost a Quaker, his discourse being nothing but holy, and that impertinent, that I was weary of him. At last pretending to go to the Change we walked thither together, and there I left him and home to dinner, sending my boy by the way to enquire after two dancing masters at our end of the town for my wife to learn, of whose names the boy brought word.
After dinner all the afternoon fiddling upon my viallin (which I have not done many a day) while Ashwell danced above in my upper best chamber, which is a rare room for musique, expecting this afternoon my wife to bring my cozen Scott and Stradwick, but they came not, and so in the evening we by ourselves to Half-way house to walk, but did not go in there, but only a walk and so home again and to supper, my father with us, and had a good lobster intended for part of our entertainment to these people to-day, and so to cards, and then to bed, being the first day that I have spent so much to my pleasure a great while.

salt breath will make
a man love the sea

so that its quake
is nothing but holy

at last to go together
dancing

a rare music to bring
to a house of cards

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Friday 24 April 1663.

April 25, 2026April 25, 2026 by Luisa A. Igloria

Poem at 3 AM with Leftovers and Rilke

This is how the body speaks— of its thirst or hunger,
its pangs wrought by memory or a full bladder rousing you 
from sleep at 3 AM. The house breathes the way some places do, 
a kind of engine humming in the background. You walk downstairs
to the kitchen in your bare feet for a drink of ice water, then 
give in to the urge to snack on leftover dim sum from dinner 
at Jade Villa just hours ago— four round tables lined up 
to make one long one, talk mingled with the smells of leek, 
chili oil, pressed duck, and the deep orange clutch of chicken 
feet marinated in soy and jalapeno, steamed until any memory 
of them scrabbling through gravel has melted almost unctuously 
away; and one of the students who won the essay prize at school 
is shyly dipping her soup spoon into a bowl of noodles 
and the other is cheerfully and efficiently clicking 
her chopsticks from one dish to another, everyone else 
reaching in, too, for flavor. The poets on the farthest 
end of the table are laughing and the visiting scholar 
on the other end is trading jokes with the futures trader, 
and no one quite notices when the waiters come to fill 
and replenish cups of water and tea. Your colleague 
is rhapsodizing over the thick clouds of chicken and corn 
in the soup, and you give your whole mind to all of this, 
for here as in the world attention is a practice that asks 
nothing from you except to be here. When you walk back
into the night and the air is cooler and all are hugging 
and waving goodbye or someone is suggesting you find 
somewhere else to go and have margaritas, you know 
the world is waiting to slip into your mouth again— 
another kind of communion, the kind you have 
every day, the kind that stains your fingers and leaves 
a slight film of oil, even now in this kitchen where, 
standing barefoot on cold tile, already you are chewing 
on the future. You know you will be tested by one more 
terrible thing or another, just as Rilke said the purpose 
of life is to be defeated by greater and greater things— 
let's say love or unavoidable circumstance— which molds you 
and gives you the chance to do this work for which all other 
is but a preparation. Not despair, but training; the practice 
of lifting what you can, then being lifted by what you cannot. 
Days and nights feed you so you can wake and feed others, 
so you give in again, opening your mouth to say yes.

April 24, 2026April 25, 2026 by Luisa A. Igloria

Older Women in Demand by Younger Men—

one of us sends a link to this article.
 
And when next we meet for our regular
cocktails and conversation, we share

our amusement over bowls of mussels
steamed in wine and garlic, hunks

of fresh bread on the side. At last,
recognition that women who know what

they want aren't fanged or intimidating. 
One of us says casually, between bites— 

We don't really want to train anyone 
how to be emotionally mature, or have

to explain what we want, period. And so,
if they've finally learned what we know,

well and good. We want companionship, 
a voice responding in conversation not

in grunts but thoughtfully. Someone 
who doesn't assume we'll naturally 

remember birthdays, call plumbers, doctors 
or teachers, absorb every emergency like 

a sponge. Perhaps it's true that someone
younger might now be wise enough to know

they have their own growing up to do. 
Though some of us are close to retirement

and a few have actually crossed that line, 
we are not old-old, which is important.

We're not afraid of being fully ourselves.
Tired of following protocol for its sake, 

we've arrived at our certainties, 
embrace our desire, enjoy the view.

April 23, 2026April 23, 2026 by Luisa A. Igloria

Petitions

We drove one day years ago 
to La Trinidad, where a near-toothless 
woman who could see the future lived, 
surrounded by farmyard— heads 
of cabbage and cauliflower, bean rows, 
creeping vines of sweet potato on one side 
of the house where tin washbasins leaning 
against the wall reflected the sun’s rays 
like the two giant radars on Mirador Hill, 
built in 1900 and used for weather 
observation and typhoon forecasting. 

The clairvoyant did not take 
money for payment, only accepting 
a bag of groceries or bottles of cerveza 
which we put into her leathered hands 
before being ushered into her kitchen. 
I don’t know what things my mother wanted 
to learn about the days or years ahead, but 
she was told barren women had gone to seek 
advice and months later, conceived a child. 

For other less pressing needs like fair 
weather, no rain for important occasions, 
it was the nuns we went to, in their Convent 
of Perpetual Adoration. We wrote our petitions 
on little slips of paper then slid them through 
a window with a grille, along with a carton of eggs. 
The eggs were no longer warm from the hen, but 
they were speckled and brown and each could fit 
and be carried in the palm of your hand, 
then broken carefully on the rim of a bowl 
so the good sisters could bake bread.  

What I learned was this: we trust 
in whoever is willing to listen. Everyone 
and everything prays for something— the soil 
for rain, fruit for sun, vines for something 
to cling to. My mother for the body's doors to open 
or close in certain ways. When we kneel and 
offer what we can, it means the future can 
still be placated, can still somehow be known 
though nothing about our days seems to change.