Poetry Blog Digest 2025, Week 3

Poetry Blogging Network

A personal selection of posts from the Poetry Blogging Network and beyond. 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: Grand Theft Hamlet, a fountain dying of thirst, smeuses, the Poet Laureate of Pajamas, and more. Enjoy.

Continue reading “Poetry Blog Digest 2025, Week 3”

Getting to the bottom of it

Sam Pepys and me

This morning Sir Wm. Batten and Pen and I did begin the examining the Treasurer’s accounts, the first time ever he had passed in the office, which is very long, and we were all at it till noon, and then to dinner, he providing a fine dinner for us, and we eat it at Sir W. Batten’s, where we were very merry, there being at table the Treasurer and we three, Mr. Wayth, Ferrer, Smith, Turner, and Mr. Morrice, the wine cooper, who this day did divide the two butts, which we four did send for, of sherry from Cales, and mine was put into a hogshead, and the vessel filled up with four gallons of Malaga wine, but what it will stand us in I know not: but it is the first great quantity of wine that I ever bought. And after dinner to the office all the afternoon till late at night, and then home, where my aunt and uncle Wight and Mrs. Anne Wight came to play at cards (at gleek which she taught me and my wife last week) and so to supper, and then to cards and so good night. Then I to my practice of musique and then at 12 o’clock to bed.
This day the workmen began to make me a sellar door out of the back yard, which will much please me.

examining the unreal
at a fine dinner for four

as hogs make a cellar
out of the yard


Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Monday 20 January 1661/62.

Finders, keepers

Sam Pepys and me

(Lord’s day). To church in the morning, where Mr. Mills preached upon Christ’s being offered up for our sins, and there proving the equity with what justice God would lay our sins upon his Son, he did make such a sermon (among other things pleading, from God’s universal sovereignty over all his creatures, the power he has of commanding what he would of his Son by the same rule as that he might have made us all, and the whole world from the beginning to have been in hell, arguing from the power the potter has over his clay), that I could have wished he had let it alone; and speaking again, the Father is now so satisfied by our security for our debt, that we might say at the last day as many of us as have interest in Christ’s death: Lord, we owe thee nothing, our debt is paid. We are not beholden to thee for anything, for thy debt is paid to thee to the full; which methinks were very bold words.
Home to dinner, and then my wife and I on foot to see Mrs. Turner, who continues still sick, and thence into the Old Bayly by appointment to speak with Mrs. Norbury who lies at (it falls out) next door to my uncle Fenner’s; but as God would have it, we having no desire to be seen by his people, he having lately married a midwife that is old and ugly, and that hath already brought home to him a daughter and three children, we were let in at a back door. And here she offered me the refusall of some lands of her at Brampton, if I have a mind to buy, which I answered her I was not at present provided to do. She took occasion to talk of her sister Wight’s making much of the Wights, who for namesake only my uncle do shew great kindness to, so I fear may do us that are nearer to him a great deal of wrong, if he should die without children, which I am sorry for. Thence to my uncle Wight’s, and there we supped and were merry, though my uncle hath lately lost 200 or 300 at sea, and I am troubled to hear that the Turks do take more and more of our ships in the Straights, and that our merchants here in London do daily break, and are still likely to do so.
So home, and I put in at Sir W. Batten’s, where Major Holmes was, and in our discourse and drinking I did give Sir J. Mennes’ health, which he swore he would not pledge, and called him knave and coward (upon the business of Holmes with the Swedish ship lately), which we all and I particularly did desire him to forbear, he being of our fraternity, which he took in great dudgeon, and I was vexed to hear him persist in calling him so, though I believe it to be true, but however he is to blame and I am troubled at it. So home and to prayers, and to bed.

each creature has
the whole world to hold

bold words
continue to lie

next door to God
is a midwife without children

and we lost at sea take more
and more to be true


Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Sunday 19 January 1661/62.

Intergenerational

river in November light between bare woods and mountain
trauma decants from one

vessel to another. Imagine a long
line of flasks ranged across a dusty

sill. Who set down the first piece? Who
took it up and tipped the liquid into

the mouth of another? Every pour tries
to manage its load of amber without

disturbing the sediments at the bottom;
they ripple upward anyway, murky with promise

and repetition, swollen with char. We can't seem
to float free. Though we could change the water

and feed it lavender and rosemary, each seems
as dear as a child we're unwilling to orphan.

Reader

Sam Pepys and me

This morning I went to Dr. Williams, and there he told me how T. Trice had spoke to him about getting me to meet that our difference might be made up between us by ourselves, which I am glad of, and have appointed Monday next to be the day. Thence to the Wardrobe, and there hearing it would be late before they went to dinner, I went and spent some time in Paul’s Churchyard among some books, and then returned thither, and there dined with my Lady and Sir H. Wright and his lady, all glad of yesterday’s mistake, and after dinner to the office, and then home and wrote letters by the post to my father, and by and by comes Mr. Moore to give me an account how Mr. Montagu was gone away of a sudden with the fleet, in such haste that he hath left behind some servants, and many things of consequence; and among others, my Lord’s commission for Embassador. Whereupon he and I took coach, and to White Hall to my Lord’s lodgings, to have spoke with Mr. Ralph Montagu, his brother (and here we staid talking with Sarah and the old man); but by and by hearing that he was in Covent Garden, we went thither: and at my Lady Harvy’s, his sister, I spoke with him, and he tells me that the commission is not left behind. And so I went thence by the same coach (setting down Mr. Moore) home, and after having wrote a letter to my Lord at 12 o’clock at night by post I went to bed.

getting to meet
our made-up selves

we spent time among books
turned into many things

and I have stayed in that garden
left behind by the clock


Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Saturday 18 January 1661/62.

Self-Portrait with Lunar Reflection

river in November light between bare woods and mountain
There are days that feel like over-
ripe fruit: bruised, sitting
sadly in the bowl after having been
handled then returned, or
peeled after hesitation only to be
discarded. I want them
to simply be the way they should— skins
mostly unblemished, gently rounded,
with only a hint of acid or
bitterness should they still
be green but torn open before
their time. There are days
that feel heavy on my palms, as if
something hardened their sweetness
into a pit at their core; and I must find
the right instrument to extricate
its heart before it darkens. Night falls;
leaves rustle. I hear insects
begin to tune their instruments and want
something to break open all
that's stony; I want to call out
and know it will be answered— whether
by owl or foghorn or animals lowing in
the fields, just as the lake's
surface reflects the moon's face
as it looks upon it, upon me.

Unnatural disaster

Sam Pepys and me

To Westminster with Mr. Moore, and there, after several walks up and down to hear news, I met with Lany, the Frenchman, who told me that he had a letter from France last night, that tells him that my Lord Hinchingbroke is dead, and that he did die yesterday was se’nnight, which do surprise me exceedingly (though we know that he hath been sick these two months), so I hardly ever was in my life; but being fearfull that my Lady should come to hear it too suddenly, he and I went up to my Lord Crew’s, and there I dined with him, and after dinner we told him, and the whole family is much disturbed by it: so we consulted what to do to tell my Lady of it; and at last we thought of my going first to Mr. George Montagu’s to hear whether he had any news of it, which I did, and there found all his house in great heaviness for the death of his son, Mr. George Montagu, who did go with our young gentlemen into France, and that they hear nothing at all of our young Lord; so believing that thence comes the mistake, I returned to my Lord Crew (in my way in the Piazza seeing a house on fire, and all the streets full of people to quench it), and told them of it, which they are much glad of, and conclude, and so I hope, that my Lord is well; and so I went to my Lady Sandwich, and told her all, and after much talk I parted thence with my wife, who had been there all the day, and so home to my musique, and then to bed.

the news broke me
hard as my life is

its great heaviness
and nothing of you

my house on fire
and all the streets of sand


Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Friday 17 January 1661/62.

I am not ashamed

river in November light between bare woods and mountain
to say I too, talk to my dead;
I tell them about my day and my most
recent woes, ask them about the terrible
mistakes I've made as a parent. (They
listen in sympathetic silence.)

I've learned to stick my neck
out and say something rather
than nothing, admit I don't see
the point behind things like Burning
Man. (Glamping as "decommodification"
and "self reliance in community?")

I am not ashamed I had to change
my shirt in the car, in a parking lot,
after I puked all over myself. (Just think,
—somewhere, anywhere, someone right now
is having a wardrobe malfunction or sitting
on a toilet, having soiled their knickers.)

When my heart could not stop
lurching from worry, I have reached out
—blindly, even perhaps unwarrantedly, but
motivated by the desire to ease someone
else's pain (even if I know there are
many things beyond my control).

Can you blame me for trying?
Can you blame me for wanting
to exhaust the means available
to me, if these result in some
reprieve? I am not ashamed to admit
I am that kind of person. I am not

ashamed to plead for mercy.

Official

Sam Pepys and me

Towards Cheapside; and in Paul’s Churchyard saw the funeral of my Lord Cornwallis, late Steward of the King’s House, a bold profane talking man, go by, and thence I to the Paynter’s, and there paid him 6l. for the two pictures, and 36s. for the two frames. From thence home, and Mr. Holliard and my brother Tom dined with me, and he did give me good advice about my health. In the afternoon at the office, and at night to Sir W. Batten, and there saw him and Captain Cock and Stokes play at cards, and afterwards supped with them. Stokes told us, that notwithstanding the country of Gambo is so unhealthy, yet the people of the place live very long, so as the present king there is 150 years old, which they count by rains: because every year it rains continually four months together. He also told us, that the kings there have above 100 wives a-piece, and offered him the choice of any of his wives to lie with, and so he did Captain Holmes. So home and to bed.

a cheap churchyard
funeral for me

I rot in the office
in the long rains

so old that I have
the choice of any lie


Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Thursday 16 January 1661/62.

Fairy Lantern

river in November light between bare woods and mountain
(Thismia rodwayi) 


There's a small, red-orange flower
that pokes up like a tongue from under
damp forest cover, as if without
stem and leaves.

The plant guides say it doesn't
have any green pigment allowing
absorption of energy from light—
Perhaps it was born under

a serious star, on a broody
night. Perhaps it gets by
through a kind of ironic
detachment: wanting

little, often overlooked
despite its lightbearing
name. Like it, I wish I could
slip, subterranean, through life.

So far below, as if in a well,
how can our cracked, exhausted
hearts brave the elements? Above,
bits of blue show through clouds.