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, subscribe to its RSS feed in your favorite feed reader, or, if you’d like it in your inbox, subscribe on Substack. This week: the joys of summer, including friends, community, celebrations and get-togethers of all sorts. Plus: walking away from certain journals, becoming a city poet laureate, experimental poetry books, the second Langport Moot, and more. Enjoy.
The weather’s gone from dry to wet–we are experiencing the region’s much more typical summer now, humid and hot with frequent rainstorms. As for my writing, it’s gone the other direction…I am in a dry spell. Garden gets prolific; I get, well, not prolific. The heat takes motivation and inspiration right out of my body, it seems!
But I’m accomplishing tasks of other types which may, eventually, lead to drafting poems and revising work again before too long. Tackling my “office” at home (it is actually a book-lined hallway) means that I’m finding forgotten drafts and ideas, folders of possible inspirations, old letters and cards, and lots of duplicated documents I can happily discard. The challenge is to remove what’s no longer necessary while at the same time figuring out a simple and easy-to-recall strategy for organizing what I want to keep.
I have even managed to give away a couple of cartons of books. Not so many that my existing collection actually fits on my current shelf space, but hey–it’s a start! Getting rid of books is hard. It is much easier to give away zucchinis….
Ann E. Michael, Wet, dry
After my reading a lady came over to read aloud the poems she liked from it to her husband who missed it. They laughed, said they were great and left it on the table unbought. Ah well, to reach people is the thing. All poetry is not for profit.
Pearl Pirie, Chelsea Author’s Market
So, over the holiday weekend, my friend writer editor and publisher Kelli Russell Agodon and I snuck away for a few days at a local lodge to work on our manuscripts, talk poetry, goof around a little bit but mostly try to make some dents in our work on both of our next books. And I think it was very productive! In just a few days, Kelli and I both had updated versions of our manuscripts (mine hadn’t been touched for about eighteen months) and we got cocktails, went out for sweet potato fries, visited Woodinville’s awesome lavender garden, visited the Lodge’s resident pot-bellied pigs, stayed up late/got up early, and talked poetry. I did that thing where I spread out all the poems on my bed to see how they went together. I think I talked Kelli into putting mermaids in her book (you’ll have to see when it comes out!), and she talked me into putting less plague in my book and more spells.
This also made me feel empowered as a disabled person, because I was able to pull off a trip with a friend without any major illness/disability crises. Sometimes people like me with chronic illnesses and disabilities can feel shut out of the traditional residencies because they’re not particularly handicapped-friendly or they’re someplace far from doctors or the difficulties can just be overwhelming, so I want to suggest this kind of alternative.
I felt so motivated, got so much done, and had such a good time. Grab a friend, find a place to stay for a couple of days (hopefully you’ve scouted out its ADA appropriateness and it has some local attractions around to visit and a good fireside lounge)—you don’t need two weeks or anyone’s permission—try it!
Jeannine Hall Gailey, Academy of American Poets Puts Flare Corona on Their Summer Reading List, Writing Retreats with Friends and Working on a New Manuscript (with Supermoon)
This year I was accepted into Vaulting Ambitions, a 5 month incubator program “designed to arm creatives to tackle the business side of their craft.” It’s run by Libby Trainor-Parker and Matthew Trainor at Prompt Creative under a strategic partnership with City of Adelaide.
There’s so much learning going on! I realised I was hungry for this kind of learning, from digital literacy to how to write a pitch letter, it’s hands-on, with practical application, and we’re getting to meet all kinds of industry professionals.
One of the program’s great strengths is the regular check-ins and mentoring sessions. A regular space that holds you accountable can seriously help with ticking off those list and bigger goals.
I think what I’m saying is that the real gift here is community. Being in contact with other creative folk has made me feel less alone, more connected. I’m reminded that everyone experiences challenges when running a solo arts business; and that talking about it with others can help to solve problems and soothe anxiety. I’ve felt a palpable sense of energy, motivation and buoyancy. And I’ve got shit done.
Caroline Reid, Vaulting Ambitions, July23rd Showcase
Recently I spoke to the wonderful and hilarious Jen Hatmaker for her podcast, For the Love, and we talked all about friendship. Coincidentally, the day I spoke to her, I had a whole weekend of plans with friends. That Friday night I went to Metric with Dawn. The next morning I drove 90 minutes to spend the whole day with five of my beloved high school friends. They’d rented a cabin for the weekend, and while I couldn’t get away overnight, I was able to find a sitter to be “home base” for my kids (and Phoebe the Boston terrier) for nine hours so I could sit outside, looking at old yearbooks and photo albums going back to middle school, catching up and most of all cracking up.
The next morning, I had brunch with my friends and neighbors Lisa and Jen, who I get together with at least once a month without fail, and we’re on the group chat in between. We all need this kind of connection, and Jen Hatmaker and I talked about how challenging it can be to find—and maintain—friendships in middle age. I’ll share the podcast conversation when it goes live.
It was a privilege and a joy to speak to grief expert and psychotherapist Megan Devine for her podcast, It’s OK That You’re Not OK. I said, during this conversation, “trauma does not give you a glow up.” I stand by that. It’s OK to let the hard things be, well, hard. Megan is so wise, with a wonderful sense of humor, and I hope you’ll listen to our conversation—and the other episodes, too.
What else has been bringing me joy? Hanging out with my kids: baking, long walks, bubble tea runs, bookstore adventures, movies all snuggled up together on the couch or sharing a king size pack of Twizzlers in the theater. Binge-watching Veronica Mars with Violet. Riding bikes with Rhett. Trimming my backyard trees and more-giant-weeds-than-actual-trees with a small, battery-powered chainsaw. (Yes, you read that right, a chainsaw. It’s so satisfying, y’all. I’m very careful.) Roadtripping. Writing, even though it’s slow going. Enjoying the summer pace as much as I can.
Maggie Smith, The Good Stuff
I made a deal with myself some time ago that my 60th year (which just recently came to a close) would mark the end of my submissions to Poetry Magazine if I hadn’t cracked that market by then. A rejection from them just after my 61st birthday put a bow on that one, and I felt fine about it. Even relaxed. So why not stop with the handful of other journals who consistently send form rejections and never take a poem? So I made a list this week of journals that I am considering dead markets FOR MY WORK, and it was liberating.
When I mentioned this on Twitter, I got all kinds of responses ranging from “Good for you!” to “No! Don’t quit!” I don’t view this as quitting. Quitting would mean I would stop submitting altogether, which despite my current drafting drought, I am not prepared to do.
Thus the title of this post.
Crossing these journals off my list is akin to “walking away” —from a food that will make my stomach protest, from a conversation that is clearly not including me, from a party that is too loud and blaring terrible music. None of those things will kill me, but I am so much happier and more comfortable if I do not partake in them. To overwork the metaphor, I’m looking for a carrot cake that makes me willing to be overfull, an easy, laughter-filled back and forth with a friend, a party where people can hear each other speak and still enjoy a killer playlist.
Donna Vorreyer, Knowing When to Walk Away
Over the years on social media and in real life, I’ve had to distance myself from people who frustrate me, gaslight me, or make me feel negatively. I have no problem doing this, never regret it, because my own emotional and mental health is a priority. I’m pretty good at curating my social media so I rarely see discourse or real negativity. We are allowed to opine now and then. I’m talking about toxic trash. In doing this selective curating I have built an online community that I enjoy – even if I don’t always agree with them. Hell, I don’t want to live in a bubble where everyone thinks exactly like me! How boring that would be.
It feels like a good many people I follow are leaving Twitter, a site that has really helped me connect with other writers. I don’t plan to leave because I haven’t had any of the problems others are upset over. Plus, WTH do I need with yet another SM site to grow and maintain? I feel like what Twitter is doing is similar to the company you work for doing a restructure. Most people my age have been through a few restructures or new owners. They always have to shake things up and do things their way. I’m flexible. It will probably work out.
Charlotte Hamrick, Drama
My poetry manuscript — The Pear Tree: Elegy for a Farm — has won the 2023 Sally Albiso Poetry Award from MoonPath Press.
I’m feeling stunned and honored and — even after a week has gone by — a bit disbelieving.
I’ve shared here some of my process in cobbling this book together, but just to recap, it’s the book that wouldn’t lie down and be “done.” Three years ago in a Hugo House course taught by Deborah Woodard, I rather shamefacedly introduced myself by saying I was working on a book of poems about losing my parents, adding, “I really should be finished with these poems.”
Deborah said, “Maybe the poems aren’t finished with you.”
That is exactly what it felt like. It’s about more than my mother and father; it’s about growing up on a farm, and it’s about giving up that farm after my dad’s death in 2010. It’s about letting go of trees, fields, cows, fences, wells, ponds, bee boxes, books, orchard trees, creeks, barns… It’s about my mother’s memory loss, and how keenly that paralleled our folding away the family place, the farm my grandfather had owned before my father owned it. It’s about…so much.
Bethany Reid, Sally Albiso Poetry Book Award
From publisher acceptance to manuscript editing, from redrafting to publisher liaison, from first launch to audience feedback and pamphlet sales, I’ve been bombarded with a rush of many different emotions. Fear, nerves, exasperation, excitement, gratification and love! – and that’s just for starters. I have one more reading tomorrow, Thursday, for the lunchtime concert series at St Philip & St James Church, Norton St Philip, and then no more readings until September and beyond. So I’ll soon have a chance to process all the mixed emotions I’ve been experiencing, to consider the kinds of audience responses I’ve received and how they might feed into my future work. I’ll also be able to attend to an increasingly large pile of new books. They’ve been accumulating since the spring and I haven’t had the time, energy or inclination to give them proper attention.
Josephine Corcoran, Returning to earth after a book launch
This week I finished my nature memoir, The Ghost Lake, and moved into the brief but intense self editing phase before I let it go to the editor next week and it ceases to be a book that exists entirely inside my head, and becomes something other people will read. Terrifying. The Ghost Lake has been a beautiful writing experience. But I’m ready to move forward to the next stage now, and it feels like a time in my life to make changes to my writing and working habits.
Wendy Pratt, Deep Summer – A Sensory Experience: August Writing Challenge
Usually, I find out what I am doing by staring at my daily calendar. It reminds me of when the kids were growing up–so many things to keep track of: practices, school health exams, softball, volleyball, summer baseball…
More tasks await in emails. I do them all as they come, as there is only this moment to do them in. Just now, I put on gloves and wiggled two wheels on the little blue car, helping my husband with a car repair. That wasn’t on the physical calendar, just on the calendar of our brains. The car needs new transmission fluid, and if that doesn’t work, its time has come. (It’s a 1991 Ford.) I have been checking out the Chilton Repair Manual for several years now, my circulation stats probably keeping it in the library!
My dreams, too, are task or trouble related. They might possibly lead to new poems…if I put that on the calendar.
Kathleen Kirk, Soon
Since I finished up edits on the new book and am in a holding pattern on the latest poem project til I figure out what the hell I want it to do, I’ve spent this weekend working on visual things, including these little postcard packs for the SEA MONSTERS series that is one of my faves (you can find them in the shop as of this afternoon. )
I often feel like art is just a different language for saying many of the same things, telling the same stories. While this series is not particularly rooted in mythology as much as some of the others—like the Persephone or Iphigenia collages, or even the The Muses, it was spawned both by some lessons on Greek sea stories I was writing and researching, as well as the Calypso myth, which was always a favorite, so I suppose is in a similar vein. I’ve been making collages, sometimes daily, sometimes in a burst like the ones that will accompany GRANATA, and the processes are different and vary. Sometimes, I save up clip art and stock images and snippets. Sometimes I go looking as I go, finding the elements I need. Sometimes I just start with something and see where it takes me.
Kristy Bowen, sea monsters and citrus fruits
What if — I hold the words like a pashmina
Rajani Radhakrishnan, Part 54
cloak to hide my nakedness from the mirror.
It is a trick. What if — no longer a question,
no longer an argument: a finality, a surrender,
a road that has taken too long. What if a
father thought to hold my hand. What if a
mother knew how to care. What if there was
always a way to begin again. What are the
odds it would have still led to this moment,
to this poem?
Recently I noted a call for submissions from one of my dream publishers. Sigh, I sighed. I faced the prospect of a book manuscript submission with ambivalence.
Do I really need to publish another book? Isn’t it highly unlikely anyway? And what if they did pick me pick me? Then what?
Yes, the fun of a cover choice. The thrill of the box o’. Oh, but the chasing after reviews, after reading opportunities, the gnawing fear that my book will be the worst selling one they’ve ever produced. What’s it for?
I guess those little gifts: the email from a stranger or call from a friend saying “wow, x poem, that really spoke to me.” I’ve had that happen! It’s terrific!
Only connect, wrote Forster. Yes. I mean, that is it, right? And how else to connect than through publication? Well, I mean, there are the lovely random interactions that have nothing to do with poetry. Yesterday I heard the telltale scronch and squeal of the city yard waste pick-up trucks heading up my street. I raced out from beside the house where I was weeding, waved wildly, and started racing around to the back of the house to pull out my barrel full of sticks and weeds. “We got you, we got you,” called out one of the guys. “Don’t worry, we got you.” It was sweet. There’s that. He’s probably forgotten already but it was a lovely human moment for me. I gather them, in that face of all the unlovely ones. Some of which I cause.
Marilyn McCabe, I’m ready; or, Does the World Need Another Poetry Book
Magnolias showered your head
with their heavy musk as you passed.
The bombast of radio announcers
came through the windows, sometimes
loud enough to mask domestic
quarrels within.In the last house down the way,
Luisa A. Igloria, City Camp Alley
the town’s first policewoman
swilled down her sorrows
with beer. Blind men walked
home in pairs, carefully
tapping with their canes.
Author Miriam Sagan founded and then directed the creative writing program at Santa Fe Community College until her retirement. One very visible part of her legacy are the ten poem posts dotting the campus: poetry boxes whose purpose is to intrigue students with the work of poets far and near (and in this particular instance … me!- ).
My contribution includes two free verse poems, a found poem, a list poem, an ekphrastic poem, a book spine poem, a photo-haiku, a Shakespearean haiku, a graph-haiku, and a haiku mobile.
I like to imagine a student pausing, by a building or in a desert meadow, to read and reflect amidst the hustle-bustle of things to do and places to be. That’s the power of public poetry: to meet us where we are as we go about our lives. [Click through for photo documentation.]
Bill Waters, Poetry posts @ SFCC
My training and experience as a poet is serving me well as I try to create memorable children’s sermons. Just as when I’m creating a metaphor for a poem, I do the same in a children’s sermon: I’m trying to create something that makes people see the world differently, to see an object or a concept in a way that they never have before, and that each time in the future, they’ll think of what I did in the poem or the children’s sermon.
My training as a teacher of first year college students is also serving me well, and it’s training that goes back to my days as a drama kid. I’ve always been good at improv and thinking on my feet. I’ve always been good at projecting my voice and finding ways to engage the people watching me. I’m good at making connections which often only come to me as I’m teaching or presenting the material. I am happy to make a fool of myself if it will lead to memorable moments in teaching or preaching–because if I don’t care what people think about me, I’m more likely to reach people, and it’s more likely that I’m not going to make a fool of myself.
Kristin Berkey-Abbott, The Children’s Preacher as Poet and/or Teacher of First Year College Students
Yup, it’s official, I am Arlington’s new Poet Laureate!!!
Arlington made the official announcement last week and so I was able to then share the news. I’d been sitting on it for a little while so I was excited to finally share it with the world.
When I first moved to this area fifteen years ago something magical happened: I finally felt like I belonged. Before that I’d lived in North Dakota (where I grew up on a farm!), southern Maryland, and a brief stint in Puerto Rico. None of them felt right. None of them fit. But when I moved to northern Virginia (settling first in Alexandria before eventually buying a home in Arlington), everything fell into place. This is where I was meant to be.
I can’t wait to share my love of poetry with the community I love.
Courtney LeBlanc, And the Poet Laureate is…
Now that the Summer 2023 pre-order period is over and the chapbooks by MJ Stratton and Tim Carter have begun shipping into the world, I want to give a brief summary of sales and provide receipts for the donation to the Urban Youth Collaborative of NYC. I do this after every sales period as part of the press’s commitment to transparency.
In total, the press sold 124 booklets, with the new titles by Tim Carter and MJ Stratton making up the overwhelming majority. Tim and MJ sold an average of 53 copies each spread across 71 individual sales (there were a few bulk sales). Both writers sold above 50 copies, which is a first for the press. The two writers also earned an average of $326.35 for their work, which is the highest pay out yet.
Also, I’m very happy to report that the donation to the Urban Youth Collaborative is $340.35 (plus extra to cover their processing fees). This is the most we’ve donated since spring 2022, when over $500 was raised for the Transgender Education Network of Texas. Here are receipts from the donation (Note: Make the Road is one of the three local groups collaborating in the UYC):
Lastly, the press itself brought in $364.35. Deducting various expenses and costs of production during this period, this meant a profit of $104.83. Adding this profit to the press’s previous balance, we now have a total surplus of $664.31. (If we take into account that $500 of this was a generous donation from a friend and supporter of the press, the press has officially earned $164 through its sales model) This surplus will be allocated in coming years to pay for ink and paper, upgraded supplies, and the cost of the website itself (from Wix). Previously I ran the press off of my personal website, which I paid for separately; however, now that the whole site has been devoted to the press, I will be charging its cost of $16 per month (or $192 per year) against this balance.
R.M. Haines, Summary & Receipts for July 2023
I often see poems, written in an approachable tone with contractions in their verbs, etc, that suddenly throw in an until instead of a till to no specific semantic or syntactic effect. Why has the poet chosen to make this decision? Is it for musical and/or metrical reasons? In these cases, is until being used as syllabic padding?
Matthew Stewart, Till, until or ‘til?
And then there’s ‘til. I encountered many hurdles during the editorial process of my first full collection with Eyewear back in 2017, but one of the toughest was an editorial intern’s unilateral and systematic imposition of turning every single till into ‘til throughout my ms. I had to put my foot down at that point and refuse to continue unless they accepted my tills. From my perspective, ‘til is only acceptable if the poet wants to strike an explicitly colloquial tone.
Geometries of Belonging is a collection of short stories and poems from R.B. Lemberg’s Birdverse, a world said to be created by the mysterious god, Bird. The publisher writes, “The intricate Birdverse has at its core a magic based loosely in geometry, from which comes healing, love, and art. It is a complex, culturally diverse world, a realm with LGBTQIA characters and a wide range of family configurations. Lemberg probes the obstacles behind traditional social boundaries of cultures; overseeing this world is the deity Bird and all its incarnations. Each story and poem, exqusitely crafted, will richly reward long-time fans and newcomers alike.” This was a fantastic collection of stories, and I would love to read more in this universe.
Andrea Blythe, Culture Consumption: June 2023
Lately I’ve been going through Los Angeles-based poet Victoria Chang’s striking non-fiction project, the stunning and deeply felt, deeply intimate Dear Memory: Letters on Writing, Silence, and Grief (Minneapolis MN: Milkweed Editions, 2021), a book of memory, history and mentors. Interspersed with collaged archival photographs and other documents, the collection is composed as a sequence of letters individually directed to intimates such as her late parents, childhood friends, acquaintances and former teachers, as well as to her daughter. Dear Memory follows Chang’s poetry collections Circle (Southern Illinois University Press, 2005), Salvinia Molesta (University of Georgia Press, 2008), The Boss (McSweeney’s, 2013) [see my review of such here], Barbie Chang (Copper Canyon, 2017) [see my review of such here] and Obit (Copper Canyon, 2020) [see my Griffin Prize-shortlist interview with her here], although I’m realizing how far behind I am on her work, having missed The Trees Witness Everything (Copper Canyon, 2022), with a further poetry collection forthcoming in 2024 with Farrar, Straus & Giroux: With My Back to the World.
This is a book of contemplation, recollection and reconciliation, as Chang offers the fluidity of a combined book-length essay and memoir through the form of journaled and unsent letters. There is such an intimacy and an openness to the way she holds the book’s form, one that predates, arguably, even the novel; think of books such as The Pillow Book (1002) by Sei Shōnagon, or even Bram Stoker’s original Dracula (1897). The back-and-forth of recollection in Chang’s Dear Memory are even reminiscent to what Kristjana Gunnars wrote about in her novella, The Prowler (Red Deer College Press, 1989): “That the past resembles a deck of cards. Certain scenes are given. They are not scenes the rememberer chooses, but simply a deck that is given. The cards are shuffled whenever a game is played.” Or, as Chang writes, mid-point through the collection: “Now I admire writers who write with an intimate intensity but also a generous capaciousness. I enjoy reading work that expands while it contracts. Writing made by an instrument with a microscope on one end and a telescope on the other, leaving some powder on the page in the form of language.”
rob mclennan, Victoria Chang, Dear Memory: Letters on Writing, Silence, and Grief
I have a shelf of books with vivid, arresting covers adorned with a black swan – the logo of Beir Bua, an independent publisher of experimental poetry. Among them is my collection of essays From Fibs to Fractals: exploring mathematical forms in poetry, which was published in 2021. Working with Michelle Moloney King, the press’s founder and editor, was a joy. She fizzed with ideas, enthusiasm, and creative energy. A gifted poet in her own right, Michelle also designed all those gorgeous Beir Bua covers herself, including creating the artwork.
Over the course of two years, the press published an astonishing number and variety of titles by some of our finest contemporary experimental poets. It was through Beir Bua that I first came across many writers whose work I admire, including Laura Besley, Oisín Breen, Richard Capener, Nikki Dudley, Sascha Engel, James Knight, Aodán McCardle, Margaret O’Brien, JP Seabright and Lydia Unsworth, not to mention Michelle Moloney King herself (you can read my review of Moloney King’s book Cartouche, written in collaboration with her son Dylan, here).
Helen Bowie’s Word/Play introduced me to the delights and possibilities of puzzles as ‘deconstructed poetry’. I discovered what a cento paradelle is courtesy of Matthew Schultz’s Encomium. Reading Mike Ferguson’s &there4 (which I had the pleasure of blurbing) gave me a deeper appreciation of the art and craft of found and erasure poetry.
Beir Bua’s catalogue included books by writers with whose work I was already familiar, such as Anthony Etherin’s Fabric, in which poems explore their own poemhood; Teo Eve’s fluid, shape-shifting hybrid On Shaving Or, The Taxonomy of Clouds; and The Fabulous Op, a gloriously anarchic collaboration between Gary Barwin and Gregory Betts.
The contents of Beir Bua books were invariably as innovative, exciting and thought-provoking as their covers. Sadly, the press closed down at the end of June and the books are no longer available in their original form.
Marian Christie, Beir Bua Press: A Valediction
Anthony Wilson is one of those “unmet literary friends” that Carolyn Heilbrun talks about in an essay in a book I no longer own and wish I had back. I’ve read his blog for ages and he’s been such a tremendous supporter of mine. When his new book came out I ordered it immediately. The cover is perfect. The quiet, the empty vessels, the waiting, the contemplation, the soothing tones, the always present theme in a still life: memento mori. It’s very satisfying when the cover really reflects the contents, and this one does.
I read it, fittingly, in the rain. When I was finished I wanted more. I wanted the voice, and the sensibility, and the wisdom, and the good company, good words. […]
I won’t share the whole poem (you’ll need to buy the book to read it), but there’s one that just settled into me so tenderly. It’s titled “After Raymond Carver” and begins, “Did I sleep that time? / You know I did. I did nothing else. Just not at night.” And then comparing his early mornings to his mother’s early mornings. “The laughter, the elegance, the smell of onions frying. / How did she do it? She never stopped.” Then the blackness that we’ll all walk into or have at some point.
Our losses, oh our losses. And then the awareness of the gravy, the pure gravy, that Raymond Carver writes about. A good poet, a generous one, as Anthony Wilson is, will send you on to other poets. So I found my way to the Carver poem which I’ve lived with for a long while, the gravy reminder.
Shawna Lemay, The Wind and the Rain by Anthony Wilson
It’s been five years since David Cloke of East Coker Poetry Group convened the first Langport Moot. I wrote about it here.
This time, seventeen of us gathered in perfect weather at Great Bow Wharf in Langport last Friday for another great day of walking, observing, writing and sharing. We began with short introductions to three poetic forms: haiku (me), found poetry (David) and ancient Chinese four-line rhymed poems (Wendy). During a long lunch-break we explored this delightful small town and its waterways. Every bench by the river was occupied by someone busy with pen and notebook. Later we returned to Great Bow Wharf to share our ramblings. Graeme from Fire River Poets invented a new form, which I named the Ryan. Diana made us all laugh with her poem about two neighbouring local businesses, a dance studio and a foot clinic. Someone wrote a lovely memory of Caroline Mornement, a supporter of East Coker Poets, who was at the first Langport Moot and drew water-birds in her notebook, being an artist rather than a poet. […]down Stacey’s Court to the river
Ama Bolton, The Second Langport Moot
a boat broken and grounded
purple loosestrife by the waterside
two white butterflies
engage in their chaotic
intricate choreography