Category: poetry

SoCS: calendar

My calendar used to be filled with meetings, volunteer gigs, poetry workshops and readings, family events, and music rehearsals and concerts.

Now, it’s mostly medical appointments.

I am still holding on to singing with the Madrigal Choir of Binghamton. We are coming up on performance week, which will be a challenge with my diminished energy.

Maybe this next round of tests and specialists will get to a full diagnosis and some kind of treatment to improve my situation. I know that it is unlikely to be fully reversed but I’m trying to retain hope that I can bring back the most important abilities and activities I can’t manage now.

If that happens, maybe my calendar will have somewhat fewer medical appointments and more poetry – with some more travel to see family and outings with friends.

Maybe that can even happen later in 2025.

It depends on what happens with the tests and doctor visits that are in those calendar boxes this spring…
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Linda’s prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday is “calendar.” Join us! Find out more here: https://lindaghill.com/2025/03/21/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-march-22-2025/

SoCS: crumpled?

I remember reading Linda’s prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday yesterday and thinking that I would pass this week because absolutely nothing came into my head, but, this morning, as I lay crumpled on my bed because taking a shower was too tiring and I’m trying to rest so I can participate in a poetry reading this afternoon, I thought I should post because I thought the prompt word was crumple but it was actually crackle, so never mind.

Yeah.

Brain fog.
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Please join us for Linda’s Stream of Consciousness Saturday! Details at the link above.

“Two-Hour Delay” by Abby E. Murray

Last Sunday, I shared Rattle Poets Respond offering “The Skaters” by Dante Di Stefano.

This Sunday, editor Timothy Green has chosen “Two-Hour Delay” by Abby E. Murray, which, to me, expresses perfectly the state of mind of these harrowing times in the US. (Link will open in a new tab, so you can read it right now or listen to the audio clip of Abby reading it. Make sure to also read Abby’s note that accompanies the poem.)

The opening lines are:

It’s February                                 and already
I’ve overspent my budgeted bewilderment

for the year, most of it on deep & constant
sorrow…

It’s true.

Interestingly, both Abby’s poem this Sunday and Dante’s poem last Sunday feature the counterpoint of a young daughter, enjoying the wonderment of winter, playing against the hard reality of current events.

It is my privilege to know both Abby and Dante, who each earned PhDs from Binghamton University. When I first joined the Binghamton Poetry Project, a community outreach program founded by Nicole Santalucia, Abby was our director. I was honored when Abby agreed to write a blurb for my chapbook, Hearts. It is so beautiful that I still tear up when I read it.

Mid-poem, Abby writes:

Belief is the new disbelief. Grief, not shock,

is this year’s renewable resource, and baby,
the harvest looks plentiful.

I’m really feeling it.

Thank you, Abby, for giving voice to what it is to be dealing with our present times.

Reblog: Poem by Deborah Marshall

I had to share this heart-breaking poem from fellow Boiler House Poets Collective member Deborah Marshall in the Silver Birch Press ALL ABOUT MY MOTHER series. Anyone who has been a care-giver for a loved one with dementia will likely find resonance with this achingly real scene.

Day 15, Bed 201B, Granger 2 by Deborah Marshall (ALL ABOUT MY MOTHER Series)


This has been one of the longest-running series for Silver Birch Press. You can find my post about my own entry here.

“The Skaters” by Dante Di Stefano

I had planned to not post today, taking a rest after the long streak due to Just Jot It January, but had to share this new poem, “The Skaters” by Dante Di Stefano, which is this week’s choice for Rattle Poets Respond, an ongoing series in which poets submit work written in response to something that is currently happening in the news.

Dante Di Stefano often blends elements of his family life into his work, as he does here. I experience this poem as both heart-breaking and comforting, as it expresses so intimately what it is to be a parent. I am also amazed by Dante Di Stefano’s ability to quickly craft something beautiful. Due to the nature of Rattle Poets Respond, poets submit work anonymously that has been written in response to something that happens from Friday to Friday, so there is not a lot of time to ruminate and edit. Di Stefano’s poems have been chosen for this series multiple times, attesting to his talent.

It is my privilege to know Dante, who did his PhD at Binghamton University and lives, writes, and teaches locally. He facilitates the reading series at the Tioga Arts Council where his spouse, Christina Di Stefano, is Executive Director. He has been unfailingly kind and generous to me as I make my way as a “late-blooming” poet.

If you would like, you can hear his voice reading “The Skaters” at the link above.

Thank you, Dante, for sharing your heart with us once again.

getting sketchy

So, things here are getting pretty sketchy. I have an angiogram scheduled for Monday but am feeling increasingly unwell, which may or may not be related to the purpose of the angiogram.

I’m still hoping to attend a poetry reading that is important to me tomorrow afternoon, but will have to wait and see what kind of day tomorrow is.

At this point, I’m planning to continue to post every day for Just Jot It January but if I just post the word “Jot” at some point, you’ll understand that that is all I can manage.

I have physical therapy this afternoon. Maybe that will help…

Find out more about #JusJoJan here: https://lindaghill.com/2025/01/24/daily-prompt-jusjojan-the-24th-2025/

2024/5

In late December/early January, many people look back over the year, reflect on its highs and lows, or create some kind of tally.

Sometimes, tallies are created for us, such as Words With Friends, which I have played for 13 years, helpfully telling me I made 8,875 moves in 2024. In my early years of WordPress blogging, they would send us each an annual wrap-up, which I enjoyed. Theoretically, I could put some stats together myself, but I don’t have the wherewithal to manage it.

Some of my poet/writer friends would tally their publications – and rejections – for the year. Given how 2024 went for me, the lists of both would be short, as would the list of completed poems, although I am very grateful that I managed to attend the Boiler House Poets Collective week-long residency at The Studios at MASS MoCA.

My 2024 was mostly taken up with personal and family health issues and my spouse B preparing for his retirement from IBM, which has now happened.

We begin 2025 in uncertainty. With daughter T and I still struggling to find full diagnoses and treatment, what we had imagined B’s retirement to look like is not going to be enacted, at least, not right away.

None of this is helped by the huge uncertainty about what will unfold when DT becomes US president again on Jan.20.

My father used to say “One day at a time” a lot. I am, though, by nature a planner, so I had trouble with the concept.

Now, sometimes, I feel that things are moment-to-moment or that time is somehow suspended or irrelevant.

So, yeah, 2025.

Guess I’ll strive for one day at a time…
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Join us for Linda’s Just Jot It January! Find out more here: https://lindaghill.com/2025/01/07/daily-prompt-jusjojan-the-7th-2025/

Poetry Pharmacy

I loved this piece about a “poetry pharmacy” that I saw this morning. Enjoy!

(I wish there was one near me.)
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Join us for Just Jot It January! Find out more here: https://lindaghill.com/2025/01/05/daily-prompt-jusjojan-the-5th-2025/

SoCS: my year

My year has been a mess.

(It’s probably dangerous to write about it in stream of consciousness but here goes…)

2024 has been largely spent trying to untangle personal and family health situations. In March, I developed a constellation of symptoms, including left side tinnitus and visual blurring, left side neck pain and stiffness, numbness/tingling most prominently on the left side of my head, balance problems, and brain fog and fatigue.

There has followed a bunch of tests, specialists, and physical therapy – with weeks and months of waiting – and a lot of ruling out of diagnoses, but no answers yet.

Given family history and my own research and trying to pull together all the scraps of information I get from my care team, I think I have a decent guess on diagnosis but it doesn’t really matter unless I can find a doctor willing to look at the whole situation instead of their own specialized body part.

Meanwhile, I’ve lost almost a whole year of poetry work. My creative brain isn’t functioning most days. Sometimes, I get a window first thing in the morning but often not. I’m spending most afternoons in bed because of the fatigue and because it is difficult to hold my head up without support for extended periods. If I push through and do too much on a day, I’m likely to pay for it by being largely non-functional for a day or two or three or a week afterward.

I’m also lacking in my ability to remember and keep track of things. My critical thinking skills are slowed down, too. I try to do tasks that involve a lot of thought early in the day to have the best chance of remembering and piecing things together.

It’s sad and terrifying and frustrating.

I feel like a lot of who I know myself to be is missing and I don’t know if or when it will be back.

A recent test seems to show poor blood flow in one of the arteries that supplies my brain. I’m hoping that this might give us a treatable thing to work on but I’m currently waiting for the appointment with the specialist who can interpret the test. There will probably be more tests before we get to the diagnosis/treatment part.

I don’t know if 2025 will bring my brain back or if I will be facing further deterioration.

I’ll try to let you know…
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Linda’s prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday this week is “my year.” Join us! Find out more here: https://lindaghill.com/2024/12/27/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-dec-28-2024/

“Hello, I Am Not a Soldier” by Abby E. Murray

Rattle Magazine has an ongoing series called Poets Respond which publishes at least one poem a week based on something that happened in the news in the last week.

Today, Rattle published a powerful poem from Abby E. Murray. I happen to know Abby because they did their doctoral work at Binghamton University where they served as director of the Binghamton Poetry Project when I first became involved with it.

The poem “Hello, I Am Not a Soldier” comes from Abby’s reaction to the incoming Trump administration’s nomination for various positions, especially defense secretary. You can read the poem at the link above, as well as hear Abby read it.

The lines that are resonating particularly with me this morning are

… I ration false comfort by knowing

it has never not been this way

What about this poem resonates with you?

(Photo by Lucas Sankey on Unsplash. Due to Instagram requirements, I needed an image to go with this post and opted for my standard Vote for Democary ’24 image. Tags are also broken at WordPress right now; I hope to add some later when that function is fixed.)