My contributor's copy of the new THINK Journal should *finally* get here today after mistakenly pingponging around the country, so it's fair to share one of my poems. Many thanks to editor #BrianPalmer. Looking forward to enjoying the full issue.

Spending time with #MichaelDonaghy's collected poems, I happened on the scary little poem "Majority," which is troublingly pertinent just now. Here are some thoughts about that poem: belljarblog.wordpress.com/2017/04/04/t...

A friend's post yesterday has reminded me to pull #MichaelDonaghy's collected off the shelf. So many fine poems. Here's one that grabs me: thelondonmagazine.org/archive-acts...

#AEStallings has a new poem just out in the @lrb.co.uk : www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

The local library has exactly two books, one copy of each, by our new poet laureate, and a line of holds is already lengthening for each one. I think instead I'll pay attention to another poet whose name I've been seeing around: Jodie Hollander. www.badlilies.uk/jodie-hollan...

And once again, the country has a new poet laureate, and I'm trying with some embarrassment to learn what his work is like because I don't know it at all. www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/152053...

When I feel like my brain has been gutted by ugly news and rumors, I reach for my bookshelves, and especially for books I haven't looked at in some time. Here, from #AshleyAnnaMcHugh's *Into These Knots,* is a prayer I'm not brave enough to pray:

Re the news, I have no comment but this bit of today's Gospel for the memorial of St. John Chrysostom: A good person out of the store of goodness in his heart produces good, but an evil person out of a store of evil produces evil; for from the fullness of the heart the mouth speaks.

I think about James Baldwin’s letter to his nephew all the time. “We cannot be free until they are free.” progressive.org/magazine/let...

I've got a new poem just out, in a magazine I hesitate to send to because I disagree with its very conservative stance. But editor Micah Mattix asked for a poem, and I sent one, and I thank him. I want readers of all kinds. firstthings.com/for-the-find...

I commend him to God’s mercy. Even as I do not mourn him. I pray divine grace prevents us from yet more cruelty and violence, and that God help me resist lowering myself to hatred because Kirk was himself so hateful.

A special mini-issue of The New Verse Review in tribute to the late Jane Greer. Many thanks to Zina Gomez-Liss for putting it all together, and for including me. substack.com/home/post/p-...

'Tis (probably, at least in my yard) the last rose of summer, left blooming alone. And I'll put in the comments a link to a sweet performance of the song.

Here's the second book that came in the mail on Saturday and that I'm reading with great pleasure. (I have to say that Paul Dry Books does a terrific job with covers!) Nobody who knows my work will be at all surprised that I agree totally with the title essay.

My book order from Paul Dry Books came yesterday, including #MarkJarman's *Zeno's Eternity,* full of lovely stuff I'm still taking in. Here's one of the book's several meditations on the poet's father. spare.poems.com/poem/my-fath...

I've never read *Mrs. Dalloway,* in spite of having taken a 20th-c. novel course from Prof. Nettles so long ago. Maybe this will prod me. www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

Tell the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops: We need an end to gun violence -- not just thoughts and prayers act.faithfulamerica.org/sign/usccb-g...

If you're in the DC area, take note! (As someone else here remarked, I'm amazed that the current administration hasn't mucked this up.) www.loc.gov/events/2025-...

Yesterday I read an essay about the fates of old cars at the ends of their usefulness. The essay linked to poems about saying goodbye to cars, and I wasn't crazy about those poems, so I started recalling car poems that I do like. Karl Shapiro's "Buick" tops that list. www.youtube.com/watch?v=xQbt...

As I face some of the same issues of aging, or watch them in friends and acquaintances, I'm taken with this poem by Mary Jo Salter in The Common. www.thecommononline.org/aqueduct/

A heads-up, in case you're not already receiving notices like these: Here are reflections from A.E. Stallings on two poems from the most recent issue of Nimrod Journal (in which, ahem, I was thrilled to have a poem). english.web.ox.ac.uk/echolocation...

Giving a boost to this effort, the Dorothea Project, which I just learned about from @commonweal.bsky.social. dorotheaproject.com

Happy Labor Day. Given what's been happening, this poem by Martín Espada--one of the best and best known 9/11 poems--seems entirely apt for today. www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/47868/...

And in a dismal footnote to all the week's awful news, even the Poetry Foundation website is refusing to open this morning 🙁

This very depressing article speaks for itself. www.nytimes.com/2025/08/27/a...

There are poems one remembers, not verbatim, but in a sort of ghostly way, by an impression, lines or phrases at a time. This is one of those for me, from the "Poets of Faith" issue of Rattle long ago:

Tell the Smithsonian: Reject demands to whitewash history act.indivisible.org/sign/smithso...

It's a sobering day here; again the whole Twin Cities area is in mourning. An old friend from my cathedral choir days is the music director at Annunciation. Thoughts and prayers are not enough, but they're not nothing. I'm thinking of, and praying for, him. For us all, really.

The Hudson Review is giving nonsubscribers free access to these poems by #RachelHadas. hudsonreview.com/2025/08/the-...

Goldenrod Heigh-ho, the proud battalions That tread the gleaming hill, That muster for the sun, their king, To do his flaming will. With golden pennants streaming, With myriad brazen spears, They drive the fleeing summer Over the fallen years. --John Russell McCarthy (POETRY, Aug 1916)

Happy anniversary again to me and my best beloved. Another big number. Enjoy an appropriate poem by #JohnCiardi. www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/47013/...

As the Powers that Be are now trashing artists and writers, let's talk up the book *Nasty Women Poets: An Anthology of Subversive Verse* which dates from the previous Bad Times and is still relevant.

It is completely ridiculous that I log in to #Submittable so often, but I get a little thrill out of seeing that a sub has moved from "received" to "in progress"--even though I've been told by some editors that this may have no real meaning.

At 5:25 a.m., it's dark and cold. I think it's time for #StanleyKunitz's "End of Summer." www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/54898/...

My friend Julie Steiner likes to buy multiples of books she's enjoyed and hand them out. She gave me this one, and I like it. This write-up in *Snakeskin* will give you the idea: He's from the Isle of Man, and that's what he writes about. www.snakeskinpoetry.co.uk/323davidcall...

I've cast my vote. Read the declaration and decide for yourself. Vote of No Confidence in Our Current Federal Government open.substack.com/pub/robertre...

Continuing thanks to Robin Helweg-Larsen and his blog for featuring another poem of mine :) formalverse.com/2025/08/22/m...

National Poet's Day, you say? You're gonna limit us to one day a year? Sez you.

From Rattle's Poets Respond yesterday, a villanelle by Susan McLean. rattle.com/echo-chamber...

A very happy birthday today to #ChrisChilders, who doesn't seem to be on this platform, but no matter: Here are some of his very fine translations. And if you don't already have his *Anthology of Greek and Latin Lyric Verse,* you should fix that! www.harvardreview.org/content/igno...

A couple of days late to be a proper yahrzeit, but anyway: Since my FB memories prod me, I've pulled from the shelf a book by someone much missed: Ann Drysdale's 2002 book *Backwork.* Here's "Jobclub" from that book.

A friend's FB post about a close encounter of the insect kind sent me scrambling for this poem by Rhina P. Espaillat. I found it in her book *Where Horizons Go.*

“Well, it’s no revelation to me,” Marie said flatly, in her Queens way. “I wailed like anything when my kids were born, too.” The Solemnity of the Assumption is the best excuse to share this wonderful piece from @commonweal.bsky.social by Alice McDermott.

As we're thinking about "policing" in DC and, as we fear, other cities, here's an old poem about policing, even in "normal" times. (first pubbed in Berfrois, in the book *In Code.*)

Thinking today about the coming meeting between T!@#$p and Putin and the mortal danger to Ukraine, and recalling a poem by Dylan Thomas about the way power betrays the powerless. poetryarchive.org/poem/the-han...

The other day, I was wondering whether Dylan Thomas still had much popularity with poetry teachers. Apparently, he still matters enough to the general public to get a write-up in the NYT: A Wild Corner of Ireland, Through the Eyes of Dylan Thomas www.nytimes.com/2025/08/13/t...

Please note: there is a new issue of @Literary Matters, and it's full of good stuff. www.literarymatters.org/issue-18-1/

Terrible confession time: sometimes I get hit, badly, by the green-eyed monster when poets I consider my equals get into a journal that keeps kicking me to the curb.

Pleasant surprise in Patrick Kurp's blog of yesterday: He's chosen a poem from my book *The O in the Air* to ally with an old family story. evidenceanecdotal.blogspot.com/2025/08/old-...

I've got my issues with The New Criterion, but damn, I like this poem.