Today, I wanted to write a peppy post full of excitement and positivity and... to be honest, it's just not there. The world is too much with me. So, for today's Poetry Friday (hosted by the wonderful Linda Mitchell here), I'm sharing a poem I wrote a while ago about grief. (You may or may not know that I write poetry for adults too.) It's a Golden Shovel poem, off of the poem “In Blackwater Woods” by Mary Oliver. The line the poem springs from is: “to love what is mortal."

Happy Poetry Friday! (Head on over to Imagine the Possibilities for this week's roundup!) Today, I thought I'd share how what I use to write impacts my poetic voice. Why? Because it's interesting and weird and fun to play around with... and maybe it will inspire you to write something different! Ages ago, I brought a new section of my verse novel to my critique group. And, when they read it, they said... "This sounds like a completely different writer than the previous sectio

Happy Poetry Friday! (Please make sure to pop on over to Jama's Alphabet Soup for this week's roundup!) Today, I'd like to discuss a habit I've had for ... about 15 years? And that is: I start a lot of my poems as letters, and then delete the salutation. I find that the right salutation helps click my brain into the space I need to focus the emotion of my poem. I use this technique the most when I'm writing a poem that has Big Feels-- when I'm casting about for a place to s