My new poems podcast, Words by Winter, can be found here.
Me to the elementary or high school students I sometimes visit in person or via Zoom: Sometimes does it feel like your feelings are too big to hold inside? Like you might explode because life feels so overwhelming?
Heads nod. Hands go up.
Maybe you do something when you feel that way. Maybe some of you run and run, maybe some of you put your music on loud and dance and dance, maybe some of you . . . write?
Everyone always turns quiet. They nod. Maybe we all need a way out, a way to channel and calm and transform the giantness of what it is to be alive in a body in the world. I feel this poem in my very bones.
Thanking My Mother for Piano Lessons (excerpt), by Diane Wakoski
The relief of putting your fingers on the keyboard,
as if you were walking on the beach
and found a diamond
as big as a shoe;
as if
you had just built a wooden table
and the smell of sawdust was in the air,
your hands dry and woody;
as if
you had eluded
the man in the dark hat who had been following you
all week;
the relief
of putting your fingers on the keyboard
For more information about Diane Wakoski, please click here.
Alison McGhee 
Every time I try to comment on word press, to thank you for your marvelous messages,I enter that ethereal world of cyber error and failure. So I am needing to just send a note to tell you of the flawless perfection of what seems to be every post. Your words arrive like a horoscope that confirms what I didn’t know I knew or like a balm that finally works on that unbearable paper cut.
Thank you for your raw wisdom. Thank you for introducing me to many poets who are new to me.
You enrich the world
Carolyn Halliday
Sent from my iPhone
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Carolyn – wow. This is the most beautiful comment. I’m so grateful to you for writing. You just made my day. I’m so glad the posts are meaningful to you. XO
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