Our January 6-11, 2025, Write Together session is now open for registration! I’d love to see you in the Zoom room. Click here for more information.

If I tell someone I’m working at Turtle Bread Bakery this morning, they often assume I have a part-time job there. Even though I’ve been writing novels in coffeeshops forever. Even though long ago I trained myself to say “working” instead of “writing.”

An artist’s next release, the new season of a favorite series, an actor’s next movie, a painter’s next exhibition, a writer’s new book. Next to food, clothing, and shelter, isn’t art –in all its forms– the one thing everyone craves?

Job Prescription, by Evie Shockley

will poetry change the world? no one asks
this about football, the thrill of watching or
playing. we get that nurses & doctors are
healers. no question that rabbis, priests, &

imams guide individuals & groups through
spiritual thickets. we don’t tell cooks to put
down their wooden spoons & go make a real
difference instead of a real soufflé. teachers

are honored for the learning they impart. so
let poets keep on exciting passion in them-
selves & others. don’t discourage us from our
efforts to diagnose the human heart or create

trail markers for those coming behind us on
this journey. trust me when i say that poetry
heals, guides, feeds, & enlivens. poetry may
not change the world, but might change you.

Click here for more information on Evie Shockley. Click here to listen to the audio version, read by the poet herself. This poem appeared on the American Academy of Poets website in 2024. 
alisonmcghee.com
My poetry podcast: Words by Winter