A Year of Being Here

Though this online project ended on January 1, 2016, I'm happy to announce that it has led to the creation of a print anthology. Grayson Books will publish Poetry of Presence: An Anthology of M...

https://www.ayearofbeinghere.com/2017/06/a-year-of-being-here-leads-to.html

Friends, I'm not a poet. But for today, as we mark the end of A Year of Being Here (and the start of 2016), I've written you a poem. It was the best gesture of gratitude I could think to offer...

https://www.ayearofbeinghere.com/2016/01/phyllis-cole-dai-on-how-to-pick-and-eat.html

It is a good word, rolling off the tongue; no matter what language you were born with use it. Learn where it begins, the small alphabet of departure, how long it takes to think of it,...

https://www.ayearofbeinghere.com/2015/12/naomi-shihab-nye-adios.html

I have lived restricted for so many years the days they vanish the years disappear One day I feel from the ocean a breeze It warms my inside and melts my ice There are doors forgotten...

https://www.ayearofbeinghere.com/2015/12/kjell-walfridsson-restricted-living.html

Happy news for Beth Markow of Brunswick, Maine (USA). She has been randomly selected as the final recipient in our End-of-Project Giveaway. Her gift will be The Selected Poems of Wendell Berry...

https://www.ayearofbeinghere.com/2015/12/curators-note-giveaway-winner-10.html

When you lose someone you love, Your life becomes strange, The ground beneath you gets fragile, Your thoughts make your eyes unsure; And some dead echo drags your voice down Where words ...

https://www.ayearofbeinghere.com/2015/12/john-odonohue-for-grief.html

The best way to conduct oneself may be observed in the behavior of water. —Tao te ching When given a place to wait, it fills that place By taking the shape of what contains it, Its upper...

https://www.ayearofbeinghere.com/2015/12/david-wagoner-lessons-of-water.html

Happy news for Lauri Warren of Chapel Hill, North Carolina (USA). She has been randomly selected as a recipient in our End-of-Project Giveaway. Her gift will be A Thousand Mornings by Mary Oli...

https://www.ayearofbeinghere.com/2015/12/curators-note-giveaway-winner-9.html

It seems we have made pain some kind of mistake, like having it is somehow wrong. Don’t let them fool you— pain is a part of things. But remember, dear Ellie, the compost dow...

https://www.ayearofbeinghere.com/2015/12/teddy-macker-poem-for-my-daughter.html

Happy news for T.L. of Minnesota (USA), who says he doesn't think he has ever won anything until now! He has been randomly selected as a recipient in our End-of-Project Giveaway. His gift will...

https://www.ayearofbeinghere.com/2015/12/curators-note-giveaway-winner-8.html

The clear bead at the center changes everything. There are no edges to my loving now. You've heard it said there's a window that opens from one mind to another, but if there's no wall,...

https://www.ayearofbeinghere.com/2015/12/jalal-ad-din-muhammad-rumi-untitled.html

  It's so delicate, the light. And there's so little of it. The dark is huge. Just delicate needles, the light, in an endless night. And it has such a long way to go through such desola...

https://www.ayearofbeinghere.com/2015/12/rolf-jacobsen-just-delicate-needles.html

  I am struck by the otherness of things rather than their sameness. The way a tiny pile of snow perches in the crook of a branch in the tall pine, away by itself, high enough not to be not...

https://www.ayearofbeinghere.com/2015/12/tom-hennen-looking-for-differences.html

Happy news for Kay Aitch of Sebastopol, California (USA)! She has been randomly selected as a recipient in our End-of-Project Giveaway. Her gift will be Selected Poems (Barbara Crooker). Kay...

https://www.ayearofbeinghere.com/2015/12/curators-note-giveaway-winner-7.html

Last night as always I called Bruce although he is the best telephone person I know he nearly always says Can I Call You Back because he is Doing Something. Last night he was cutti...

https://www.ayearofbeinghere.com/2015/12/esther-cohen-can-i-call-you-back.html

These are dark times. Rumors of war rise like smoke in the east. Drought widens its misery. In the west, glittering towers collapse in a pillar of ash and dust. Peace, a small white bird,...

https://www.ayearofbeinghere.com/2015/12/barbara-crooker-solstice.html

Happy news for Jane Spickett of Arlington, Massachusetts (USA)! She has been randomly selected as a recipient in our End-of-Project Giveaway. Her gift will be Red Suitcase (Naomi Shihab Nye). ...

https://www.ayearofbeinghere.com/2015/12/curators-note-giveaway-winner-6.html

It is hard to have hope. It is harder as you grow old, for hope must not depend on feeling good and there is the dream of loneliness at absolute midnight. You also have withdrawn belief in...

https://www.ayearofbeinghere.com/2015/12/wendell-berry-2007-vi-it-is-hard-to.html

Guilt is a bag someone has carried up the hill from the pub.  A brown bag the size of a good catch, or darkish, and bigger than that: duffel over the shoulder. Guilt is a pool wi...

https://www.ayearofbeinghere.com/2015/12/marlene-cookshaw-over-shoulder.html

Happy news for Christopher Bellonci of Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts (USA)! He has been randomly selected as a recipient in our End-of-Project Giveaway. His gift will be The Book of the World: A ...

https://www.ayearofbeinghere.com/2015/12/curators-note-giveaway-winner-5.html

Today we have a selection of haiga (illustrated haiku) submitted by Ron C. Moss, an award-winning visual artist and poet from Tasmania, Australia. Ron has been published in numerous journals ...

https://www.ayearofbeinghere.com/2015/12/ron-c-moss-selection-of-haiga.html

I stepped from Plank to Plank A slow and cautious way The Stars about my Head I felt About my Feet the Sea. I knew not but the next Would be my final inch— This gave me that precario...

https://www.ayearofbeinghere.com/2015/12/emily-dickinson-875-i-stepped-from.html

Happy news for H.J. of Norfolk, Virginia (USA)! She has been randomly selected as a recipient in our End-of-Project Giveaway. Her gift will be Ask Me: 100 Essential Poems (William Stafford). H...

https://www.ayearofbeinghere.com/2015/12/curators-note-giveaway-winner-4.html

The day lengthens, the old earth tips its hat to the moon. The changeful moon goes through many phases, even in a single night, though it is the same moon as ever, we know t...

https://www.ayearofbeinghere.com/2015/12/frederick-smock-moon.html

Happy news for Kevin F. of Seattle, Washington (USA)! He has been randomly selected as a recipient in our End-of-Project Giveaway. His gift will be A Year with Hafiz: Daily Contemplations (Danie...

https://www.ayearofbeinghere.com/2015/12/curators-note-giveaway-winner-3.html