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poetryisnotaluxury.bsky.social @poetryisnotaluxury.bsky.social · 1d

Katie Farris
From Standing In The Forest Of Being Alive, 2023.

Katie Farris

Why Write Love Poetry in a Burning World

To train myself to find in the midst of hell what isn't hell.

The body bald
cancerous but still
beautiful enough to
imagine living the body
washing the body
replacing a loose front
porch step the body chewing
what it takes to keep a body
going-

This scene has a tune
a language I can read a door
I cannot close I stand
within its wedge
a shield.

Why write love poetry in a burning world?
To train myself in the midst of a burning world
to offer poems of love to a burning world.

From Standing In The Forest Of Being Alive
@alicejamesbooks 2023.

poetryisnotaluxury.bsky.social @poetryisnotaluxury.bsky.social · 11d

Wild Geese by Mary Oliver

WILD GEESE by Mary Oliver

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine. Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting -
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

poetryisnotaluxury.bsky.social @poetryisnotaluxury.bsky.social · 14d

Rest in Peace & Power Assata Shakur
(July 16, 1947-September 25, 2025)

ASSATA SHAKUR
From Breakthrough: Political Journal, 1977.

poetryisnotaluxury.bsky.social @poetryisnotaluxury.bsky.social · 22d

We lived at the end of an empire.

Jim Moore
From Invisible Strings, 2011.

THOSE OTHERS by Jim Moore

We lived at the end of an empire.

Sometimes we gathered in huge auditoriums and tried to understand.
Our shame did not save us,
nor our sadness redeem us,
as we came to understand
how others, far into the future,
would look back at us,
shaking their heads: we hoped
in sorrow; more likely, anger.

From Invisible Strings
Graywolf, 2011

poetryisnotaluxury.bsky.social @poetryisnotaluxury.bsky.social · 25d

Grace Paley's Begin Again

poetryisnotaluxury.bsky.social @poetryisnotaluxury.bsky.social · 26d

my glorious welcoming

Those Days by Mary Oliver
From Thirst
Beacon Press, 2006

poetryisnotaluxury.bsky.social @poetryisnotaluxury.bsky.social · 28d

The tender things

Tennessee Williams

WE HAVE NOT LONG TO LOVE

We have not long to love.
Light does not stay.
The tender things are those
we fold away.

Coarse fabrics are the ones
for common wear.
In silence I have watched you
comb your hair.

Intimate the silence,
dim and warm.
I could, but did not,
reach to touch your arm.

I could, but do not, break
that which is still.
(Almost the faintest whisper
would be shrill.)

So moments pass as though
they wished to stay.
We have not long to love.
A night. A day....

#tennesseewilliams
(Mar 26, 1911-Feb 25, 1983)

poetryisnotaluxury.bsky.social @poetryisnotaluxury.bsky.social · Sep 5

From Linda Pastan's poem
The Months

Linda Pastan

September

Their summer romance
over, the lovers
still cling
to each other

the way the green
leaves cling
to their trees
in the strange heat

of September, as if
this time
there will be
no autumn.

Linda Pastan's poem The Months
from The Last Uncle, 2002.

poetryisnotaluxury.bsky.social @poetryisnotaluxury.bsky.social · Sep 1

let us be like the flowers

Grace Paley

September

Then the flowers became very wild
because it was early September
and they had nothing to lose
they tossed their colors every
which way over the garden wall
splattering the lawn shoving their
wild orange red rain-disheveled faces
into my window without shame

From Grace Paley / Begin Again

Collected Poems

Farrar Straus And Giroux, 2001.

poetryisnotaluxury.bsky.social @poetryisnotaluxury.bsky.social · Sep 1

After a summer

ALBA by The Jack Gilbert

After a summer with happy people,
I rush back, scared, gulping
down pain wherever I can get it.

From Collected Poems, 2012.

poetryisnotaluxury.bsky.social @poetryisnotaluxury.bsky.social · Aug 26

You Reading This, Be Ready

William Stafford

26 AUGUST

You Reading This, Be Ready

Starting here, what do you want to remember?

How sunlight creeps along a shining floor?

What scent of old wood hovers, what softened sound from outside fills the air?

Will you ever bring a better gift for the world than the breathing respect that you carry wherever you go right now? Are you waiting for time to show you some better thoughts?

When you turn around, starting here, lift this new glimpse that you found; carry into evening all that you want from this day. This interval you spent reading or hearing this, keep it for life-

What can anyone give you greater than now, starting here, right in this room, when you turn around?

From There's a Thread You Follow (Poems written in 1993) In the book The Way It Is Graywolf Press, 1998.

poetryisnotaluxury.bsky.social @poetryisnotaluxury.bsky.social · Aug 1

M.O. From Felicity, 2015.
#maryoliver
#august #poetry
#poertyisnotaluxury

THE POND by Mary Oliver

August of another summer, and once again
I am drinking the sun
and the lilies again are spread across the water.
I know now what they want is to touch each other.

I have not been here for many years
during which time I kept living my life.
Like the heron, who can only croak, who wishes
he could sing, I wish I could sing.
A little thanks from every throat would be appropriate.
This is how it has been, and this is how it is:
All my life I have been able to feel happiness,
except whatever was not happiness,
which I also remember.
Each of us wears a shadow.
But just now it is summer again
and I am watching the lilies bow to each other,
then slide on the wind and the tug of desire,
close, close to one another.
Soon now, I'll turn and start for home.
And who knows, maybe I'll be singing.

From Felicity
Penguin Books, 2015.

poetryisnotaluxury.bsky.social @poetryisnotaluxury.bsky.social · Jul 24

New anthology available now
Poetry Is Not A Luxury: Poems For All Season, 2025.
bookshop.org/p/books/poet...

poetryisnotaluxury.bsky.social @poetryisnotaluxury.bsky.social · Jul 24

Jim Moore
From Lighting At Dinner, 2005.

Against Empire by Jim Moore

Small olives taste best.
Small stars shine farthest.
Small birds call
most sweetly. Small lives,
we are small, small lives.

From Lighting At Dinner
graywolf press 2005.

poetryisnotaluxury.bsky.social @poetryisnotaluxury.bsky.social · Jul 16

yet how deeply

Izumi Shikibu

In this world
love has no color-
yet how deeply
my body
is stained by yours.

#izumishikibu
(976 AD-1030)

Translated by Jane Hirshfield with Mariko Aratani
From The Ink Dark Moon
Scribner, 1988.

poetryisnotaluxury.bsky.social @poetryisnotaluxury.bsky.social · Jul 11

Full moon 🌑

Jean Valentine

I'm going to sleep

I'm going to sleep now
in case you visit my dream

Full moon on your left temple
that nickel-size circle of whiter
skin under your straight black hair

I love it specially
as if it is my secret.
From before.

From Shirt In Heaven
copper canyon press, 2015.

#jeanvalentine
#poetryofferings
#poetryisnotaluxury
#fullmoon

poetryisnotaluxury.bsky.social @poetryisnotaluxury.bsky.social · Jul 10

Rest in Peace Fanny Howe

Fanny Howe's words mean everything. What a life of poetry she shared with us. A true legend.

I won't be able to write from the grave
so let me tell you what I love:
oil, vinegar, salt, lettuce, brown bread, butter, cheese and wine, a windy day, a fireplace,
the children nearby, poems and songs,
a friend sleeping in my bed-
and the short northern nights.

Forever Fanny Howe 💌
Grateful to have this poem
featured in the anthology
Poetry Is Not A Luxury:
Poems For All Seasons
washingtonsquarepress, 2025

poetryisnotaluxury.bsky.social @poetryisnotaluxury.bsky.social · Jul 10

this fragile life

To Hold by Li-Young Lee
From Behind My Eyes, 2008.

To Hold by Li-Young Lee

So we're dust. In the meantime, my wife and I make the bed. Holding opposite edges of the sheet, we raise it, billowing, then pull it tight, measuring by eye as it falls into alignment between us. We tug, fold, tuck. And if I'm lucky, she'll remember a recent dream and tell me.

One day we'll lie down and not get up. One day, all we guard will be surrendered.

Until then, we'll go on learning to recognize what we love, and what it takes to tend what isn't for our having. So often, fear has led me to abandon what I know I must relinquish in time. But for the moment, I'll listen to her dream, and she to mine, our mutual hearing calling more and more detail into the light of a joint and fragile keeping.

this fragile life, sending love
From Behind Eyes
wwnorton, 2008.

poetryisnotaluxury.bsky.social @poetryisnotaluxury.bsky.social · May 23

Be still sometimes.

Rose Cook
A Poem for Someone Who Is Juggling Her Life

This is a poem for someone
who is juggling her life.
Be still sometimes.
Be still sometimes.

It needs repeating
over and over
to catch her attention
over and over,
because someone juggling her life
finds it difficult to hear.

Be still sometimes.
Be still sometimes.
Let it all fall sometimes.

From Rose Cook’s Notes From a Bright Field
Cultured Llama, 2013.

poetryisnotaluxury.bsky.social @poetryisnotaluxury.bsky.social · May 18

WELLNESS CHECK
#poertyisnotaluxury

WELLNESS CHECK by Andrea Gibson

In any moment,
on any given day,
I can measure
my wellness
by this question:

Is my attention on loving,
or is my attention on
who isn't loving me?

From You Better Be Lightning
Button Poetry, 2021.
#poertyisnotaluxury

poetryisnotaluxury.bsky.social @poetryisnotaluxury.bsky.social · May 14

May I hold you while you fall apart?

Jacqueline Suskin

I Am Not Alone Here

May I hold you while you fall apart?
As if I were a sacrifice.
Be a cradle, if you can. See how soft
you can make your body
so I can land somewhere other than
the reliable home of myself.
What comfort is there
in this decaying world
but kind hands, gentle on my skin?

From The Verse For Now
Flower Press, 2025
This book is the place to be💚

poetryisnotaluxury.bsky.social @poetryisnotaluxury.bsky.social · May 7

Audre Lorde

From Poetry Is Not A Luxury: Poems For All Seasons
Atria, 2025

Audre Lorde

Coping

It has rained for five days
running
the world is
a round puddle
of sunless water
where small islands
are only beginning
to cope
a young boy
in my garden
is bailing out water
from his flower patch
when I ask him why
he tells me
young seeds that have not seen sun
forget
and drown easily.

From Poetry Is Not A Luxury: Poems For All Seasons
Atria, 2025
& The Collected Poems of Audre Lorde,
Norton, 1997.

Reposted

sophie klahr @sophieklahr.bsky.social · Apr 28

Grateful to be included in this beautiful anthology from @poetryisnotaluxury.bsky.social : bookshop.org/p/books/poet...

Reposted

Jess Traynor @jesstraynor.bsky.social · May 1

Such a pleasure to be sharing space with Ursula K. Le Guin in the beautiful @poetryisnotaluxury.bsky.social anthology ✨️✨️✨️
@bloodaxebooks.bsky.social

poetryisnotaluxury.bsky.social @poetryisnotaluxury.bsky.social · May 4

#maryoliver

May by Mary Oliver

May, and among the miles of leafing
blossoms storm out of the darkness -
earth. windflowers and moccasin flowers. The bees
dive into them and I too, to gather
their spiritual honey. Mute and meek, yet theirs
is the deepest certainty that this existence too -this sense of well-being, the flourishing of the physical body - rides
near the hub of the miracle that everything
is a part of, is as good
as a poem or a prayer, can also make luminous any dark place on earth.

From American Primitive
Little Brown Back Bay, 1983