News

What decisions have been most critical to my success? What is the biggest lesson I’ve learned? And the other biggest lesson? Who has influenced my life in poetry more than anyone else? Those are some of the questions in this article featured in Shoutout Colorado on October 4, 2022, as …

For the last few years, my wonderful friend Christie Aschwanden and I have been co-hosting a podcast on creative process, Emerging Form. We were recently named as finalists in the “Moment of Calm Unflappability” category of the International Women’s Podcast Awards. The award was, in specific, responding to a podcast recorded …

Something in me recoils at the word favorite–I have so many favorites. I have what we call in my family “Grandma-Betty-itis.” Grandma Betty was famous for saying “This is the best ________ I have ever ______.” (Fill in the blanks appropriately: This is the best cake I have ever eaten. …

Where to go when our heart is raw and our limbs are tired? When our bones and brittle and the landscapes barren, are there fat raindrops that wash away the pain? Can the scratch of our pen against plain white paper bring us hope when conversations seem senseless? Join Kara …

What a sweet surprise when a friend sent me a link to this article in Book Riot that quotes from “Simple Tools,” a poem about learning from a spatula. The author says, Remembering this poem breaks me out of the stress cycle whirring in my mind. It reminds me that …

A great new poetry audio program kicked off with one of Rosemerry’s poems. Let’s hear it for “Poetry Snaps!” Hosted by poet and storyteller Steven Law. Rosemerry talks briefly about writing the poem “Big” and then reads it. Big This is, perhaps, the year to learn to be big. Spruce …

Your perspective matters. How you see the world—the way you meet even the smallest moment—affects everyone and everything in the world around you. The stories you tell yourself and others create the big conversation—what are we doing here? What does it mean to be alive? But practically speaking, how do …

How might openness, connection and compassion grow from grief? That’s what I explore in three poems published today in the wonderful ONE ART: a journal of poetry. In addition to our country’s history with 9/11, it would have been my son Finn’s 18th birthday today. For all who are grieving, …

The journey of self-compassion can be one of the hardest journeys of all. And I love the ways that Lizzie Winn and Justin Wise discuss it in practical and poetic terms in their podcast Turning Towards Life.  In this episode, they use one of my poems, “Above the Paradox Valley,” …

How does hope influence our lives? I think about how Vincent van Gogh put so much hope into the home where he planned to live and paint with Paul Gaugin, and I love the art that was made in these hope-rich days before the visit went sour. That’s the theme …