Poetry Week
Digging Deep Into Why We Need Poetry
Hello, dear readers.
I know the title of this post might sound misleading: it’s not national poetry month (or poetry week, for that matter), but right now, at Laguna Writers, we’re getting deep into poetry.
It all began with a wonderful documentary about Mary Oliver, arguably one of the best-known poets in the United States. I was able to see this the documentary, Saved by the Beauty of the World, at the Roxie Cinema in San Francisco. If you can make it there, please go. It’s been extended until August 19th (see showtimes here). You can also access t on the PBS website or app: it premieres there August 25th. To learn more about the tone of the film, see the short trailer below.
Some of you may know that Oliver wrote beautifully about the natural world. For her, it was almost like a religion. But she wasn’t just a hippie wandering the woods. This documentary addresses how the natural world was a kind of salvation for her, especially after memories of abuse in her childhood resurfaced when she was a young woman. Poetry, the film seems to argue, can help us survive.
I also found Oliver’s struggle as an artist compelling: she didn’t become well-known—or widely published—until she was well into her 40’s. At times, she and her life-long partner, Molly Malone Cook, ate what they could forage from the beaches and forests in Provincetown, MA.
Poetry can help us survive.
While I was in Provincetown in May, I discovered a new book by another favorite poet: Against Breaking, by Ada Limón. Limón was the US poet laureate from 2022-2025. I have loved Limón’s poetry for a while, but this book is something new: an essay. You can click on the image below to learn more.
Her poetic voice is evident as ever in her prose, and she makes an interesting argument for why we need poetry, and how it connects us to others in some surprising ways. Especially interesting to me are her descriptions about the collaborative efforts she made to place poetry in several of our national parks. It’s a quick read (50+ pages), and a great thought-provoking gift for any of the fellow poets in your life. (Or just grab one for yourself!)
The title of the book comes from the Emily Dickinson poem below.
If I can stop one heart from breaking by Emily Dickinson If I can stop one heart from breaking, I shall not live in vain; If I can ease one life the aching, Or cool one pain, Or help one fainting robin Unto his nest again, I shall not live in vain.
Poetry connects us to others in surprising ways.
And to top it all off, this week I received feedback on my very first manuscript of poems. I’ve published over a dozen poems in my life as a writer, and decided I wanted to enter them—as well as some new poems—in a few chapbook contests, so I’ve spent the summer working on revising them. “I didn’t even know you wrote poetry,” a few fellow poets recently said, so I’m coming out about it now. You can enjoy a playful one here (excuse the weird formatting in the archive). I’m also including another one below.
This is all to say, get out there and enjoy some poetry! And perhaps get inspired to write a poem yourself. One prompt that might help is this throwback from my old blog (The Catalyst). I call the prompt, “The Braided Exercise,” and it produces some very interesting metaphors. You can write a prose poem, like I did, with this prompt, and even play with breaking it into lines and stanzas, if you’d like to.
However you decide to get your poetry fix, my hope is that you’ll be inspired, as the poets I mentioned above have inspired me. And if you want MORE inspiration, join us at Laguna Writers this fall for any of the new upcoming workshops (or new retreats in 2027).
Until then, keep writing and reading. You (also) inspire me.
midwestern childhood by Christopher P. Delorenzo in winter I was my own playmate lying in the snow covered slope of the early morning yard still untouched making lonely angels against the cold white sky or sliding on the ice covered walk toward a dark, frozen drain well windows glowed with the promise of spring snow on my birthday hollyhocks blossomed into towers of pastel and white as I drowned helpless ants in rain filled potholes the dead pear tree remained fruitless, shriveled and brittle black. lightening bugs blinked silent summer orange I called the roaring cicadas the locust and only noticed them when they were quiet climbed so high above the sweet rot of crabapple trees I was afraid to come down come down from tiny birds in a crowded nest who wore grey tufts of chick feathers like pompadours on their slick black heads yellow orange beaks flew from the littered edge of the nest hard white to the cool, dark ground below I had to hold the dog back from devouring them in autumn we put the dog to sleep and I cried like I had lost a brother watched my sister get stoned for the first time her laughing hands dug deep into a box of wheat thins I hid from the mysterious howling power of tornadoes did a backhand-spring on a ragged patch of lawn my mother's clapping still burns my ears we had Helen Reddy on 8-track but I still stacked albums on the green plastic stereo in the basement and only recently remembered the joy of riding down the backyard hill without training wheels flying alone for my first time adolescence came too soon after by that time I had forgotten how to fly. (published in The Rockhurst Review, Spring 1999)
Love this poem so much! Thank you for the inspiration!