Poetry | Women's Voices For Change

Poetry Sunday: “Swimming to New Zealand,” by Diana Goetsch

By Rebecca Foust

"In all the flux, what remains unchanged is my passionate love for women. That love—along with the question, "Who would want to be with me?"—was my biggest fear when I decided to transition." —Diana Goetsch

Poetry

Poetry Sunday: “Little Epiphanies,” by Allison Joseph

By Rebecca Foust

Who doesn’t love a poem that trashes housekeeping in favor of epiphanies?

Poetry

Poetry Sunday: “Butterflies by a Lake,” by Sandra McPherson

By Rebecca Foust

“Butterflies by a Lake” is a lyric poem, one that captures an intense feeling at a moment in time. I love the poem for its simple eloquence and its ability to describe a beauty not apparent to others.

Poetry

Poetry Sunday: “Easter,” by Marie Howe

By Rebecca Foust

Have you ever paused before to think about what resurrection might mean, in excruciatingly human and biological terms, to the person being reborn? That is what “Easter” asks us to do.

Poetry

Poetry Sunday: “during the bombing of Kosovo,” by Alicia Ostriker

By Susan Cohen

Ostriker’s solution in "during the bombing of Kosovo" is to address the issue of timelessness itself—the way humans have slaughtered each other since the start.

Poetry

Poetry Sunday: “The Chill of Grace,” by Cathryn Shea

By Rebecca Foust

Climate is a character in this week’s poem, “The Chill of Grace,” by Cathryn Shea. By way of a literary device known as personification, it attributes human qualities to nature, making the wind, for example, into something capable of feeling emotion.

Poetry

Poetry Sunday: “Lament for Airports,” by Persis Karim

By Rebecca Foust

I chose today’s poem is that it accomplishes the goal of good political poetry—changing the hearts and minds of its readers—in a surprisingly positive way.

Poetry

Poetry Sunday: “Ars Poetica,” by Diane K. Martin

By Rebecca Foust

Today’s poem pays homage not just to its purported subject, Vivian Maier, but to all women, artists or not, whose creative work remains unknown.

Poetry

Poetry Sunday: “Instruction, Final: To Brown Poets from Black Girl with Silver Leica,” by Nikky Finney

By Rebecca Foust

Today’s poem is the last one in "Head Off & Split," a stunning collection that won the National Book Award in 2011, with poems that address the personal and the political as well as the intersection of the two.

Poetry

Poetry Sunday: “To the Women Poets,” by Kim Bridgford

By Rebecca Foust

I love the poem’s strong, brave assertions and authority in claiming a place for women poets in the pantheon of literary achievement.

Poetry

Poetry Sunday: “on issues of aliens, immigration and cosmology,” by Devorah Major

By Rebecca Foust

These are precarious times for immigrants in our country, one reason I was drawn to today’s poem, a somewhat metaphysical musing on what it means to be an immigrant, an alien, or any kind of “other” in the world.

Poetry

Poetry Sunday: “Patois,” by Lisa Allen Ortiz

By Susan Cohen

I call what Ortiz has done here semi-surreal because she presents enough concrete detail to ground us even as those flocks of words flit around dreamlike in their stunning aviary.

Poetry

Poetry Sunday: “Our Twenty-first Summer, Chimney Swifts,” by Christine Rhein

By Rebecca Foust

“Our Twenty-First Summer, Chimney Swifts” is an example of two great gifts poetry—appreciation for things often taken for granted and a genuine, deep consolation for the losses that affect us all.

Poetry

Poetry Sunday: “Clea’s Side of the Story,” by Roxane Beth Johnson

By Rebecca Foust

Today’s poem offers a part of the history widely ignored or sanitized in my generation’s schoolbooks: the enslavement of African Americans in this country.

Poetry

Poetry Sunday: “Meditation in Middle Age,” by Catherine Tufariello

By Rebecca Foust

We understand then, as the poet wants us to, that the change in vision that age affords is more than mere consolation; it is age, rather than youth, that is more beautiful and a thing to be valued, not feared.

Women's Voices For Change

Articles onPoetry

Poetry Sunday: “Swimming to New Zealand,” by Diana Goetsch

Poetry Sunday: “Little Epiphanies,” by Allison Joseph

Poetry Sunday: “Butterflies by a Lake,” by Sandra McPherson

Poetry Sunday: “Easter,” by Marie Howe

Poetry Sunday: “during the bombing of Kosovo,” by Alicia Ostriker

Poetry Sunday: “The Chill of Grace,” by Cathryn Shea

Poetry Sunday: “Lament for Airports,” by Persis Karim

Poetry Sunday: “Ars Poetica,” by Diane K. Martin

Poetry Sunday: “Instruction, Final: To Brown Poets from Black Girl with Silver Leica,” by Nikky Finney

Poetry Sunday: “To the Women Poets,” by Kim Bridgford

Poetry Sunday: “on issues of aliens, immigration and cosmology,” by Devorah Major

Poetry Sunday: “Patois,” by Lisa Allen Ortiz

Poetry Sunday: “Our Twenty-first Summer, Chimney Swifts,” by Christine Rhein

Poetry Sunday: “Clea’s Side of the Story,” by Roxane Beth Johnson

Poetry Sunday: “Meditation in Middle Age,” by Catherine Tufariello

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