Saturday Poetry – ‘Heart to Heart’ by Rita Dove This week’s Saturday Poetry brings you the soul-stirring poem titled ‘Heart to Heart’ by Rita Dove. She is the author of numerous collections of poetry, Rita Dove served as the US Poet Laureate from 1993 to 1995 and as a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets from 2005 to 2011. She explains her thoughts behind this poem, ‘how to find words for the human heart and all the emotions we ascribe to it? The path is a veritable minefield of clichés—those well-intentioned, once-fresh expressions whose very popularity has rendered them useless, even laughable. I decided to take these tired metaphors…

Saturday Poetry – ‘Untitled for a Reason’ by Tara Betts This week’s Saturday Poetry brings you the soul-stirring poem titled ‘Untitled for a Reason’ by Tara Betts. She is a Black American poet and the author of Refuse to Disappear (Word Works Books, 2022); Break the Habit (Trio House Press, 2016); and the chapbook 7 x 7: kwansabas (Backbone Press, 2015). She lives in Chicago. When asked what this poem is about, she expressed “so, when I was writing this poem, I was talking to someone who I knew there was no way I could ever be with in the way that I had hoped. Even though it was clear, it…

Saturday Poetry – ‘An Act of Love’ by Tommye Blount This week’s Saturday Poetry brings you the soul-stirring poem titled ‘An Act of Love’ by Saturday Poetry – ‘An Act of Love’ by Tommye Blount. He was born and raised in Detroit. He holds an MFA from Warren Wilson College, and is the author of Fantasia for the Man in Blue (Four Way Books, 2020), a finalist for the National Book Award, and the chapbook What Are We Not For (Bull City Press, 2016). Blount is the recipient of scholarships and fellowships from Kresge Arts in Detroit and the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference. In 2023, he received a Whiting Award in…

Saturday Poetry – ‘Grow’ by Ruth Ellen Kocher This week’s Saturday Poetry brings you the soul-stirring poem titled ‘Grow’ by Ruth Ellen Kocher. She is the author of several poetry collections, including godhouse (Omnidawn Press, 2023); Third Voice (Tupelo Press, 2016); domina Un/blued (Tupelo Press, 2013), winner of the PEN Open Book Award and the Dorset Prize; and Desdemona’s Fire (Lotus Press, 1999), winner of the Naomi Long Madgett Award for African American Poets. Describing this poem, she said “at the end of 2020, I conquered some big life goals and looked forward to my future. But 2021 brought the end of a cherished friendship, then my marriage. In November,…

Saturday Poetry – ‘I Love You’ by Sara Teasdale This week’s Saturday Poetry brings you the soul-stirring poem titled ‘I Love You’ by Sara Teasdale. Sara Trevor Teasdale was born on August 8, 1884, in St. Louis, into an old, established, and devout family. She was home-schooled until she was nine and traveled frequently to Chicago, where she became part of the circle surrounding Poetry magazine and Harriet Monroe. Teasdale published Sonnets to Duse, and Other Poems (The Poet Lore Company), her first volume of verse, in 1907. Her second collection, Helen of Troy, and Other Poems (G. P. Putnam’s Sons), followed in 1911, and her third, Rivers to the…

Saturday Poetry – ‘Curious and Counting’ by Arisa White This week’s Saturday Poetry brings you the soul-stirring poem titled ‘Curious and Counting’ by Arisa White.  She explains “I came across this poem in a journal from October 2016. I was amused with its music and strange imagery—so intimate and precise and resonant with historical and religious referents. The poem invites you to be curious and to enjoy the sensations and wonder that it evokes.” Arisa White is the author of Who’s Your Daddy (Augury Books, 2021). A Cave Canem fellow, White serves on the board of directors for Foglifter and Nomadic Press, and is an assistant professor of English and…

Saturday Poetry – ‘She Told Me the Earth Loves Us’ by Anne Haven McDonnell This week’s Saturday Poetry brings you the soul-stirring poem titled ‘She Told Me the Earth Loves Us’ by Anne Haven McDonnell.  She is the author of Breath on a Coal (Middle Creek Press, 2022) and Living with Wolves (Split Rock Press, 2020). She teaches creative writing and climate justice at the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe. For this edition of Saturday Poetry, we have paired Haven McDonnell’s emotive words with mobile art by the talented @c.serrano.photography with the captivating artwork complementing the poem’s essence beautifully, creating a symphony of emotions. To view the others we have published…

Saturday Poetry – ‘Grow’ by Ruth Ellen Kocher This week’s Saturday Poetry brings you the soul-stirring poem titled ‘Grow’ by Ruth Ellen Kocher. Kocher is the author of several poetry collections, including Third Voice (Tupelo Press, 2016), Ending in Planes (Noemi Press, 2014), and Goodbye Lyric: The Gigans and Lovely Gun (Sheep Meadow Press, 2014). She lives in Colorado. About this poem, she said “At the end of 2020, I conquered some big life goals and looked forward to my future. But 2021 brought the end of a cherished friendship, then my marriage. In November, I found myself in an ambulance on my way to life-saving surgery for a cervical spinal abscess.…

Saturday Poetry – ‘It Begins With the Trees’ by Ada Limón This week’s Saturday Poetry brings you the soul-stirring poem titled ‘It Begins With the Trees’ by Ada Limón. She is the author of The Carrying (Milkweed Editions, 2018) and Bright Dead Things (Milkweed Editions, 2015), which was a finalist for the National Book Award. Limón’s first collection of poetry, Lucky Wreck (Autumn House Press, 2006), was the winner of the 2005 Autumn House Poetry Prize. She is also the author of The Hurting Kind (Milkweed Editions, 2022); The Carrying (Milkweed Editions, 2018); Bright Dead Things (Milkweed Editions, 2015), which was a finalist for the National Book Award; Sharks in the Rivers (Milkweed Editions, 2010); and This Big Fake World (Pearl Editions,…