Dear Friends,
Apologies for the long pause. I’ve been traveling most of June, and it proved trickier than I expected to find time for the pleasure of putting together this newsletter.
I’ve been in the U.K. for readings (six in under two weeks). It was a joy, as it always is, reading and connecting with readers. U.K. summers are magical—wildflowers everywhere, honeyed days that seem unwilling to pass the baton to night. The sky begins to lighten almost as soon as the sun has set.
Here I am in what feels like my natural habitat:
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Back when I was a student here, I’d often arrive in Oxford just in time for the summer solstice, which also happens to be ball season (one year, I danced with a cardboard cutout of Shakespeare—yes, someone has a photo of this, and if I find it, I’ll share it).
On another occasion, I remember trying to fall asleep after a long journey, only to be reminded that the sun sets well after 10 pm, and that colleges set off fireworks at midnight. I’ll never forget the sight of boys in tuxes and girls in gowns lining up for kebabs in the wee hours.
It was wonderful to be back.
I also had the thrill of meeting members of my online writing community (yes, yes, I’m obsessed with CWC) in person (hi!
and !), who came to readings at LRB, St Mary’s, and Oxford. I was so touched by this. Community is central to everything I try and hope to build. Watching them meet each other for the first time was moving in a way that’s hard to articulate. It’s a privilege to facilitate writers doing their work and supporting each other. I never, ever forget how lucky I am to get to do this “work,” which really just feels like a gift I give myself.Ok, that’s my personal update! Please share your own! And without further ado, some superb summer poems beginning with one of my *favorite* poems of all time: “Adlestrop” by Edward Thomas. It’s a quiet poem about nothing much happening that captures the spirit of English summers to me. It has a careful luminosity that’s hard to summarize. I hope it speaks to you, too.
As always, let me know which poems resonated most and which were new to you. I always love when you suggest others/include your own, so please feel free to do so!
Glad to be back here!
xM
✨ Doors to my writing community, Conscious Writers Collective, open again on August 1. Designed as an MFA alternative (or a bridge for post-MFA), we’re a group of writers who meet five times a month for classes taught by me, publishing experts, and some of the best writers around (Pádraig Ó Tuama is our July visiting writer!). 30+ hours of past craft classes and workshops you can watch at your own pace, a forum devoted to Q&As on publishing, and an area to swap writing with members for feedback. Come uplevel your writing life in a uniquely supportive & constructive community. Enrollment is limited. Join the waitlist here. ✨
I so very much love poems like
MIDSUMMER, TOBAGO
with lines like
days that outgrow,
like daughters,
my harboring arms
that capture in a moment,
the infinity of the universe displayed in each display of the dance of ecstasy and agony, birth and death
Walcott's "daughter/harboring" near-rhyme is amazing.