Poems for Your Weekend
Substack Poets Edition ✨
Dear Friends,
Last week, I invited members of the Poetry Today community to submit their own poems for a special round up of Poems for Your Weekend.
The thread was buzzing with over 200 comments, and it was an absolute joy to read your poems and watch you respond to each other. It took me a long while to decide which poems to include—so many stood out to me, but I gave myself the challenge of limiting the curation to 10 per my weekly post (and still ended up at 11). Please believe I could have included many more poems here—go back to the main thread to read all of the poems that were submitted.
Special thanks to
, , , , , , , , , , and for allowing me to share their wonderful poems with you today.I always say that the best part of community round ups like this is watching writers engage deeply with each other’s writing. Yes, we’re inspired when we pick up a Pulitzer winner’s collection, but we feel that magical potential when we read a lesser known, perhaps even unpublished poet who we recognize is doing something amazing. There’s a different kind of inspiration to be found by watching your peers write exquisite poems in real time. It’s such an important reminder that the writing we love, writing that may shape our own writing, is not only discovered between the pages of hardcover books.
Please follow and support our Substack poets after reading their wonderful work below. And as always, let me (and them!) know your favorite lines.
xM
Come work with me in Conscious Writers Collective, a community of dedicated poets and fiction writers who meet five times a month for live classes taught by me, publishing experts, & some of the best writers around. Joining CWC gives you access to 80+ hours of past classes & workshops, a feedback forum where you can regularly receive personalized feedback, & countless other community events & resources.
Guest teachers in Poetry this quarter: Chen Chen, Kimiko Hahn, Ruth Awad, Sarah Ghazal Ali, Jorie Graham, & Jane Hirshfield. Programming includes: Finding Our Resonant Sources; Japanese Forms to Tilt the Western Mind; The Art of Shaping Poems; Revision & Honesty; Poems as a Field of Discovery. ✨ Join CWC Poetry here✨
Our guest teachers in Fiction this quarter: Andre Dubus III, Chris Hood, Adam Dalva, Amit Majmudar, and Betsey Osborne. Programming will include: Beginning a Novel; Writing Historical Fiction; Strategies Fixing Plot Holes; Non-Fiction Techniques for Fiction Writers ✨ Join CWC Fiction here✨
Love that first poem
Brilliant use of Forever 21
And the triple use of “break”
And the conceit that the onlookers were peeking from her purse
What a beautiful collection you've assembled here, Maya! I loved sitting with each of these poems and am so grateful to have mine included. Wow, I don't even know where to begin on what resonated with me . . . everything!? I pretty much read every poem, thinking each time, oh THIS ONE, this is the poem I'm going to quote and mention in my comment. And now here I am with a dozen gorgeous lines swirling in my head and no ability to choose a favorite. I just went ahead and followed every poet here and subscribed to a few, as well.