“A poem’s not a thing” – Some recent poetry publications

hands holding head of newborn
~ Lory

I’ve continued to send out my poems to online and print publications, and I’m thrilled that some of them have been published in the last few months.

Here are links to poems you can read online:

  • “Time Change” – poem in Amethyst Review
  • “Mother” – a poem in The Way Back To Ourselves (previously published here on the blog)
  • “Reunion” – prose poem in Verse/Virtual (product of a recent 100-word story writing challenge)
  • “Caught” – poem in Heart of Flesh Literary Journal

And two with a paywall:

  • “Annunciation” – poem in Solum Journal (99 cent download)
  • “A Poem’s Not a Thing” and “A Story,” – two poems in Time of Singing (a quarterly print journal, $18 per year)

Here is my sonnet “A poem’s not a thing,” for your fee-free enjoyment. Thank you as always for reading.

A poem’s not a thing, a sharp machine
That clanks and moves according to the law
Of physics, speaking only through a screen
And rendered mute by some mechanic flaw.
Still less is it an illusive, lovely dream
Made in the image of my own desire,
Falseness that wears the mask of truth, to seem
Convincing till consumed by honest fire.
A poem is a child, and I must bear
Her weight until she’s ready to come out,
Protecting her with walls of silence where
She meditates her own triumphant shout.
And you – the father, lover, listener?
Get ready … here she comes … you’re catching her…
hands holding head of newborn
Photo by Tanaya Sadhukhan on Pexels.com
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5 thoughts on ““A poem’s not a thing” – Some recent poetry publications”

  2. Congratulations; it must be so exciting to have your poems accepted for print, and know they are going out into the world to touch and delight those who read them. I love your sonnet on birthing a poem, and the fact that you (or the poem?) chose sonnet form as its vehicle. While I have come to appreciate free verse far more than I did when I was younger, I greatly enjoy the flow and structure of traditional forms, and the pleasure of seeing how the poet plays with rhyme and meter as well as meaning and imagery.

    1. Thank you so much, I am honored to have some of my poems chosen for publication. I also enjoy traditional forms. I was surprised to hear a popular poet who teaches workshops and has a podcast declare formal poetry completely out of the question: “People don’t want rhyming poems! They hate them!” Maybe she doesn’t like them, and there are definitely bad and hackneyed ones, but working with rhyme and other form elements still speaks to a deep part of us and I don’t think it will ever truly go out of date. (I stopped listening to that podcast by the way, I could not take her seriously as a poet after that.)

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