This post features poems from each of the Headliners of the 13th Annual New York City Poetry Festival: Ilya Kaminsky, Safia Elhillo, Kazim Ali & Katie Farris.
Carve out some you-time and head down to this month’s PTW spot & give this Prompt a free write.
Although Black History Month is coming to a close, we must remember that the influence of Black art and culture in the poetry world and the world beyond deserves acknowledgment and utmost appreciation 24/7/365.
twenty-one ways to prosper as a child of a dying world | Clickbait is a blog designed to shamelessly attract attention to poetry. Using devices typically reserved for online “clickbait” like listicles, how-to’s, trending topics, SEO, hashtags, hyperlinks, hyperbole, sensationalism, puff, and fluff, the poets at The Poetry Society of New York are having a little fun.
Ten Poet Pairs Who Would Have Been Best Friends If They Were Born in the Same Period | Clickbait is a blog designed to shamelessly attract attention to poetry. Using devices typically reserved for online “clickbait” like listicles, how-to’s, trending topics, SEO, hashtags, hyperlinks, hyperbole, sensationalism, puff, and fluff, the poets at The Poetry Society of New York are having a little fun.
Ahh, the fresh scent of a new year— it smells like warm mud in a region that should be blanketed with snow. There’s much to wonder about as we step into 2025, and a curious public continues to ask Google all the biggest questions. Here are five of the major topics on our collective minds, per Google Trends.
On the night of November 5th and into the early morning hours of the 6th, I obsessively googled presidential election results. When all was said and done, 76,394,853 U.S. voters collectively elected Donald Trump, while 76,203,140 voted for other candidates— a difference of 191,713, or roughly the population of Mobile, Alabama. According to Exploding Topics, more people in the U.S. googled Fox News in November than any other news source, and I suspect a correlation.
As the days wore on, search trends shifted while many of us remained stuck in our feelings. Here are a few of the month’s highlights, each accompanied by a poem.
1. Mike Tyson, Muhammad Ali, and Evander Holyfield
Growing up, I often watched boxing matches with my dad, whose own father had been a Golden Gloves champion (stripped of his title for lying about his age to compete). My grandpa taught me a thing or two about the “sweet science” and left me with his old leather gloves and speed bag. Even if you don’t follow boxing, you’ll likely recognize some of the famous names that appear in November’s trending search list: apparently Mike Tyson is making a comeback.
In deference to the hardknock lives of many fighters, James McKean penned “Elegy for an Old Boxer.”
2. Bluesky Social
I’ve seen a few Teslas with bumper stickers that read, “I bought it before we knew Elon was crazy.” Talk about buyer’s remorse. Elon Musk generates strong feelings. Combining unpopular policies with less popular friendships, Musk recently prompted a mass exodus from X (formerly Twitter).
Personally, I never understood Twitter so it’s all the same to me. Others are flocking to a network called Bluesky. Thus, it felt appropriate that Kema Alabi simultaneously evokes the sky and harkens back to Donald Trump’s first electoral victory in their poem, “Undelivered Message to the Sky: November 9, 2016.”
Read “Undelivered Message to the Sky: November 9, 2016” by Kema Alabi
3. Coastal Flood Warning
Much of the east coast faced potential flooding mid-month due to abnormally high tides. Climate catastrophe is wreaking havoc. Where I live, we are experiencing severe drought and wildfires, which are atypical for the area. The undercurrent of natural disaster brings to mind “Gills” by Rain Prud’homme-Cranford.
Give us salinity to float in the betweens.
Surrender to flood waters.
4. Aliens in the Ocean
What in the world? When I saw this phrase on the list, I had to explore. Somehow, recent pentagon reports on unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAPs) have certain lawmakers and politicians (and probably members of the general public) convinced that there are aliens in the ocean. Admittedly, most deep sea creatures appear awfully alien to us land dwellers.
Leave it to Aimee Nezhukumatathil to have a poem about sea animals at the ready.
5. The Onion
The Onion is buying InfoWars. That sentence almost-sort-of means something to me. The Onion has been a staple in my life; InfoWars is decidedly less familiar (but it doesn’t sound great).
There are a surprising number of poems about onions. Although I guess it didn’t surprise me too much— I chose The Onion from the trending search list on suspicion of poetry. It’s the layers. There’s Naomi Shihab Nye’s “The Traveling Onion,” and Juan Felippe Herrera’s “Jackrabbits, Green Onions & Witch’s Stew,” but I wanted to share “Monologue for an Onion” by Suji Kwock Kim because of that whole layer thing.
In December, I will search for snow— to ease the wildfires in my home state, and because I simply love it.
Writer Bio: Allisonn Church was born in a small rural community to a mother who pinned butterflies in glass cases and hid scarab beetles in her jewelry box. Her first favorite poem was “The Willow Fairy”’ by Cicely Mary Barker. Find a list of Allisonn's published work at churchpoems.wordpress.com.
Feeling a bit out of sorts? Craving an extra hour of sleep or an extra square foot of pillow space to get those poetic beats afoot? You’re in luck! The end of Daylight-Saving Time can kick-start a whole lot more than shut eye. Open those dusty notebooks, the same ones that have been collecting hours of unrealized, punctuated plot lines and prepare to recharge your creative battery.
Set aside a few minutes in between hours coming and going and follow these recommendations
to fall back—fall back into poeting!
Pause and reflect. Where do you draw your energy? Toss the freshly plumped pillow aside. Get
outside and write amidst leaves and the isolated, lingering summer breeze. Inhale. Exhale.
Breath. Collect stanzas, like a season to relish as the Earth spins, like weeds. Prepare for a coming season of inspiring poetic pauses. Gather pencils. Rake through drafts in progress. Count syllables and growth in poetic production alongside rings on a favorite tree’s waistline.
Freshen up your writing rooms—from tree stumps to kitchen nooks, to cherished corners with
drawers to boot. Boost your posture. Dust off bunnies and clear out rabbit holes. To ensure all
draft progress consistently, flip sheets of paper regularly. Debris from dusty ideas, inadvertent rhymes, and stale verbs accumulate in drafts over time. Apply a deep cleaning when revisiting. Spot-clean syllable pairs and poetic devices like alliteration, assonance, and repetition.
Lace up soles to reconnect with inner souls. Consider hands-free voice to text meandering. Metaphors proliferate in natural settings. Apply fresh scents—whether pumpkin spice, apple cider, or an autumnal flower to infuse even fresher sense in a poetic response to nature (and natural longings to create).
Check expiration dates carefully before discarding. Cans of half-baked ideas, themes, and
recollections can sometimes still surprise. Air-tight, vacuum-sealed notions of descriptive
phrasing and the human condition have a surprisingly long shelf-life.
Remember that proper nutrition depends on a balanced diet. Stock up on strong verbs, concrete
nouns, and sharp adjectives. Adverbs? Use with discretion. Check all filters for seasonal imagery.
Call in reinforcements if you need assistance navigating an unexpectedly heavy theme.
Clear your workspace of stale piles (whether “to-be-read” or on reserve) that have accumulated
since the last check on batteries, fuel, and remaining word counts. Before discarding, check for
fruitful reserves. It’s possible to secure 100% pure juice if directions are reversed. Wave (and weave) vacuum wands like a fairy would. Suck out layers of lint and hyperbole heavy of distracting dust to reveal a poem’s true worth.
Take a moment to replenish supplies. From ballpoint pens with fresh ink to rudimentary No. 2. pencils with freshly sharpened points. Check the batteries in your musical (and poetic) devices. Fill bowls with nourishing personification, proper names, and nuggets of inspiration—vary word choice and include vitamins from A to Z. Many nuts (like poetry!) are known to promote creativity and supercharge brain activity. Whether your vice is coffee, cheese, or candy—consume in moderation to best promote idea longevity.
Remember: Flames can spark spontaneously. Keep journals, diaries, and napkins handy. If
you’ve depleted your emergency stock of lined paper (enjambment highly encouraged), colored
pencils (Troll-tips recommended), and Pinterest-inspiration (vision boards are rarely boring),
prioritize thirty-minutes to restock (support obscure pocket parks and avoid the Amazon, if
possible).
Writer Bio: Jen Schneider (she/her/hers) is a community college educator who lives, works, and writes in small spaces in and around Philadelphia. She served as the 2022 Montgomery County (PA) Poet Laureate.
In October, one can drive around most neighborhoods in the U.S. on the prowl for spooky decorations without disappointment. Houses are bedecked in giant spiders and skeletons, makeshift front-lawn graveyards, witches, hooded figures, and ghosts dancing in rings (not to mention the rows of carved pumpkins). In some parts of the country, folks also head out to look for the perfect foliage, either for a pretty photo op, or for pure enjoyment.
Meanwhile, on the world wide web, people search October for very different things. Here are just a few of those according to Google Trends, each accompanied by a poem.
1. Northern Lights
Walking to the end of my driveway after dark, cell phone camera in hand, I finally saw it — the aurora borealis, the northern lights. Underwhelming is too strong a word, but I’ll admit that I was whelmed. Through my phone, the sky turned fuschia; with my naked eye, the faintest purple highlights fought their way through an otherwise normal night. So it was pretty and bright on a phone screen, and isn’t that what I was already seeing on Facebook? Digital glamor.
Aimee Nezhukumatathil expresses a similar disenchantment with the northern lights, but for entirely different reasons. What’s a luminescent natural phenomenon compared with love?
Read “Letter to the Northern Lights” by Aimme Nezhukumatathil.
2. Tesla Robot
When I saw that “Tesla robot” was a trending search term last week, I asked myself, “What even is that?” It’s typical of me not to be aware of trends. However, I asked only myself and looked no further, and so I remain blissfully ignorant of all things Tesla.
Instead, I spent some extra time with poems from Sasha Stiles’ TechnELEGY, featured in an October, 2019 issue of The Common. Stiles was writing about creepy tech, AI, and robots five years ahead of the current robot trend (whatever it is). Poetry is prescient.
3. Freeze Warning
We’ve already had a few frosts here in Massachusetts this October. Frost-edged leaves reflecting early morning sunlight are some of my favorite things— when the whole ground looks like a sea of jewels, green to orange to silver. Those googling the term were probably doing their best to prepare their plants for the harsh cold, and I hope all were successful in that endeavor.
My fellow Massachusetts poet (in fact, the poet laureate of Worcester, MA) Oliver de la Paz contemplates migration as he notes the quietness of bird call preceding a New England freeze:
“...I haven’t slept for two nights
because their silence skewers everything.”
Read “Diaspora Sonnet at the Feeders Before the Freeze” by Oliver de la Paz
4. Hurricane
From Helene to Milton, it’s been a terrible season for hurricanes on the Gulf Coast. Residents impacted by the devastating storms can still apply for assistance through FEMA. For my part, I followed live updates from a cousin in Tavares as the storm rolled through. He couldn’t evacuate, as his wife was on storm duty as a nurse.
So what does one do while waiting out a hurricane at home? Poet Kevin Young would like to take the opportunity for some intimate connection. The final couplet of his poem, “Hurricane Song” is absolute perfection.
5. Chicken Recall
Yesterday, my 13-year-old informed me of a frozen waffle recall: he’s always shrewdly aware of food recalls as they come up (thanks, TikTok). He didn’t mention a chicken recall that apparently happened earlier this month, but I guess we don’t buy very much chicken in our house— we’re a nuggets only family.
If I were to eat any non-nugget chicken, I’d love to follow the recipe included in Sarah Gambito’s poem, “On How to Use this Book.” Gambito instructs the reader to invite at least 15 people to share in this meal, so I’ll have to wait for my Covid to pass. For now, I’ll live vicariously through poetry, as usual.
You might think that a chicken recall cannot be poetic: think again.
In November, I hope to find wellness. We’ll see what else happens.
Writer Bio: Allisonn Church was born in a small rural community to a mother who pinned butterflies in glass cases and hid scarab beetles in her jewelry box. Her first favorite poem was “The Willow Fairy”’ by Cicely Mary Barker. Find a list of Allisonn's published work at churchpoems.wordpress.com.
Gregory Gonzalez writes: “Weighing a word is the most important and most difficult function for a writer. Even more so for a poet. Meter dictates rhyme, and reason, while free verse holds a certain flow; an essence from the soul of the author, put in the narration like living magic into a world once believed to have none.”
Folk poetry has always belonged to the people—a collective voice rising from the fields, the taverns, the streets. It was never intended for the page, nor for academia. It grew from a need to speak when no one was listening, to tell stories about yearning, about suffering, about those small moments of joy that flutter briefly amidst the enduring ache of survival.
There’s a hunger in all of us, something primal, an ache that lodges deep within the marrow—a gnawing we rarely name, but one we feel. It’s an unquenchable thirst for more—more life, more love, more understanding—and it drives the songs we place on infinite replay. This hunger is where we find folk poetry. Not a relic of the past, but a pulse, alive and beating, threading through the music of contemporaries like Ezra Hozier, Miley Cyrus, Stevie Nicks, and others. Folk poetry is the language of the unspeakable, something we all consume unconsciously, and in that consumption, we awaken to our own poetic sensibilities.
Hozier, Eat Your Young
Hozier’s “Eat Your Young” doesn’t merely drift through your headphones; it haunts you. There’s a gravitational pull that lures you into its orbit. First, it’s the melody—those sharp, soaring soprano notes, the quiet beat pulling you in—but as the lyrics settle in your bones, the true ache begins to reveal itself. Hozier is not simply singing a catchy chorus. He’s interrogating us, forcing us to reckon with our complicity in a world that devours its young for the sake of unchecked greed.
And here, we hear echoes of Jonathan Swift’s satirical masterpiece A Modest Proposal, a work in which folk poetry sheds its illusions and reveals the ugly mechanisms of exploitation. Hozier jolts us out of our complacency, shattering the lies we tell ourselves about the systems of power that prey on the vulnerable.
For context, in 1729, Ireland was strangled by famine and profound destitution. Swift’s essay—blistering in its savage irony—suggested that to bridge the chasm of inequality, the poor might offer their infants as sustenance for the rich. This was satire sharpened to a blade, protest dressed as horror, meant not to amuse but to jolt society into awareness.
Fast forward nearly three centuries, and Hozier channels this same fury. “Seven new ways that you can eat your young,” he sings. Behind the melody is a modern disgust for a machine that still preys on the powerless, a world where the wealthy feast on the labor, dreams, and bodies of the poor. This is the essence of folk poetry—rooted in protest yet cloaked in song. Hozier, consciously drawing from both Dante’s Inferno and Swift’s biting irony, bridges the past and the present, forcing us to confront ourselves. And like the best folk poets, he shoulders the weight of history to craft something urgent, something undeniably new.
Written by Rachel Harty
Tune in next week, on How to Poet to read Read Part Two: Modern Ballads and Laments: Echoes of Folk Poetry.
Writer Bio: Rachel Harty is a New York-based poet and essayist, whose work has appeared in Poetry Nation, The Madrid Review, The LA Wave, and other notable literary platforms. Her debut poetry collection, Coffee, a Sip of You and Me, delves into intimate coming-of-age moments, exploring themes of connection and solitude. It’s available on Amazon and in select independent bookstores and coffee shops across the U.S. and abroad.
To discuss poetry or for inquiries, visit her at www.RachelHarty.com.
In September, I was mostly searching for autumn. It came in flashes like yellow leaves, often too warm for my taste. Other folks searched for the usual things: YouTube, Facebook, local restaurants. Google’s Trending Now feature offers particular insight into the most vivid moments that flared up within the existing landscape of commonly used websites. Here are a few topics that lit up the web in September, each accompanied by a relevant poem.
1. Eclipse
Poet Amie Whittemore describes marking the date of an eclipse on her calendar, knowing she’ll forget to step outside and look at it anyway. This matches my own relationship to most eclipses, including the Harvest Moon that appeared on September 17th.
Amie writes, “...like a shovel, I’m purposeful / but often idle.” Do you ever feel that way? I certainly do, but wouldn’t have had the words for it without Amie’s help.
2. Covid
There is no post-Covid world, so here we are in the Covid world, just writing about it. I know I wrote a handful of Covid poems— particularly in 2020— and I remember seeing calls for Covid poems from lit mags in those earlier years.
Did you know that, in 2022, American Sāmoa was the only place with zero Covid deaths? I didn’t, until I read this poem by Terisa Siagatonu. Siagatonu also manages to include another of September 2024’s trending topics — the NFL.
Read “The Only Place in the U.S. with Zero COVID Deaths” by Terisa Siagatonu
3. Real Madrid
I’m from the U.S., so you can forgive me for pretending “Real Madrid” is just another way of saying, “Madrid, in actuality.” We tend to be woefully ignorant about the-thing-everyone-else-in-the-world-calls-football. So I can happily share that Orlando Ricardo Menes wrote about the real, authentic Madrid, as experienced in his youth at the open air market. The poem fills me with nostalgia, appreciation, and hunger for life.
4. Falcons & Eagles
Next I will revel in my own ignorance about American Football, for ignorance can find its way into any sport, really. Globally, people have questions about the Atlanta Falcons and the Philadelphia Eagles: how do they compare? Perhaps there are commonalities among players and their statistics; the most obvious point of comparison to my mind is the bird mascot though, right?
Poet Barbara Ras references falcons and feathers in her ethereal poem, “A Book Said Dream and I Do.” She also beautifully alludes to the stoppage of time, which I’m pretty sure can also happen in football (I think). It can definitely happen when light catches feathers and dust specks just so.
5. Dancing with the Stars
I don’t suppose anyone has yet written a poem about the TV show Dancing with the Stars, but Olympic Rugby medalist Ilona Maher has chronicled her reality series debut via social media. Meanwhile, dozens of poets have written about stars, and about dancing, and possibly even about dancing with stars (just not the rich and famous kind).
Three-time Pulitzer Prize winner Carl Sandburg offers a short and sweet nod to summer stars that closes out the season and leaves readers with only the best memories of the many warm nights now past.
Did everyone find what they were searching for in September? I hope so. In October, let’s look for red leaves, mugs of hot chocolate, and fresh books of poetry to read as the light fades.
Writer Bio: Allisonn Church was born in a small rural community to a mother who pinned butterflies in glass cases and hid scarab beetles in her jewelry box. Her first favorite poem was “The Willow Fairy”’ by Cicely Mary Barker. Find a list of Allisonn's published work at churchpoems.wordpress.com.
Often, when asked, “What is a poem?” many people answer that it is just words arranged in short lines that sometimes rhyme. While they are not entirely wrong and some poems do display those features, this view barely scratches the surface. Poetry goes beyond mere line breaks and rhymes. It is a profound art many poets have uniquely defined.
So let’s discover these definitions and develop our own vision of The Art of Poetry.
“The art of correspondence”—this is how French poet Charles Baudelaire, author of The Flowers of Evil, defines poetry. His conception emphasizes how poetry creates a bridge between disparate elements through metaphors and symbolism. For instance, in his poem “Correspondances” Baudelaire writes, “Perfumes, colors and sounds answer one another,” using this poetic image to draw a parallel between distinct senses—smell, sight, and hearing.
Reading a poem, then, is like entering an alternate reality where the poet is aware of his sensations and constantly connecting elements. Those links open the reader to new ways of feeling connections between things that, at first sight, seem unrelated. This proves that verses and rhymes are not essential to poetry. We can find those “correspondences” even in prose. In Swann’s Way, for example, Marcel Proust links the smell of a madeleine to childhood memories.
This term was introduced by the young poet Arthur Rimbaud in a letter addressed to his professor. In this letter, he claims to have found the poet’s role. He writes, “I say that one must be a seer, make oneself a seer. The Poet makes himself a seer by a long, immense, and rational dissoluteness of all the senses.” Like Baudelaire, Rimbaud also emphasizes connections between the senses. However, Rimbaud takes this idea further, suggesting that the poet is a seer—someone able to see things that others don’t.
The poet’s role is thus to enlighten readers by introducing them to his visions. This ability to have “visions” is present in many poets’ works and it can transform the readers’ perceptions. For instance, after reading Charlotte Forten Grimké’s verses,
“Oh, deep delight to watch the gladsome waves
Exultant leap upon the rugged rocks;
Ever repulsed, yet ever rushing on—
Filled with a life that will not know defeat”
One might not look at waves the same way after discovering Grimké’s depiction of the sea’s waves as a relentless and enduring force.
The myth of Orpheus is from Greek mythology. According to this myth, Orpheus was a poet and musician whose songs were so soft that animals would follow him and trees bend towards him; he could even soothe the most frustrated men. This myth led to Orphism: the belief that poetry is meant to purify the reader.
So now we might ask: What is poetry and what is a poet? Well, is it fair to impose a universal definition and deprive the art and the artists of their liberty? Whether you seek to disturb the readers’ sensations, enlighten them, or heal them, you are a poet. From the moment you choose to express yourself with your unique voice, you become a poet. We are all poets really, we just don’t realize it. Taking a simple sunset picture, for example, makes you a poet since you are capturing a beautiful moment to create emotion. Just remember, poetry is a free art open to anyone wanting to express themselves uniquely and creatively.
Writer Bio: Rania Miyara is a writer who shares her poems on social media and often takes part in poetry contests. She is also working on her first poetry collection. Her inspiration for this article came from all the literature classes where the professor would ask, "What is poetry?" She wanted to share her belief that poetry can be seen anywhere and in anyone, proving that it is not so hard to "poet," while sharing some of her favorite poetry references and facts about the history of this beautiful art.
I almost didn’t show up to Poetry Camp. I’d signed up months in advance, and as the date drew closer, I started devising a scheme to chicken out. I couldn’t turn my camera off going into Camp like in a virtual workshop. I couldn’t control how much or how little others see me. A zoom call features a built-in escape, a gathering of fifty poets in the woods of upstate New York does not.
Five days at Poetry Camp taught me to let others see me, to share space in a way I’d forgotten how to.
Every exercise, every workshop, every mealtime, asked for a kind of vulnerability. Sharing your writing was optional, but sharing your existence was inescapable.
On the second full day, headlining poet India Lena González led a seminar that incorporated movement and acting exercises, eye contact meditation, mirroring. Walking around in circles, head up, meeting the gaze of every person you passed.
We then found a partner and stared at them, let them stare back at us, for a span of time that was immeasurable. India’s even voice in the background reminding us it was okay to feel uncomfortable, to feel silly, to feel. It was okay to just be. It was, for me, an exercise in being perceived— in allowing myself to be perceived, not without fear but along with it. An exercise in existing.
Existing, it reminded me, is something we do together. Being alive is an inherently communal activity.
I’d been asking myself what I needed to do to acquire community, what kind of mask I needed to put on in order to be worthy of inclusion. But here, it occurred to me I had it all wrong. Maybe, community is the baseline, foundational to our very existence. What had seemed ethereal was in fact mycelial. I couldn't see it, but I was built into it all the same. Community was there all along, and I had been putting on a mask to hide from it. The outsider narrative I’d been feeding myself for years was a fallacy. I was a part of all of this, and it was part of me.
I don’t mean to say that I found a place I belonged, in the woods among poets. I mean to say that, in the woods among poets, I found out that I didn’t need to belong at all. I only needed to be. To be living is to be in community with those around you. To be living is to belong to the world. Community doesn’t require any special skill or great effort to get in on. Community is what’s already all around you. You only need to stop hiding from it.
Written by PSNY Member Sara Iacovelli
Sara Iacovelli is a poet and a preschool teacher. She has gone to grad school too many times, though never for writing; she holds degrees in comparative literature and special education. She lives in the northern catskills with her partner, her very large dog, and her very soft cat. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Pine Hills Review, *82 Review, Prairie Home Magazine, Barren Magazine, and Eunoia Review.
Considering we all at one time or another feel deeply and perhaps wonder about the ways to express this let me make the case for poetry; the real question today is not why poetry but why NOT poetry?
Poetry by its very definition (Oxford dictionary) is: “A literary work in which special intensity is given to the expression of feelings and ideas by the use of distinctive style and rhythm.” Feelings are defined as “that which a person feels in regard to something based on emotion or intuition and not solely on reason.” If we are all human with many shared experiences and emotions then by this logic, poetry is for you. Let me prove it to you.
When I came across this internship opportunity online earlier this year, I realized that PSNY was the organization that started The Poetry Brothel, so I visited their website to see what else they were all about. Every event and program listed looked so fun and creative, and I fell in love from afar with The Poetry Society’s mission of bringing poetry to everyone through accessible, unconventional, and collaborative projects and events.
It’s difficult to narrow down everything this internship has given me, but my top three takeaways are as follows:
As much as there’s plentiful opportunity to be inspired in darling NYC, often quiet times to write are harder to come by. We’re launching this series on First Mondays as a monthly reminder to take some time out for the poet in you. Carve out some you-time and head down to this month’s PTW spot & give this Prompt a free write.
This recently opened Brooklyn gem is named after the owner’s book-loving grandmother, Elizabeth. It boasts over 4,000 titles and a high quality selection of beverages, that can take from your morning coffee to an afternoon IPA or an evening glass of wine. It’s only closed Mondays and is open 10am-10pm every night except Tues-Wed. It’s a beautiful and calm environment focused on connection and creativity.
Directions:
Navigate to Carroll St subway stop off the G (if it’s running) or F train & walk 2 minutes to 315 Smith Street.
Writing Prompt:
Choose five titles from five different bookshelves/sections. For example, Romance, Crime, Fantasy, Poetry and Philosophy. Take those five titles, for example: Kindred, Happiness Falls, Red at the Bone, Table for Two and Northern Light. Aim to include each of these five phrases in one singular poem, seeing where the words take you alongside a beverage from the bar.
Hashtag #PSNYPlacestoWrite when you visit our PTW Location 6.
Share what you write with us @poetrysocietyny on Instagram or TikTok so we can repost it!
Series by F.M Papaz
F.M Papaz is a Greek-Australian creative and writer who believes that there is space at the literary table for everyone and is excitedly setting up your cutlery. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Wild Roof Journal, Five South & Mantissa Poetry Review amongst others. She does Editorial work for Milk Press and Tabula Rasa Review as well as being a Marketing Associate for PSNY. Connect @fmpapaz on Instagram & TikTok and visit fmpapaz.com/ings to find her monthly newsletter about living a creative life and to find her chapbook, ‘Distance Makes the Heart Grow.’
At first glance, they might seem like unrelated pleasures—one a daily necessity, the other a sublime art form. Yet, for many writers, myself included, coffee is more than just an ancient beverage. It is an essential part of the creative ritual, a companion to the process of putting thoughts and emotions into words.
Like most poets, I adhere to a ritual that borders on the sacred. Whether this ritual benefits or harms us is a matter of debate, contingent on the time, energy, and mental space it consumes under the guise of “productivity.” Yet, if I may indulge for a moment, I propose that these rituals are as vital and as inevitable as the feelings they help us navigate.
Feelings can be elusive and difficult to process immediately, but they can certainly be articulated and named, even as they evolve. This is the essence of poetry: a word set into a line, forming a stanza, flowing into another line, until our innermost thoughts are laid bare. Similarly, coffee serves as my ritual when crafting poetry, even poetry that revels in “all things caffeine.”
This isn't to suggest that those who abstain from this simple ritual, enjoyed by over half our population daily, are at a disadvantage. Rather, it is to suggest that this ritual is available to you, should you choose to sip on it.
Coffee is ubiquitous: every block in a metropolitan area, every turnpike in suburbia, offers a reminder that there’s a coffee shop waiting to serve you on your journey—even if you don’t know the destination. It is inescapable, like poetry. The moment an emotion stirs within, you are compelled to act. Yes, you could sip on it for immediate gratification, but you could also let it drip, simmer, and remain unindulged.
Why should poetry be any different? Who says poetry must always be written? Sometimes, poetry is found in the words left unspoken, captured within our mugs, “like the mugs we hold a little too close.”
In my debut poetry collection, "Coffee, a Sip of You and Me," I seek to capture my upbringing, my love life—including its not-so-sweet moments—the expansive world I grapple with, and the happiness I brew from the lessons I’ve encountered and learned from along the way.
To give you a glimpse into this symbiotic relationship, this ritual of coffee and poetry, this connection, that I return to time and again, consider these verses. Remember, whether reading or writing these poems, there are no rules—just hands on a keyboard, fingers flipping pages, and pen to paper, to spill the beans:
you order black because you’re certain
you taste black because you’re saddened
you stopped sugar in your coffee because you’re not satisfied
you stopped sugar in your coffee because you let them take
your sweetness
you burned your tongue because you couldn’t bear to speak
you didn’t think they’d understand anyway
you blistered your taste buds to feel alive
you did not wait for the coffee to cool
because what difference did it make
you weren’t in charge of the order anyway
—DEPRESSED
in due time
the remnants of you and i will vanish
and i will find another drink
that’s not quite you
and it won’t quite be the time
and certainly, i’m not fine
but quite honestly, i’ll tell myself lies
and tell the crowd: this is the best drink i’ve ever laid eyes on
and best of all
i won’t hope for your return
because drinks have an expiry date too
—ONE AND DONE
i like my friends
my mochas
my blondes
my dark roasts
my blends
for we all love
and converse
for we vow
we won’t
we don’t
discriminate
–21st CENTURY KID
Written by Rachel Harty
Writer Bio: As a transplant New Yorker, coffee aficionado, and poet, Rachel Harty can often be found roaming the city on gliding, hyper-caffeinated feet. And if you can't find her in person, well, discover her debut poetry collection, Coffee, a Sip of You and Me, now available on Amazon and select independent retailers.
To discuss her latest book or respond to this article, visit her at www.RachelHarty.com.
