“Find the edges of your body.” K. Iver’s instruction sounded simple. I thought about the faded, spice-red, velvet-like seat underneath me, my back leaning against its smooth, unforgiving wood backrest. The sensation of cool sweatpants falling over my knees and the warm plate of to-go dinner sitting on my lap became increasingly apparent. I stared at K with great intent and curiosity, waiting for their next words.

Though we hope our summer days aren’t cloudy, we’re still spending plenty of time in the digital cloud. In an age of widespread anxiety and unrest, there’s more on our minds than vacation and BBQs and we’re looking to the web for guidance. Here’s a review of June’s trending searches, paired with relevant poems to help us reflect, relax, and think more deeply about this curious life.

Thank you, Poetry Society of NY. I love this crystal ball! What shall we do with it? Let’s envision another world with this crystal ball—one based not on domination and subordination but on collaboration and partnership, compassion and empathy, empathy, empathy.

If, like me, your last attempt to answer your dad’s question, “What’s so great about poetry anyway?” ended in monosyllables and nondescript grunts, maybe it’s time to show rather than tell. Here are five different poems for five different types of dads for those dedicated Father’s Day gift-givers that might shed some light onto what exactly is so great about poetry, while showing him some timely appreciation along the way.

As people, we have an instinct to sort ourselves into groups. From politics to religion to hobbies, we constantly seek out ways to fit into larger communities. Groups remove social ambiguity and allow us to feel secure. But poetry disrupts some of this security and puts us back into a gray area. Its possibilities offer versatility: every line in a poem can be meticulously interpreted and re-interpreted, each time teaching us a new lesson. Poems can be crafted, extended or shortened to form a shape. They can be read aloud, or they can be thought over in our racing minds.

May’s trending search topics conveyed a strong collective negativity bias. I guess we’re all trying our hardest to survive. With any luck, reading poetry can help.

Writing a poem can often feel daunting. The blank page (or screen) sometimes reveals more shadows than rays of inspiration. Luckily, for anyone in search of a poetic thumb (of any pigment, fragrance, or seed variety), when approached in a step-by-step form, the process is surprisingly friendly—and rewarding. 

Father Verses Son is a stunningly illustrated poetic correspondence about life, death and the human comedy - and about men bumbling towards love. Selected for Scribner’s Best American Poetry, this new book began when a 99-year-old Beat-era novelist is reactivated into writing again by his sons, who send him poems by US Mail. One of those sons, Ari Gold, is a member here at PSNY & sat down for an interview with How to Poet.

Maya Angelou said, "to describe my mother would be to write about a hurricane in its perfect power." Motherhood is power and motherhood is beginnings. Power because mothers grow a life into being and beginnings because that was the site our creation, our first breath began there, with a mother. This Mother’s Day, we’d love to share five poems to reflect today on our complex relationships to the many facets of motherhood.

Trust me when I say: I get it, the difficulty of writing. We pour ourselves into the words, bleeding onto the page, only for publishing houses to come back and say the work doesn’t capture the reader’s attention, or is lacking urgency, or isn’t the right fit at this time. There’re authors who, if they bear witness too many rejects, stop believing in their magic gift.