Poems for September 2024's Trending Searches

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. 

Read “Lunar Eclipse” by Amie Whittehmore

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. 

Read “El Rastro” by Orlando Ricardo Menes

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. 

Read “A Book Said Dream and I Do” by Barbara Ras

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. 

Read “Summer Stars” by Carl Sandburg

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.

Written by Allisonn Church

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.

Beyond Rhymes and Verses: The Art of Poetry

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.

1. The art of correspondence.

“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.

2. The Seer Poet

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.

3. The original poet: Orpheus

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.

4. The definition of poetry and the poet’s role

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.

Revelations About Community: What I Learned At Poetry Camp

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.

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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.

PSNY's Places to Write #6

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.

Liz’s Book Bar

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

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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.’

Through a Poet's Lens: The Unseen Connection Between Coffee Brews and Poetic Verses

What do coffee and poetry have in common?

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.

Book Review of Geometry of the Restless Herd by Sophie Cabot Black

Sophie Cabot Black is one of our readers at the New York City Poetry Festival this year. Catch her reading at 5:30pm with Copper Canyon Press on July 14th at the Brinkley Stage. Read on for a review of her latest poetry collection.

I did not have one specific idea of what to expect when I delved into Sophie Cabot Black’s new book of poems, Geometry of the Restless Herd, but I must say I was not expecting a book of pastoral poems centered around sheep herding to be so scathing, fiery, and politically eloquent.

Every poem in this collection unfolds upwards from a strong and direct foundation of candid truth and observation into a soaring call to examine oneself, one’s surroundings, and one’s daily endeavors. Cabot Black weaves threads of connection between the layered, convoluted systems that make up our everyday contemporary reality, and measures how deep they go in an exploration of human relationships with work, nature, animals, and each other. 

The first section of the collection starts off with “And So,” an ode to wildness about running off “Beyond and into our own summer” and leaving behind one’s home. This first section is preceded by the standalone poem “Coyotes,” addressing “the in between/ of where it was/ and where it might/have been,” a question which comes up throughout the collection.

In the poems which immediately follow these two, Cabot Black delves into a comparison of agriculture–specifically sheep herding, human-animal relationships, and human-land relationships–to contemporary post-industrial capitalism.

Poems like “Democracy Until,” “To Burn Through Where You are Not Yet,” and “Sanctuary” address the illusory nature of individualism, ownership, and freedom, particularly how systems of power determine and assign value to people and animals based on what service they can provide or how much work they can do, to the detriment of everything but profit. Herds of sheep being taken to a pasture which they don’t realize is confined from the world outside loom in similarity to people being funneled through cities, buildings, paperwork, and systems. The following section from “Democracy Until” particularly struck me:

My barn, your barn; we were never ready

To know the herd. Each coming from somewhere else

Fills in until whatever might be missing

Does not easily fit. And so the field

Becomes the shape the market requires,

And to set fire just before heading on

Is also to say it does not matter

Which part is played

But that it gets played… (Cabot Black 8).

Throughout the collection, Cabot Black explores what it means to play a part, especially as a worker. “To Burn Through Where You are not Yet,” “Silo,” “Bringing in the Stray,” “Handbook of Risk,” and “Of Use,” among others, highlight the mournful futility at the end of a day, or lifetime, of work for someone else. The speakers in several poems are distinct characters who have their own perspectives on and approaches to work, and include what I read as multiple herders both narrating and being addressed, foremen, agents, borrowers, and children.

The pastoral landscape that Cabot Black paints is at times desolate, lonely, and harsh, and the recurring speaker repeatedly voices regrets about the dreams and freedoms they have sacrificed in the name of work for someone else’s profit as well as marriage in a few poems. However, a strong hopeful and sweet note comes through simultaneously, in the cyclicality of nature and the creatures who inhabit the world of the poetry.

As Cabot Black questions the meaning of ownership over land and the meaning of being part of a family and a community when people are pitted against each other for profit, she simultaneously depicts the sweetness, intimacy, and stillness of being with others, whether human or animal. A strong connection and indebtedness to the land shines up out of these poems as an answer towards the question of meaning and strength. Connection, community, and storytelling are the tools of remembrance and resistance at play in these poems, and at our disposal as Cabot Black emphatically reminds us. 

Written by Lily Naifeh-Bajorek

Writer Bio: Lily Naifeh-Bajorek is a multidisciplinary writer, musician, and artist studying in the creative writing program at Oberlin College. Currently, she is interning at The Poetry Society of New York, where she is helping plan and put on the 13th Annual New York City Poetry Festival and working on the Summer 2024 edition of Milk Press. In her free time she makes zines and puts on shows to celebrate her friends’ music and art. She hopes to publish several books, release a million albums, and open a venue/art and poetry space someday. Follow her on Instagram @trashprincessdestroy

PSNY's Places to Write #4

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.

Brooklyn Heights Promenade

Elevated above DUMBO and behind stunning Brooklyn Heights brownstones is a Promenade that unveils one of the most striking vistas of the Manhattan skyline. Governor’s Island peers from the left and Jersey peeks over from the distance. Bridges both Brooklyn & Manhattan frame the centerpiece.

Directions:

Navigate to Borough Hall station in Brooklyn, which will allow you to emerge right by Montague Street. Begin your walk all the way down it , past Arthur Miller’s residence at number 62 on the left, until you reach the intersection of Montague Terrace & Pierrepont Place.

Writing Prompt:

It’s the perfect place for people-watching, sitting here it’s impossible to be uninspired. There’s no elaborate prompt needed today. Just watch and record the life surrounding you. Be curious. Look, but don’t just look. Close your eyes. Feel all the energies that you’re sharing this space and this moment with. Pick up your pen. Write… Oh & if you see a poet, ask them for a poem!

Hashtag #PSNYPlacestoWrite when you visit our PTW Location 4.

Share what you write with us @poetrysocietyny on Instagram or TikTok so we can repost it!

Series by F.M Papaz

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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.’