Poetry and Stargazing
It's an all poetry post this week!
On third Wednesdays we publish Community Voices: Heartfelt essays, articles, micro-flash, poetry, songs, monologues, plays and more from TLArtists drawn from community submissions. Maybe next time it will be yours? We accept submissions on a rolling basis. We’d love to read yours!
We invite comments, questions, conversations and restacks.
Stargazing
When it is dark enough
constellations of faces
shine like stars
lighting my spirit path.
I am a weeping cherry
in bloom, a meteor
shower of white clusters
falling too soon.
Seeking solace
in golden starlight—
spring jasmine
of the night sky.
Stargazing for glory,
moments of mystery,
in the darkness
of the new moon.
by Angie KinmanI am a writer and retired teacher living in Nashville, Tennesee. I have always been passionate about reading and teaching poetry, but it was after the loss of my precious 29 year old daughter, who had special needs, that I began writing poetry. Writing poetry after spending time in nature has become a daily spiritual practice where I find healing, grace, and a connection to the divine.
—Angie Kinman
I seek the groove into new poems every way I can, especially from what I experience or glimpse, both in my life and in the wondrous writing of others. That’s part of what propels me to teach writing classes where we riff off the words of others to find our own words.
Poet William Stafford once wrote, “Harness all sled dogs,” as part of his vast writing advice: find whatever gets you moving. You can use a phrase from another poet as a title or first line to get writing (giving credit to the poet of course). The rhythm alone of another’s way of stringing words together can free up your own rhythms, and from there, what words and meanings come.
Speaking of others’ language and rhythms, I recommend reading people for whom English is not their first language as well as people outside your own culture and community. The more we expand our capacity for crafting lines, sentences, and stanzas in fresh and original ways, the more tools we have for conveying our own experiences, perceptions, and understandings. For decades, I’ve found such meaning in reading Indigenous writers as well as writers from around the world and over time.
That’s also why, when I put together my upcoming class, “Twelve Poets to Change Your Life”, I turned to poets from across years and the globe, landing on Ukrainian-American writer Ilya Kaminsky; the late Polish poet and Nobel Prize laureate Czeslow Milosz; Moscogee Nation citizen and past U.S. Poet Laureate Joy Harjo; and even 19th century poets for the ages Emily Dickinson and Walt Whitman. Returning to these poets again and again, as well as the others in the class – Gwendolyn Brooks, Muriel Rukeyser, Galway Kinnell, Diane Seuss, Li Young Lee, Linda Pastan, and Ada Limón – I continually discover a more nuanced world of possibilities.
Here are two poems I wrote from some of the prompts I share in the Twelve Poets class. Both of these poems are part of my forthcoming book, Back to Earth (just signed a contract with Cornerstone Press to have it published in about 20 months), and both were ignited into being by falling in love with some lively sled dogs.
Not Out of Sorrow But in Wonder
“I am not out of sorrow, but in wonder.”
~ Czeslaw Milosz
The longer you live, the more this sorrow, this wonder,
even if it’s never static lines or anything that divides
surprise lily from decaying garage. Everything
a gust of rain rearranging breath that holds
our inevitable sorrow, our innate wonder
so evident if you look long enough into the mirror.
It’s how your eyes are composed, are composing
names and shapes for Osage orange leaf,
blue car hood, your feet under the circular waves
of air helicoptering down from the ceiling fan.
You can’t measure change with blunt instruments
of loss or the ache your whole body inhales
and can’t exhale, so much to keep losing, you have
to breathe harder and shallower to take it all in.
Meanwhile, the greening, then browning world
is where you keep tending the swamp garden
of your love story, family story, who-am-I-now story
in the 80 mph winds that come right after drought,
so much so fast you can’t recycle it into a set place
for dandelions, joy, arias, and cucumbers.
No, I will never be out of sorrow but always,
like Milosz, startled back to the earth in wonder.
On Not Leaving the Animal of My Body
“If I speak for the dead, I must leave
this animal of my body….”
~ Ilya Kaminsky
So I won’t, I can’t, speak for the dead because
the animal of this body lumbers all night
in that gulp of loss. The way he cracked up
at the joke I made about how handsome he was
while he was putting together the puzzle of what?
A cafe at dusk in Paris like the one they visited
long ago or a mossy cottage, fabled in woods
that spark lightning bugs, like the ones here tonight
making us forget potatoes rotting underground.
No, I can’t leave this lumbering bear of who he was,
although I hope the animal of his dead body,
still stands at the lip of the cave, collapses in
the recliner, or leans on a counter in the kitchen
of the beloved he cooked for with great gratitude.
When our friends die, we get so hungry that nothing
makes sense to eat or say. So sit on the ground,
dear animal of my body. Don’t leave.
Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg, PhD is the founder of Transformative Language Arts, the 2009-13 Kansas Poet Laureate is the author of 24 books, including How Time Moves: New & Selected Poems; Miriam's Well, a novel; Needle in the Bone, a non-fiction book on the Holocaust; The Sky Begins At Your Feet: A Memoir on Cancer, Community, and Coming Home to the Body. A beloved writing workshop facilitator and writing and Right Livelihood coach, she offers writing workshops widely, particularly for people living with serious illness, adults in transition, humans looking for greater connection with the earth, and poets and writers seeking their most courageous voice on the page and in their lives. She loves life-giving collaborations, including YourRightLivelihood.com with Kathryn Lorenzen, Bravevoice.com with Kelley Hunt, and TheArtofFacilitation.net with Joy Roulier Sawyer. She offers weekly “Care Packages for a Creative Life” through her Patreon page, and her long-time blog, “Everyday Magic” at CarynMirriamGoldberg.com.
Born hard-wired to make something (in art, music, and especially writing), Caryn’s long-time callings include writing as a spiritual and ecological path, yoga, cultivating a loving marriage, family, and community, and helping herself and others make and take leaps into the miraculous work of their lives. For over three decades, Caryn has worked with many arts and ecological/bioregional not-for-profit organizations as a grant-writer, fundraiser, staff or board member, and consultant on collaborative and community arts, group process, and better meetings. She lives in the country on land she and her husband, ecological writer Ken Lassman, have put in a conservation reserve and are restoring as prairie and woodlands. See more at www.CarynMirriamGoldberg.com.
Growing Together, Apart: June TLAN events & Classes
You can find the full list of classes, free community events, and our annual conference here. Scholarships are available.
Twelve Poets to Change Your Life // with Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg
04 June 2025 • Online
08 June 2025 5:00 PM • online • free and open to all!
Telling It Slant: The Art of Autofiction // with Elizabeth Chesla
11 June 2025 • Online
Angie's poem, and her story, struck a chord with me. When speaking about poetry, Ethan Hawke said:
“Most people don’t spend a lot of time thinking about poetry, they have a life to live… until their father dies, you go to a funeral, you lose a child… and all of a sudden you’re desperate to make sense out of this life.”
Angie reminded me of this, and her words made this senseless world make a little more sense.
“Stargazing” by Angie Kinmana is a gift to my soul ✨