Someday I’ll Love…
Recently, one of my favorite poetry podcasts introduced me to the idea of a Someday I’ll Love poem. If you have time you should listen to that episode, but if you don’t the essence is about exploring identity and origins (parts of ourselves and our history) that we find it difficult or challenging to love/understand.…
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Friendship
This week’s invitation comes courtesy of the Poetry For All podcast. I found multiple inspirations from this podcast episode, but the easiest are simply the writer Dinah Maria Mulock Craik (pictured above) and the poem: Friendship (artwork via Etsy). There are also several lines within the poem that provide interesting points for beginning to write:…
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Cowboys On My Mind
I don’t want to make the Pantsuit Politics Book Club my whole personality, but it strongly impacted my recent reading habits and so cowboys have been on my mind quite a bit lately. Over Christmas break I read Hondo by Louis L’Amour and All Things Left Wild by James Wade (both courtesy of my public…
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Blue Inspiration
I recently read The Color Purple for a book club and not long after finishing the book I watched Sinners at the urging of my son (and the broader culture) and I was immediately struck by the overlapping ideas (setting, characters, music, themes) offered by both texts, but as this blog is not a book…
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Wild and Precious
I have chosen my one little word for 2026 (Fixing) and am considering various manifesto projects for these winter months (and recently interested in the concept of Rule of Life), but the place offering me the most inspiration is listening to the audiobook Wild and Precious: A Celebration of Mary Oliver. This audiobook, narrated by…
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Advent of Joy
Advent Calendars are my love language. Traditionally my son gets a Lego calendar and my mother a jigsaw puzzle while my husband and my son’s girlfriend get something more eclectic (hot sauce and charm bracelet this year), but for six years my gift to myself (and my fellow writers and poetry people) has been a…
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Founding Stories
This week I’ve been thinking about our founding stories for obvious reasons. First, of course, we have the celebration of Thanksgiving and there is much to think about in Today, Explained’s Talk turkey to me episode. The conversation explores history and tradition as well as meal strategy. But last week many of us spent the…
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The Last Penny
Endings and goodbyes are challenging. As someone struggling with the end of my teaching career I feel this profoundly. Is this why the news of the minting of the last penny hits so hard? Is it nostalgia? Or something else? I’ve been thinking about the penny ever since I heard that the last penny was…
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Spell Jars
This week’s Rebel Cartographer writing invitation is brought to you by The Slowdown poetry podcast. This episode brings us Protection Spell Jar by Cynthia Marie Hoffman and host Maggie Smith writes… “Today’s poem is from a collection of prose poems that chronicles a woman’s journey through obsessive-compulsive disorder, from childhood into adulthood. I admire the…
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The Last Monday
Last weekend was Court Days in my hometown. This happening is the most important event on the community calendar and most residents have a love-hate relationship with it. This year was the last last traditional Monday Court Day to be celebrated, a tradition since 1796. My friend Liz Prather (in the pic above) is all…
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