A couple of cars ago, the family drove West … such a wide country, such wonderful vistas along the way. It was a great trip, but the drive back was something else again. I’ve thought of that drive often and finally wrote about it. Now a wonderfully handsome and impressive print journal called Midnight Mind published my poem “Flatland” in a section called “An Open Road Poetry Mix Tape (14 poems to recite on the open road.” You’d need to take a long drive to recite them all, but here’s mine.

Flatland

Spikes of lightning speared the earth 
as thunderstorms moved on the mountains.
A tarantula cast a crook-leg shadow

on the road ahead. Baked under a blazing
sun and beguiled by the thorny plants
that stood in for the trees of home

we went on to Santa Fe with its picture
postcard pueblos and up to Colorado ski
country, then turned the Chevy East for home.

But Kansas. Kansas stopped us
with its mile on mile of featureless
flatness. Not a tree or house in sight

the horizon so wide you could
almost see earth’s curve out there.
I felt something at my back

and thought of the pioneer wives
running mad from wind and isolation
not born to it like Kiowa and Comanche.

At the next intersection we turned right
trusting the road south to take us
back to high country.

Thankful for Poetry and Friends

I firmly believe that poets shouldnt work alone. Ive just come from a zoom session with my good friend the poet and author Jackie Jules. She and I regularly read and critique each others poems. I wouldnt submit anything for publication until she and another poet friend, Richard Eric Johnson, have given it the okay. I also depend on appraisal and criticism from a small group of poets I meet with each month. What would I do without their help and suggestions?

And I wouldnt work without reading plenty of poems by others. A writing teacher once told me you should read 100 poems for every one you write. Thats why Im delighted that two new books have recently come my way. Different authors, different styles, different subjects, but both strikingly fine.

In Invited to the Feast by Bonnie Naradzay, we learn about the authors journey as writer, teacher, and volunteer leading poetry sessions in prisons and church groups. The first section of Naradzays three-part book begins with poems about teaching poetry in an inner-city shelter. In Bedes Sparrow for example, she recalls Carl, who sleeps / near the M Street Bridge and who likes how the shadows / of birds wings pass over his heart. The poem ends I have lifted my eyes / to the rafters and seen Bedes sparrow pass through / the church basement and vanish into the dark.

Naradzays poems are, as one reviewer says, filled with good conscience and abundant soul. I believe youll also find them empathetic, imagistic, and above all moving.

Another recent book is Babbage's Dream by Neil Aitken, the poetic account of the 19th century polymath Charles Babbage, who came up with the concept of a digital programmable computer. Strange subject for poetry? Not at all. Aitkens lyrical poems, in the apt words of one reviewer, sing songs of creation, vision, possibility, futurity. For example:

Array

this dark finery of words,
blackbird dress, woven labor of thought

the legless man in the mechanical Turk
the million monkeys at their machines

what midnight lines we have strung together
out of a strange script, overwritten with zeroes and ones

numbered in our cubicles, in our spaces, countered
our hands spread out like an arrangement of dimes

the coincidence of faces, the discarded signs rising and falling,
the slow working lungs of the binary sea

the program is a careful cathedral, an intersection of lines
the unknown body of the world, our communion, our heap

formed of pattern, code, the burst of light
here is a history of failures, each no more than the shape of itself

the logos we wear, the names we've forgotten
the ash and maple growing a leaf at a time, ordered simplicity

Paris filmed at night could be here, could be Alphaville,
could be wherever night blooms from the bare-limbed trees

someone wears a bright necklace of numbers, a ring of iron,
a long starry dress, heels that might break the world

Aitkens stunning images spark both memory and imagination, teaching us something about history and the possible future. Great stuff.

....................................................................................................................................

Thankful for Fragrance

Not long ago, I was surprised to hear from a man in India who wanted to use a poem of mine on something called a reed diffuser. Once I found out what that was, I was intrigued. Rochak Agarwal, founder and proprietor of Urban Ganges, has produced some two dozen poetry reed diffusers that feature complete poems on their labels.

Who knew? Ive been published in journals and books, in print or online, but this was something new. And I liked the poem he chose: Between Sea and Sky, published in October 2024 by Sunlight Press. And sure enough, the reed diffuser with my poem is now available, complete with a sandalwood-rose fragrance. You can find it here.

Between Sea and Sky
Usually the one you are looking for
lives next door.Franz Kafka

I live between sea and sky.
Earth, rocks, trees--I know the land
and cherish it, but ocean and space
are strangers to me.

I long to explore the great expanse--
from the far reaches of the cosmos
to the crushing depths of the deep.

But I let science do the searching,
sending a telescope deeper into space
and further back in time than ever
before, diving to find Stone Age relics
on the floor of the Baltic Sea.

Each day, new discoveries.
Meanwhile I take my pleasure
on a slender strip of land somewhere
between sea and sky.

We search, they say, for what is already
within our grasp. For ourselves,
perhaps, or for the great machine
that keeps it all running.

Many thanks, Mr. Agarwal.
....................................................................................................................................

Considering Tomorrow

In a time of discord and division, what lies ahead? Thats the question behind America's Future, an anthology of poetry and prose from the Washington Writers' Publishing House that speaks to joy and resilience amidst [todays] political turmoil, according to a review in Poets & Writers.

The volume opens with remarks by U.S. Representative Jamie Raskin from an April rally on the National Mall. If theres no struggle, he says, quoting Frederick Douglass, theres no progress. And the struggle may be physical, it may be moral--it may be moral and physical--but there must be struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand.

A collaboration between E. Ethelbert Miller and Miho Kinnas is the first poem in the book:

To Write Is to Flower

We use the dictionary to cut
the stems of our poems.
Inside the vase they blossom
paying attention to prepositions.
At night petals fall like adjectives.
A stanza begins to reminisce about the past.

Elders spoke of a time
when people cut flowers
with their tongues
It is a time to remember the milky
liquid that leaked from the stalks.
The future sticks to our fingers
calling us to write and to flower.

A total of 164 writers contributed to America's Future, offering a breadth of responses from joy to sorrow, from despair to rage. A sobering but inspiring read.
...................................................................................................................................

Looking Up

No matter what you think about the future, the nations capital is a good place for poetry. Not only is the Washington Writers' Publishing House the longest, continuously operating nonprofit literary small press in the U.S., but the Federal Poets is the oldest continuously active poetry group in the Washington D.C. area. And you dont have to be a federal worker to belong. The Federal Poet is published twice a year, and I was lucky enough to be included in the Summer 2025 edition (thanks, Jonathan Lewis).

Cosmology 101
The Story of Our Universe May Be Starting to Unravel New York Times, 9/3/23

Just when we believe we understand
how things work, theres something new
          something else to scrutinize
                  something that keeps us growin

And now the wondrous Webb telescope
is challenging our view of it all

Look at me, says a very distant galaxy,
Im older by far than you can imagine

Look how quickly I formed, says the galaxy,
much earlier than you can contemplate

Time to rethink what you think you know

This is the universe calling, reminding us theres always more to learn

....................................................................................................................................

Vietnam Archive

A defining event in the life of most people my age was the Vietnam War. Whether you fought or marched, it was a crucial time in our lives and in the history of the United States. As the Poetry Foundation writes, By the time United States troops withdrew from Vietnam in 1973, the Vietnam War had become one of the longest, most controversial conflicts in American history. The conflict marked a turning point for how Americans saw the militarys place in the world. After being met with years of protest, demonstrations, and activism the Vietnam War remains a cultural milestone in citizen involvement.

My friend Richard Eric Johnson has written powerful poems about his time in Vietnam. His work is archived in LaSalle Universitys Connnelly Library and online in Vietnam War Poetry, an impressive archive established by Paul Hellweg to foster greater understanding of the Vietnam War and its impact on America, Vietnam, the veterans of both sides, and all people involved either directly or indirectly. Heres one of Erics poems from that collection:

The Hurricane's Eye
Richard Eric Johnson

out of the blue
white puffy clouds
ever higher
the towering
lightning filled
black night
heart shaking
storm

no way around
above or beneath

into the eye
of I
and we

courage calling
courage needed
courage in question

through the eye
past perimeters
of storm

we flew
into the aftermath
war zone

the hurricanes eye
a singular moment
tranquility remembered

Eric has compiled a stunning manuscript of poems about the war and its aftermath in his life, a manuscript I expect will soon be snapped up by a savvy publisher.
....................................................................................................................................

Matters of the Heart

Well, its still beating and now that Im well into my 80s, I have to pay attention to such routine matters. So do the doctors, who gave me a variety of tests last year before I went through a minor surgery. One of the tests is the subject of this poem, which was published in Grey Matter: An Anthology of Contemporary Medical Poems the by University of Arizona College of Medicine in Phoenix.

Nuclear Test
Sally Zakariya

I thought it meant exploding a bomb
in some far distant corner of the earth.

But for this old body it means
injecting a noxious liquid
then watching through a whirring,
rumbling machine to see how
my newly stressed heart behaves.

Normal, they say.

But whats normal about stockpiling
horror and threatening war?

Whats normal about wielding dread
and the fear of fallout?

In this hospital, this microcosm
of the globe, peace reigns--for now.

Thank you, Grey Matter. Im delighted to be in your first print anthology.

....................................................................................................................................

Poetry versus Verse

Yes, its National Poetry Month, a yearly celebration of poetry organized by the Academy of American Poets to increase awareness and appreciation of poetry in the United States. But just in case we missed it, World Poetry Day, declared by UNESCO in 1999, alerted us on March 21 that Poetry Month was just around the corner.

And here we are. While were celebrating poets and poetry, we might want to give a bit of thought to poetrys little cousin, verse.

They dont call it Verse Month, do they? Ever wonder why? Ever wonder whats the difference between poetry and verse?

John Barr, who served as the first president of the Poetry Foundation, addressed that question in The Subcutaneous Art: A Collection of Short Essays on Poetry. Verse, I have come to think, is poetry written in pursuit of limited objectives, by which he means telling a joke or tall tale or demonstrating the inherent pleasures of meter and rhyme.

Verse is not great art, nor is it trying to be, he says. It is not an instrument of exploration, but rather a tool of affirmation. A poem, according to Barr, begins in delight, and ends in wisdom. Verse, on the other hand, begins in delight and ends in more delight.

....................................................................................................................................

June / Tune / Moon

Like most people who try to write poetry, Ive written more than a bit of verse (including limericks for friends birthdays). And when it comes to the moon, that infinitely rhymable word, its easy to write verse. But not long ago, I tried to write a poem about our faithful companion in the sky, and Jim Lewis, editor of the great Verse-Virtual, was kind enough to print it, plus a second poem, in January.

Lunar Lullaby
Sally Zakariya

Oh little sister in the sky,
formed of the same cosmic cloud
of debris, circling big brother,
pulling the tides, waxing and
waning.

Oh faithful follower,
teller of time, ruler of seasons,
mirror of Earths light.
Shine down on our dreams
and soothe our sleep.

You who washed a walking fish
ashore to evolve into a different
being, help us grow into wiser
and kinder beings.

Oh symbol of Goddess Artemis,
destination of Apollo missions,
tell us a bedtime story.

Tell us the why the Man in the Moon
is mourning, why the craters are crying,
but tell us it all ends well.

Read this and Close to Nothingness here.

....................................................................................................................................

Sonnet Challenge

Whoever came up with the sonnet? I know, I know, its a well-loved poetic form. But the sonnet is a real challenge for free-verse poets like me. Im taking a Zoom class on love poetry with the mighty Mike Maggio, and one of the first poems we read was Shakespeares Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer's Day. You know, fourteen lines, rhyme scheme abab cdcd efef gg with a turn after line eight and a rhymed couplet at the end. No big deal, right?

Well, maybe no big deal for Shakespeare, Petrarch, and the like. Or not even for Howard Moss, who amazingly has written a batch of Shakespeare Sonnets for Modern Reading. His take on Summers Day begins:

Who says youre like one of the dog days?
Youre nicer. And better.

It ends After youre dead and gone, / In this poem youll live on. Bravo, Mr. Moss! Well, clever me, I said trying to rewrite a Shakespeare sonnet in modern terms would be quite a challenge. And guess what the weeks assignment was? I wont insult you with my efforts, but I do recommend giving it a try. Its a challenging workout that will really exercise your poetry muscles.

....................................................................................................................................

Speaking of Love Poems

Even though my husband and I have been married a full half-century, I still write poems for him. And the excellent Remington Review was kind enough to publish one of them in its Winter 2025 issue. (By the way, my husband, Mohamed Zakariya, is a calligrapher who reads and writes in Arabic and Turkish, hence the first line.)