THE EAGLE

He clasps the crag with crooked hands; Close to the sun in lonely lands,

Ring’d with the azure world, he stands.

The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls; He watches from his mountain walls, And like a thunderbolt he falls.

—Alfred Lord Tennyson

The past pandemic year and a half has been as productive a period as I have ever known as a writer. But instead of submitting my new work to literary journals, as I’ve done for decades, I posted my poems on Facebook and Instagram. That change came in part because I had grown impatient with the sometimes excruciatingly long time between submission and response typical at literary magazines, but perhaps more important because my interest in writing has grown more narrowly (and broadly, it seems) in creating a kind of conversation between reader and writer that one almost never gets from publication in journals. What Frank O’Hara called “Personism.”

As it has turned out, the response to posting the poetry on social media platforms has been so gratifying that I’ve now decided to move beyond the short attention span that social media platforms trade in and start up a weekly poetry newsletter, “Poems Coming Down From the Crag.” One poem a week, sometimes one of mine, sometimes the work of a poet I know, sometimes just a poem I’ve stumbled across that has altered the way I move through this life. One poem a week. Free. No associated jive. No sly promotions. No one time fees. No sneaky fees after you’ve been reeled in. Just a poem. Free. Once a week. Never more. Free. Just click on the tab below … and put a little free poetry in your life. As the Slam Poet Queen of Easthampton, Massachusetts, says, “Come get you some!” (You can always unsubscribe. Also free. And I won’t know.

poemsfromthecrag.com