One Poem Only

LightShannon WestI’m afraid of the dark and so is heWe hold each other close and drift off into dreamsThe closet light is on - just how we like itLight spills from beneath the door bathing the room in its warmthThe basement, being alone, silence, death - belong to the darkThe kitchen table, love, togetherness, life - belong to the lightKindred spirits safe in our nestWe don’t need to fear the shadowsWe can see them as well as they can see usThe irony is not lost on me that when we are most at peace, we close our eyesEmbracing the darknessI am empatheticBecause I still fear the darkMaybe moms aren’t supposed to admit thatI don’t think it’s a weaknessIt just isBut what a privilege it isTo be his light nowMore from Shannon West ↓@shannonswriting on InstagramMentioned in this episode:Write After: National Poetry Month with One Poem OnlyWrite After is a way to encourage poets to listen and write, and use National Poetry Month to highlight how listening to poetry makes us better poets. I know I write the best when I’m surrounded by beautiful poetry–it’s part of the reason I created this podcast, and I want to encourage others to share this practice. We'll get started in April. You can share to #WriteAfterOPO.#WriteAfterOPO

Here’s your recap of this week’s poems plus one new poem to carry us into the week ahead.Jan 26 - Born of Ashes by Goldilocks @goldenprisonpoetry on Instagram.Jan 27 - The Mythical Hero of Legend has Clinical Depression by Oscar W Isaacs @oscarwritesaacs on Instagram.Jan 28 - Cheap Therapy Cheat Sheet by Tanja Lau @tanias.butterflies on Instagram. Tania's Butterflies on Substack. Listen to me read Rumors by Tanja on Instagram @rembrandts.cureJan 29 - The Grief that Grips Our World by Raquel Dionísio Abrantes @poets_desk on Instagram.Jan 30 - Without The Noise by Dipanwita Dey @iamdipanwitadey on Instagram.Jan 31 - Chai and Chrysanthemum by Mahnoor Rehan @smearedwithcrimson on Instagram.Feb 1Through the SoundMaggie DeversHow much longer will we keep up the farceHow much longer will the charade last?We thrive onscreen with tricks of light and soundOur entire world–galaxy–is cut off from the rest of the universeWe fill this void by lashing outBy forgetting why we're hereBy rushing through the good partsAnd replaying the bad onesThe things they promised would never happenNow occur at such a frequency,There is no time to parse their soundsThe morning birdsong is immense and unwaveringA reminder not to close your earsA reminder that the small and weak are us,As are the brutesWe only have to look them in the eyes to know–One day we will die.Familiar things become derangedThere is a part of us that remembers these horrorsBecause we’ve seen them beforeIn the hours we wait for understandingThe smell of a familiar stuffed bearOf pancakes on the griddleRosemary scented palms, sticky with the smellingWhere do pain and fear live?In the small quiet corners of our bodyWhere they try not to cry,Where they bite their lipLook deep into the middle distanceAnd imagine they are safe.More from Maggie Devers ↓My debut poetry collection, For My Daughter, available as an audiobook.Purchase a signed copy of For My Daughter or get one free by subscribing to the podcast: One Poem Only on PatreonFollow me on Instagram for more poetry @rembrandts.cureMentioned in this episode:Write After: National Poetry Month with One Poem OnlyWrite After is a way to encourage poets to listen and write, and use National Poetry Month to highlight how listening to poetry makes us better poets. I know I write the best when I’m surrounded by beautiful poetry–it’s part of the reason I created this podcast, and I want to encourage others to share this practice. We'll get started in April. You can share to #WriteAfterOPO.#WriteAfterOPO

Without The Noise Dipanwita Dey Who am Iwhen the notifications stop buzzing,when applause fades,when the lights dim and disappear,when no eyes are left to watch?Who am Iwhen the corner of the bedside empties quietly,the pillow no longer wet with secrets,the chaos no longer hums merrily,and my father’s strength vanishes—softly into thin air?Am I still kindif no one claps for my empathy?Still strong,if no one sees me carry the weight?Still dependable,if I crumble silently each day?In the hush of 3 AM,without filters, without guilt,without the crowd, without the noise,without the need to be enough—I find her.The girl who is strength.The quiet warrior,secretly fighting her own battle.She is poetry. She is art.She writes wildlyand cries without shame.Without the noise,I am not the echo of the world.I am the voice.Raw. Trembling.But finally—mine. More from Dipanwita Dey ↓@iamdipanwitadey on InstagramMentioned in this episode:Write After: National Poetry Month with One Poem OnlyWrite After is a way to encourage poets to listen and write, and use National Poetry Month to highlight how listening to poetry makes us better poets. I know I write the best when I’m surrounded by beautiful poetry–it’s part of the reason I created this podcast, and I want to encourage others to share this practice. We'll get started in April. You can share to #WriteAfterOPO.#WriteAfterOPO

Chai and Chrysanthemum Mahnoor Rehan My heart leansTowards abominationYou— Earliest ray of sunshineWalking sack of calculated caloriesAbyss, philanthropyI follow the squirrels as they hop from one willow toanotherWhen I leave my world behind just to play a minusculepart in yoursWhite Chrysanthemum disguisedAs a humanBang bangSwish swishThey rip my petals off in bitsEven god loves your companyYou both laugh at my life choices on a Saturday morningover a cup of chaiOh, what a delightful sight am I?A hopeless, humorless watchThe burden of love etched in my palms—Yet the thought of you still keeps me warmAs I sit here in my rocking chairIn the winter of my lifeMy center centers around your centerAnd I—Quietly oblige.More from Mahnoor Rehan ↓@smearedwithcrimson on InstagramMentioned in this episode:Write After: National Poetry Month with One Poem OnlyWrite After is a way to encourage poets to listen and write, and use National Poetry Month to highlight how listening to poetry makes us better poets. I know I write the best when I’m surrounded by beautiful poetry–it’s part of the reason I created this podcast, and I want to encourage others to share this practice. We'll get started in April. You can share to #WriteAfterOPO.#WriteAfterOPO

The Grief that Grips Our WorldRaquel Dionísio AbrantesSilver waters whisperamidst slender brancheswhere sisters bathe. My twinof bone and moss whose woeI fold like my grandmother foldedher husband’s pants —carefully, and in silence. Come,feral storm. Let usbe washed from the griefthat grips our world tonight.More from Raquel Dionísio Abrantes ↓@poets_desk on InstagramMentioned in this episode:Write After: National Poetry Month with One Poem OnlyWrite After is a way to encourage poets to listen and write, and use National Poetry Month to highlight how listening to poetry makes us better poets. I know I write the best when I’m surrounded by beautiful poetry–it’s part of the reason I created this podcast, and I want to encourage others to share this practice. We'll get started in April. You can share to #WriteAfterOPO.#WriteAfterOPO

Cheap Therapy Cheat SheetTanja LauThis poem was originally published by Part-Time Poets. Issue 29.No excuses. Pick your next move:Some people scream into pillows, others nametheir grief Steve and set a place for him at dinner.Mine is called Ernesto, he’s Swedish and he’s a strangerto daylight, so I forgive him. Naturally, he likes to quoteKierkegaard. That guy knew a thing or two aboutconnecting the dots backwards. But it’s the partabout living fast-forward Ernie conveniently swallows.It still gets me every time. You know,Ernesto can be a bit dramatic. He always wants meto dress for my own funeral. But I pick the red backlessdress instead and microwave my lunch at 4 p.m. like Lady Madrid.Yes, it’s good china Wednesday. Everyday. Time to crackopen that bottle of champagne I’ve been savingfor a special occasion. What’s more specialthan being alive? After dinner, I serve two Oreoslike communion. (Take three, if you’re religious.)For dessert there’s nothing better than writingmy name on the mirror. Kissing it. (With tonguefor advanced patients). And then the grand finale:smashing the handmade mug from third gradepottery class and spending two hours reassembling it.Same same, but different. Just like me. In bed,I make a vow to never again miss a chanceto dance it out in an elevator. Ernesto wouldn’t approve.Who cares? He’s asleep by now.More from Tanja Lau ↓@tanias.butterflies on InstagramTania's Butterflies on SubstackListen to me read Rumors by Tanja on Instagram @rembrandts.cureMentioned in this episode:Write After: National Poetry Month with One Poem OnlyWrite After is a way to encourage poets to listen and write, and use National Poetry Month to highlight how listening to poetry makes us better poets. I know I write the best when I’m surrounded by beautiful poetry–it’s part of the reason I created this podcast, and I want to encourage others to share this practice. We'll get started in April. You can share to #WriteAfterOPO.#WriteAfterOPO

The Mythical Hero of Legend has Clinical Depression Oscar W Isaacs The prophecy breathed of him cleaving through demons. Reaping through legions of unspeakable evil. Reaming to pieces their grievous leaders. Then of the deceased, he’d retrieve them from Elysium by redeeming their lethal lesions. A kill he’s healed… But in reality, the Hero just sleeps in. His steed, he forgot to feed it. Lives off cheap mead, cheap weed, gets a quest- he doesn’t even read it. His sword forged by dwarves in the depths of a Fjord is buried under heaps of laundry increasing week by week because folding his jeans is as steep an Odyssey as deceiving Polyphemus. Forget polishing those greaves when Aeneids could be written from him polishing his teeth. The Mythical Hero of Legend is Atlas bearing the weight of the heavens Even when he’s rotting in his bedroom. He’s reeling from a lifetime of people demeaning and lessening his presence, first bullies, then professors, with lessons in quelling his legend, and then in the present he’s putting in effort impressing incessant investors. It bends him. Rends him. Condemned like a Trojan no Hector defending. And while kingdoms immolate in dragon’s flames, he’s sat at home playing video games because he comprehends himself as Untermenschen. There’s no Nemean beast, no mares of Diomedes, the apples of Hesperides still chill among the trees, the labours would seem unachievabletoo if Heracles was Gen Z. And though the world needs him, he can’t quite believe it. A party made up of a priest and a thief like in an RPG awaits him. He doesn’t know that those are his mates who stayed with him. Who he’s airing because replying to their message feels like writing an Epic. But the world cannot be rescued by scrolling through Reddit. Upheaval cannot be bested by a festering prisoner of terror. The Mythical Hero of Legend must be his own medic. Like Gilgamesh he must face the grotesque and behead it, transform like an Ovid retelling. Not dread the unsettling, accept it. The voice in his head will always be frenetic. Let it. It won’t always be poetic. Even if he manages to build Rome from wreckage, he is stuck behind a desk. Shiva works for Unilever. Beowulf claims benefits. The Mythical Hero of Legend is being suppressed and you, no less oppressed. You get dressed, get stressed, do your best for a profession that does not honour the hopes you’re repressing. I am Tiresias the Prophet proclaiming a presage, you my friend are not pathetic. Even if apathetic, even if dead, your life was a saga you scribed into cells. The Mythical Hero works in sales. Works retail. Waits tables. The Mythical Hero frees himself from Hades since maybe to be is worthy of fables. And even though sometimes he dreams of the cleanest means to leave, and there may come a day where that urge may defeat him. Perceive that the prophecy breathed of him cleaving through demons. And to exist. For an eon, or even, just for a minute, to meet them in conflict, is mythic. More from Oscar W Isaacs ↓@oscarwritesaacs on Instagram Mentioned in this episode:Write After: National Poetry Month with One Poem OnlyWrite After is a way to encourage poets to listen and write, and use National Poetry Month to highlight how listening to poetry makes us better poets. I know I write the best when I’m surrounded by beautiful poetry–it’s part of the reason I created this podcast, and I want to encourage others to share this practice. We'll get started in April. You can share to #WriteAfterOPO.#WriteAfterOPO

Born of Ashes Goldilocks We were born of ashes and blood, In a shattered past stained with death. Each word hurt like a knife stabbing, Each day felt closer to the end. The pain did not stop for a second, It grew bigger with rage. Despite it all, survival was my saviour. Living got me into the arms of a soul like mine. A soul that needed mine, a soul that found me too. A soul that needed saving and soothing, just like I did. The world got colors, and the heart filled with light. Today, I live the dream I had when I cried myself to sleep. All the times I begged in desperation, Prayed for hope, prayed for a hero. All the tears that wetted my pillow, All the silent screams the walls held, All the beatings the bed took. So it all had meaning, it all led me here. More from Goldilocks ↓ @goldenprisonpoetry on Instagram Mentioned in this episode:Write After: National Poetry Month with One Poem OnlyWrite After is a way to encourage poets to listen and write, and use National Poetry Month to highlight how listening to poetry makes us better poets. I know I write the best when I’m surrounded by beautiful poetry–it’s part of the reason I created this podcast, and I want to encourage others to share this practice. We'll get started in April. You can share to #WriteAfterOPO.#WriteAfterOPO

Here’s your recap of this week’s poems plus one new poem to carry us into the week ahead. Jan 19 - Chasing the Light by Old Fart with a Guitar @old_fart_with_a_guitar on Instagram. Stream his music: OFWAG LinkTree. Jan 20 - A Merciless Winter by Farida Shamim Jan 21 - Don't call it hope or you'll scare it away by Candace Kronen rom Candace Kronen @candacekronenpoetry on Instagram. Her Substack: Stories I'll Tell My Daughter. She is co-editor and publisher of If You Ever: Poems Inspired by Kim Addonizio. Listen to me read, When I can’t sleep, I Google how the world ends. by Candace on Instagram at @rembrandts.cure. Jan 22 - Shimmer by Jessie Marie @Jessie.Kaiser on Instagram and Threads. Jan 23 - “Hope isn't a shy thing” by Eileen Strawberry @Soulsounds20 on Instagram. Wayward Traveller on Substack. Her poetry appears in Beautiful Ways to Say edited by Katie Elizabeth. Jan 24 - Same Old Story by Amelia Cabantog @meels_the_poet on Instagram. Jan 25 Burn the Flag Maggie Devers Burn all the flags Strew the tea in the harbor Fill the kettle or the pot Pour it out, drink it down Divine the future Free from false idols Free from men who say There is no future in the leaves, That all we can hope for in the saucer Is bitter grit in our teeth But they don't know that ash is soft Between our fingers We paint our bodies To become one with the dust With the end And the beginning More from Maggie Devers ↓ My debut poetry collection, For My Daughter, available as an audiobook. Purchase a signed copy of For My Daughter or get one free by subscribing to the podcast: One Poem Only on Patreon Follow me on Instagram for more poetry @rembrandts.cure Mentioned in this episode:Write After: National Poetry Month with One Poem OnlyWrite After is a way to encourage poets to listen and write, and use National Poetry Month to highlight how listening to poetry makes us better poets. I know I write the best when I’m surrounded by beautiful poetry–it’s part of the reason I created this podcast, and I want to encourage others to share this practice. We'll get started in April. You can share to #WriteAfterOPO.#WriteAfterOPO

Same Old Story Amelia Cabantog Everyday the news replays the same old stories. So, and so, died So, and, so was deportedSo, and, so's rights are being taken away.Meanwhile a mother is crying because her baby is slowly dyingAnd a brother is screaming because he doesn't know how to cope with all of his feelingsAnd a girl is lying broken, in a bed she did not make.The people outside are screaming and shouting, and crying and bleeding on the streets,But they remain unseen, and unheard.They're fighting for rights that we've already had to fight for beforeAnd history is repeating itself in the ugliest way.Somehow, the sun is still shining even on the darkest days,And the girl is still smiling, even on her darkest nights.She goes out and protests,And screams “No kings,”But within she's screaming so much more.“Get rid of ICE!”“Hands off of women's bodies and reproductive systems.”“LGBTQIA people exist and always will.”She wishes she could change the world,She wishes that someone could hear her voice.But she is always drowned out by the crowd.So, she holds her breath, listening to the mother crying over her baby who's bleeding out on the streets.And the brother screaming about all of his pent up feelings,And the protesters yelling,And the news playing over and over again.And at the end of the day she is still lying broken, in a bed she never wanted anyway.She's hoping one day someone will listen to her,And one day she will have changed the world.She's hoping one day she won't have to fight for her rights,And that the rest of the world will wake up and see the damage that is being done,And the people who are being killed,And all of the rights being taken away, not just their own.She wants the world to love each other and be kinder to each other,So, no one else has to listen to a mother crying because her baby was killed by a cop,Or a brother screaming because people keep invalidating his feelings of hatred towards himself,She doesn't want any other girl, or guy, or nonbinary, or genderfluid, to be lying in the same bed.That none of them made or even wanted to sleep in.More from Amelia Cabantog ↓@meels_the_poet on InstagramMentioned in this episode:Write After: National Poetry Month with One Poem OnlyWrite After is a way to encourage poets to listen and write, and use National Poetry Month to highlight how listening to poetry makes us better poets. I know I write the best when I’m surrounded by beautiful poetry–it’s part of the reason I created this podcast, and I want to encourage others to share this practice. We'll get started in April. You can share to #WriteAfterOPO.#WriteAfterOPO

“Hope isn't a shy thing” Eileen Strawberry Hope isn't a shy thingShe has white knucklesand spits gritWhen oppressors beat down on her shouldersShe draws her sword swiftlyNo hesitationNo deliberationShe will slay dragonsfor her kinHope isn't a pretty thingScars mar her complexionShe's missing some teethDirt crusts under her nailsCalluses roughen her feetYet her vision is clearHer heartbeat steadyCourage courses her veinsConviction deepens her voicein times of chaos and confusionHer truth shears through the noiseMore from Eileen Strawberry ↓@Soulsounds20 on InstagramWayward Traveller on SubstackHer poetry appears in Beautiful Ways to Say edited by Katie ElizabethMentioned in this episode:Write After: National Poetry Month with One Poem OnlyWrite After is a way to encourage poets to listen and write, and use National Poetry Month to highlight how listening to poetry makes us better poets. I know I write the best when I’m surrounded by beautiful poetry–it’s part of the reason I created this podcast, and I want to encourage others to share this practice. We'll get started in April. You can share to #WriteAfterOPO.#WriteAfterOPO

ShimmerJessie Mariemy shimmering heart draped in tearsdrums a song behind a thorny cageghosts dressed in moonlightwail against the inky black of nightsorrow is stitched into their eyesan echo of dreams heard on the windI restore myself in the light of the starsa spotlight of hope drinks me upsuch a dream of being whole againMore from Jessie Marie ↓@Jessie.Kaiser on Instagram and ThreadsMentioned in this episode:Write After: National Poetry Month with One Poem OnlyWrite After is a way to encourage poets to listen and write, and use National Poetry Month to highlight how listening to poetry makes us better poets. I know I write the best when I’m surrounded by beautiful poetry–it’s part of the reason I created this podcast, and I want to encourage others to share this practice. We'll get started in April. You can share to #WriteAfterOPO.#WriteAfterOPO

Don't call it hope or you'll scare it away Candace Kronen Call it window or thread or undone button, call it plump lipsand the slip of a sound, open palm with a single split seedwhispers of paw prints in a blanket of snow, baby hairsand broccoli sprouts, call it half hug of a parenthesis,handprint in the cave, defiant little fiddleheadpushing through the dirt, call it a clearingof the throat, first stroke of a bow, call itAsha call it Violet call it Chekhov’ssmoking gun, call it Holmesianpipe with a fresh tobacco tin,pink streak of aurorasquinting through theclouds, call it leavingspace for a casualcosmic mystery,call it, just call itand don’t closethe door.More from Candace Kronen ↓@candacekronenpoetry on InstagramHer Substack: Stories I'll Tell My DaughterShe is co-editor and publisher of If You Ever: Poems Inspired by Kim AddonizioListen to me read, When I can’t sleep, I Google how the world ends. by Candace on Instagram at @rembrandts.cureMentioned in this episode:Write After: National Poetry Month with One Poem OnlyWrite After is a way to encourage poets to listen and write, and use National Poetry Month to highlight how listening to poetry makes us better poets. I know I write the best when I’m surrounded by beautiful poetry–it’s part of the reason I created this podcast, and I want to encourage others to share this practice. We'll get started in April. You can share to #WriteAfterOPO.#WriteAfterOPO

A Merciless Winter Farida Shamim How cruel you are, Winter —couldn’t you wait a little longer?Why didn’t you waituntil the children fell asleep,their dreams unbroken,their bellies not empty?My little ones lie down hungry,and now —how could I cover them,how could I protect themfrom your harsh, merciless air?Can’t you see —we can no longer see tomorrowwe can’t even weep.Our tears have turned to salt,our hearts to smoke.Can’t you feelthe pain we endure?Couldn’t you waituntil the sun of faith rose againto touch the facesthat still believe in warmth?How cruel you are, Winter —to come when we are already cold.Mentioned in this episode:Write After: National Poetry Month with One Poem OnlyWrite After is a way to encourage poets to listen and write, and use National Poetry Month to highlight how listening to poetry makes us better poets. I know I write the best when I’m surrounded by beautiful poetry–it’s part of the reason I created this podcast, and I want to encourage others to share this practice. We'll get started in April. You can share to #WriteAfterOPO.#WriteAfterOPO

Chasing the Light Old Fart with a Guitar With all the bad news and all the bad vibes And the battle lines drawn between the tribes, I was lathered up, hosed down, spun around and hung out to dry. Still, life goes on at 60 years an hour And I wondered if I’d wasted my time, Cause there was so much sorrow I was running out of tears to cry… Til one day a small stone thrown by a small fry Up n hit a giant right between the eyes, He was too tall, the big fall cut him down to regular size And when he hit the ground the whole world was lifted by The vision he was blocking from sight It was a double barreled rainbow Following an angel in flight And there’s big yellow sunrise spreading out across the horizon, I’m gonna try and hitch a ride when that heavenly engine ignites So if you see me on the roadside please don’t worry If I’m standing with my thumb to the sky I’m not running from the darkness, I’m just chasing the light. I’m done pouring time into a bucket of holes I’m done casting shadows of doubt on my soul Gotta change my position, start fishing with a different pole Cause life keeps going at 60 years an hour But if I catch it by the end of the road I’ll find that double barreled rainbow Shining on a mountain of gold And there’s a big red sunset spreading out across the horizon I’m gonna follow it and see if it really is a sailor’s delight So if you see me from shoreline please don’t worry If I’m waving as I sink out of sight I’m not falling over the edge I’m just chasing the light I’m not falling over the edge I’m just chasing the light…More from Old Fart with a Guitar ↓@old_fart_with_a_guitar on InstagramStream his music: OFWAG LinkTreeMentioned in this episode:Write After: National Poetry Month with One Poem OnlyWrite After is a way to encourage poets to listen and write, and use National Poetry Month to highlight how listening to poetry makes us better poets. I know I write the best when I’m surrounded by beautiful poetry–it’s part of the reason I created this podcast, and I want to encourage others to share this practice. We'll get started in April. You can share to #WriteAfterOPO.#WriteAfterOPO

Here’s your recap of this week’s poems plus one new poem to carry us into the week ahead.Jan 12 - Happiness by Navya Chaudhary @chaoticconfessor on Instagram. Her book, Unfinished Letters, is out now.Jan 13 - I Promise by Riley Hope McPheters @rileyhmcpheters on Instagram. She is a member of @PoetzPortalFW, that exists to awaken consciousness and cultivate liberated creative practice through the transformative power of poetry, sound, and communal dialogue.Jan 14 - Aloof by Luwa @luwawrites on Instagram. You can listen and watch me read Beauty Allures by Luwa on Instagram @rembrandts.cure.Jan 15 - Rooted by Shaq Mendes @shackahh_wackahh on Instagram.Jan 16 - The Season of Returning by Lara @itslarawrites on Instagram.Jan 17 - The Anatomy of Dawn by Saleha Najeeb @gotta_slayyyy on Instagram. Her book, Whispers Unveiled, is available now.Jan 18One More StepMaggie DeversI’m worried you might be missing itI’m worried you might be living through it all and not really living itI’m worried you can’t smell itI’m worried you don’t pull it close and smother yourselfWill you remember how she always smelled of milk?And the way her cry would squeak early in the morning?Or how she first said daddyAnd then her own nameHow she needed us for everything and then one dayDidn’t.I thought I’d be better prepared,That we could mark it on the calendar and celebrateBut it snuck up on me—She learned to dress herself,Feed herself,Pick up after herselfAnd I forgot what I was here to teach herAnd started learning what I was here to teach myselfWe hold on to the parts that we think come firstBut the order doesn’t go how we imagineTime is tricky—The hand that pulls you forward isn’t always your own.More from Maggie Devers ↓My debut poetry collection, For My Daughter, available as an audiobook.Purchase a signed copy of For My Daughter or get one free by subscribing to the podcast: One Poem Only on PatreonFollow me on Instagram for more poetry @rembrandts.cureMentioned in this episode:Write After: National Poetry Month with One Poem OnlyWrite After is a way to encourage poets to listen and write, and use National Poetry Month to highlight how listening to poetry makes us better poets. I know I write the best when I’m surrounded by beautiful poetry–it’s part of the reason I created this podcast, and I want to encourage others to share this practice. We'll get started in April. You can share to #WriteAfterOPO.#WriteAfterOPO

The Anatomy of DawnSaleha NajeebDo not mistake the smile for light.It is merely how we hide the mourningof what never had a funeral.Grief, it does not arrive or leave,it resides,like a second pulse beneath the one we claim to feel.I have carried it, you knowthe quiet dissonance of appearing alivewhile the soul rehearses its own absence.There are days I speak,but every word drips through a sieve of silence,and you, perhaps,know this kind of breathing too.Yet, even stillness grows restless.Even darkness remembers the shape of dawn.So I begannot running,but returningto the small certainties I once abandoned,a breath that does not tremble,a thought that does not ache to end.Freedom did not come in thunder.It arrived like forgivenessa slow unburdening,a light learning the contours of my name again.And in that moment, I was not the same.I was the echo remade into a voice,the ashes remembering they were once flame.Now, when I speak,my words are not a sieve but a garden.The air hums with what I chose to reclaim.I have returnednot unscarred,but luminous from within the wounds.This, dear reader,is not survivalit is the anatomy of dawn.More from Saleha Najeeb ↓@gotta_slayyyy on InstagramHer book, Whispers Unveiled, is available nowMentioned in this episode:Write After: National Poetry Month with One Poem OnlyWrite After is a way to encourage poets to listen and write, and use National Poetry Month to highlight how listening to poetry makes us better poets. I know I write the best when I’m surrounded by beautiful poetry–it’s part of the reason I created this podcast, and I want to encourage others to share this practice. We'll get started in April. You can share to #WriteAfterOPO.#WriteAfterOPO

MamanMaggie DeversI see the most amazing spider webStretching between two treesAnd it is huge.When the light hits it just soIt glimmers as a precious gem,An intricate pattern that looks fragile,But isn’t.And I realizeThat’s what I want to do in this life—Make something as beautiful and impossible as that.You can listen to the audiobook of For My Daughter in its entirety here.

The Season of Returning Lara I fell into winter,a quiet collapse of light.Bare branches above me,and silence heavy as snow.The frost took my laughter,the wind took my name,and I drifted through the cold,like breath caught between worlds.But the earth-she never forgot me.She hummed beneath the ice,a low song,ancient and patient:even the seed must sleep before it blooms.And I listened,still and small,to her steady heartbeat below.The rain returned,soft as mercy,washing sorrow from my hands.The wind tangled in my hairand whispered, home,as the ground beneath mestirred with life-shivering, stretching, reaching for the sun.Moss clothed my sorrow,petals crowned my scars.I did not burst into life;I unfolded.I became.Rebirth is not thunder.It’s rhythm,a heartbeat beneath soft soil,a river remembering its song.It’s the body learning warmth again,the soul relearning grace.Now I move with the earth’s own music.I am green where I was gray,river where I was stone,light where I was pain.I have returned,not as who I was,but as everything I was meant to become.And when the dawn brushes my skin,I do not hide.I open wide, like the first flower of springsinging softly to the sun:I am here.I am whole.I am light again.More from Lara ↓@itslarawrites on InstagramMentioned in this episode:Write After: National Poetry Month with One Poem OnlyWrite After is a way to encourage poets to listen and write, and use National Poetry Month to highlight how listening to poetry makes us better poets. I know I write the best when I’m surrounded by beautiful poetry–it’s part of the reason I created this podcast, and I want to encourage others to share this practice. We'll get started in April. You can share to #WriteAfterOPO.#WriteAfterOPO

Rooted Shaq Mendes Women are Queens, Men are Kings well -Along w/ the throne, you needah';_ Have that Crown _Take a journey down a path where,the end'll have you feeling like Gold;Gold - ha_ha I know being rich is the goal,this type of Rich, is gonna come from your Soul;So... the Gold _ won't be shinny, nor rectangular shaped,It's gonna weigh the same as you nothing more;There's a Pulse...Take your hand place on your chest,do yah feel that?Close your eyes, take a breath,ha_ha , still not there yet;Breathe as if you're a vehicle - approaching,them yellow flashing lights;A little bit slower...In through the nose,from gut to chest it rose;Out the mouth it goes, a breath so - Powerful... Meditation - Breath control,Anger, Hurt, & Pain _ The body'll let go,it's on you _ to stay in the zone;Clear the mind - the thoughts,should stop, as if time froze;Go on - give it a try -let your body take a ride,on this road - Personal Growth... Get Rooted...More from Shaq Mendes ↓@shackahh_wackahh on InstagramMentioned in this episode:Write After: National Poetry Month with One Poem OnlyWrite After is a way to encourage poets to listen and write, and use National Poetry Month to highlight how listening to poetry makes us better poets. I know I write the best when I’m surrounded by beautiful poetry–it’s part of the reason I created this podcast, and I want to encourage others to share this practice. We'll get started in April. You can share to #WriteAfterOPO.#WriteAfterOPO

AloofLuwaAloof poof, jump off the roof as proofThey use the news to deduce and reduce the abuseThrown and blown our way while we moan and groanUnable to table the insatiable desire for the fableThat makes us weaker, bleaker yet we are eagerFor we have aligned, misaligned our brains to malignImages that damages, and abscond our privileges.More from Luwa ↓@luwawrites on InstagramYou can listen and watch me read Beauty Allures by Luwa on Instagram @rembrandts.cureMentioned in this episode:Write After: National Poetry Month with One Poem OnlyWrite After is a way to encourage poets to listen and write, and use National Poetry Month to highlight how listening to poetry makes us better poets. I know I write the best when I’m surrounded by beautiful poetry–it’s part of the reason I created this podcast, and I want to encourage others to share this practice. We'll get started in April. You can share to #WriteAfterOPO.#WriteAfterOPO

I Promise Riley Hope McPheters When you are sad-It feels that is who you are.You are not the sad of a hard day,Nor the sad of a loved one gone too soon,You are a sad that is in your blood,Cold and slow.A depression deeper than the depths of rock bottom.Rock bottom becomes your safety net-And when it is not deep enough to relate to the pain within your own walls,You scrape with your nails to get even deeper into the depths of your own sorrow.Days are warped- time is too fast yet manages to be miserably slow.The perfunctory lives of those around you drive you into an underworld of isolation that youfeel as if you don’t want to come up from.And not all do.We lose many from sadness. Inner war that comes with no peace treaty. Anger andtraumas many grow so numb to.An inner frustration with no exit point.Sadness is us. And we are sadness.However, some of us get cold to the darkness- or curious of the light up above. Some of usstart climbing,Knowing that no fall could be as damaging as the darkness below we once knew so so well.The lives of routine we once feared became the lives of ambition,Prosperity,Resilience,And strength we learned to admire the most.To feel the warmth of the light and know it was never too far. To feel the sadness seep outof the very veins that once held it.To be full of so much brightness- no darkness could outweigh what is within.To be ok with the darkness and look forward to the light.To be so whole. To be so happy.It is possible.Find your light. And accept your darkness.Growth happens there.I promise.More from Riley Hope McPheters ↓@rileyhmcpheters on InstagramShe is a member of @PoetzPortalFW, that exists to awaken consciousness and cultivate liberated creative practice through the transformative power of poetry, sound, and communal dialogue.Mentioned in this episode:Write After: National Poetry Month with One Poem OnlyWrite After is a way to encourage poets to listen and write, and use National Poetry Month to highlight how listening to poetry makes us better poets. I know I write the best when I’m surrounded by beautiful poetry–it’s part of the reason I created this podcast, and I want to encourage others to share this practice. We'll get started in April. You can share to #WriteAfterOPO.#WriteAfterOPO

Happiness Navya Chaudhary If you are out there chasing happiness,Then I want you to remember this.If you're chasing it,It's definitely not yours.Happiness is not somewhere out there,It's hidden in those small moments around you.The one you don't notice very often.And sometimes,You don't even have to find it.You can create it.Why wait for someone else to bring you happiness?When you can be that person for yourself.Do the things you've wanted to do for so long.Try that new drink before it's off the menu.Watch that movie before it leaves the theatre.Buy yourself the flowers you always wanted.Go.Now.Why are you still here?More from Navya Chaudhary ↓@chaoticconfessor on InstagramHer book, Unfinished Letters, is out now.Mentioned in this episode:Write After: National Poetry Month with One Poem OnlyWrite After is a way to encourage poets to listen and write, and use National Poetry Month to highlight how listening to poetry makes us better poets. I know I write the best when I’m surrounded by beautiful poetry–it’s part of the reason I created this podcast, and I want to encourage others to share this practice. We'll get started in April. You can share to #WriteAfterOPO.#WriteAfterOPO

Here’s your recap of this week’s poems plus one new poem to carry us into the week ahead.On Learning to Dissect Fetal Pigs by Renée Nicole Good. She was murdered by ICE on January 7, 2026. In 2020, she won the undergraduate Academy of American Poets Prize in 2020 for this poem.Jan 5 - Becoming Again by Reya @moodmakerperson on Instagram. Her book, Teenage Tide, is available now.Jan 6 - To Fall Is to Begin by Irina Vérène @queen_of_gore on Instagram. They are featured in Haunted Words Press’ anthology, Our Dearest Devotions, which contains their flash fiction piece about friendship, fae magic, and gender transition.Jan 7 - Transmorphing by Özge Lena @lenaozge on Instagram. You can find her on Substack @lenaozge where she presents her new approach to poetry, Catapoetry. It is a poetic framework about the interwoven and inseparable catastrophes of our age. You can listen to me read luminous girl lullaby by Özge Lena on Instagram @rembrandts.cure.Jan 8 - Genesis of Her by Kiran Ashraf @kiran_ashraf on Instagram and @kiranashraf7 on Substack.Jan 9 - Part Oracle, Part Warrior by Aslam @smmaslam on Instagram and @aslammohammed on Substack. His book, Paper Boat in Rumi’s Garden, is available now.Jan 10 - The Tender Descending by Ellie A @lines_between_living on Instagram and @linesbtwnliving on Substack. Read more from her on her blog, Lines Between Living.Jan 11Suck It InMaggie DeversI saw a woman, weak and gauntShuffle slowly up the sidewalkAnd instantly felt protective of my curvesBecause we don’t get to keep them.They leave us in our old age—Only after we forget we cursed themFor the zipper’s slow progress,The marks left by elastic waistbands,The shock of our picture from the rear,The angry bumps between our thighs,The way we learned to suck it in before there was anything but flat stomach.It’s only when the extra bits are goneDo you realize they made you robust,Proof of a full lifeThat couldn’t be knocked overBy the shock of a car squealing round the cornerOr a plucky robot delivery cart in the intersection with nothing to lose.The paths are paved with chaos, ballast is required.So I’ll shoulder my pack without swearing and find comfort in all I’m able to carry.More from Maggie Devers ↓My debut poetry collection, For My Daughter, available as an audiobook.Purchase a signed copy of For My Daughter or get one free by subscribing to the podcast: One Poem Only on PatreonFollow me on Instagram for more poetry @rembrandts.cureMentioned in this episode:Write After: National Poetry Month with One Poem OnlyWrite After is a way to encourage poets to listen and write, and use National Poetry Month to highlight how listening to poetry makes us better poets. I know I write the best when I’m surrounded by beautiful poetry–it’s part of the reason I created this podcast, and I want to encourage others to share this practice. We'll get started in April. You can share to #WriteAfterOPO.#WriteAfterOPO

The Tender DescendingEllie AugustinThe earth exhales and everything slows.The trees remember what it means to be bare.We gather what warmth remains in our handsand stitch our dreams beneath quiet skies.Each flake that lands upon the skinis a messenger of mercy,a reminder that even in endings,something tender still descends.More from Ellie A ↓@lines_between_living on Instagram and @linesbtwnliving on SubstackRead more from her on her blog, Lines Between LivingMentioned in this episode:Write After: National Poetry Month with One Poem OnlyWrite After is a way to encourage poets to listen and write, and use National Poetry Month to highlight how listening to poetry makes us better poets. I know I write the best when I’m surrounded by beautiful poetry–it’s part of the reason I created this podcast, and I want to encourage others to share this practice. We'll get started in April. You can share to #WriteAfterOPO.#WriteAfterOPO

part oracle, part warrior Aslam a crescent moon, hangs like a scaron her shoulder’s silence.her lips sealedby vow or violence.her eyes do not ask.they know.they have watched empires bleedon blades of their own lies.she stands in gray,spine unbent,each scar a sentenceshe never had to explain.call it rebellion.call it myth.a womanwho no longer waits.she is the ink and the echo,the storm braided into calm.you may look,but you will not read her.not everyone seeswhat silence reveals.so i offer you a line,a voice shaped by defiance,a presence drawn in truth.let me speak for her,since her lips are sealed:she would not kneel.she is herefor you to bow.More from Aslam ↓@smmaslam on Instagram@aslammohammed on SubstackHis book, Paper Boat in Rumi’s Garden, is available nowMentioned in this episode:Write After: National Poetry Month with One Poem OnlyWrite After is a way to encourage poets to listen and write, and use National Poetry Month to highlight how listening to poetry makes us better poets. I know I write the best when I’m surrounded by beautiful poetry–it’s part of the reason I created this podcast, and I want to encourage others to share this practice. We'll get started in April. You can share to #WriteAfterOPO.#WriteAfterOPO

On Learning to Dissect Fetal PigsRenée Nicole GoodThis poem was awarded the Academy of American Poets Prize in 2020.i want back my rocking chairs,solipsist sunsets,& coastal jungle sounds that are tercets from cicadas and pentameter from the hairy legs of cockroaches.i’ve donated bibles to thrift stores(mashed them in plastic trash bags with an acidic himalayan salt lamp—the post-baptism bibles, the ones plucked from street corners from the meaty hands of zealots, the dumbed-down, easy-to-read, parasitic kind):remember more the slick rubber smell of high gloss biology textbook pictures; they burned the hairs inside my nostrils,& salt & ink that rubbed off on my palms.under clippings of the moon at two forty five AM I study&repeatribosomeendoplasmic—lactic acidstamenat the IHOP on the corner of powers and stetson hills—i repeated & scribbled until it picked its way & stagnated somewhere i can’t point to anymore, maybe my gut—maybe there in-between my pancreas & large intestine is the piddly brook of my soul.it’s the ruler by which i reduce all things now; hard-edged & splintering from knowledge that used to sit, a cloth against fevered forehead.can i let them both be? this fickle faith and this college science that heckles from the back of the classroomnow i can’t believe—that the bible and qur’an and bhagavad gita are sliding long hairs behind my ear like mom used to & exhaling from their mouths “make room for wonder”—all my understanding dribbles down the chin onto the chest & is summarized as:life is merelyto ovum and spermand where those two meetand how often and how welland what dies there.Mentioned in this episode:Write After: National Poetry Month with One Poem OnlyWrite After is a way to encourage poets to listen and write, and use National Poetry Month to highlight how listening to poetry makes us better poets. I know I write the best when I’m surrounded by beautiful poetry–it’s part of the reason I created this podcast, and I want to encourage others to share this practice. We'll get started in April. You can share to #WriteAfterOPO.#WriteAfterOPO

Genesis of HerKiran AshrafHer body is like a powerful tidelooming in an ever-flowing motionchewing on her emotions like riceshe aches to read in sheltering armswearing her chaos for a better lifeher skin is a wild thing at its bestmemories in her songs of griefnow trembled and hummed in her boneslike a silent gust of unfinished wreckageor an absent orchestra of musical hellher two eyes wander through the meadowslessons forced on her forgiving shouldersall her exhausting days and unsent textsare winding up in threads of crocheted woolshe exists in this unyielding temporalgrowing stronger among unseen enemiesMore from Kiran Ashraf ↓@kiran_ashraf on Instagram and @kiranashraf7 on SubstackMentioned in this episode:Write After: National Poetry Month with One Poem OnlyWrite After is a way to encourage poets to listen and write, and use National Poetry Month to highlight how listening to poetry makes us better poets. I know I write the best when I’m surrounded by beautiful poetry–it’s part of the reason I created this podcast, and I want to encourage others to share this practice. We'll get started in April. You can share to #WriteAfterOPO.#WriteAfterOPO

TransmorphingÖzge LenaThis Poem was commended for Winged Muse Poetry Competition of Winged Moon Literary MagazineAfter Harpy by Valerie HammondIn seven nights she will burstinto nothing. Now all alone in a creamcoloured void, a woundlike creature, a word hunger like no other.Soon you will meet herin the neon gloaming, after the ruby acheof not writing for a long winter,frost flowers in your heart. Her low wingswill be closed, sharp clawspointing down and down, some frozensadness on her pale face.Sunset’s vermilion beams will bleedinto your lungs as you holdher by hair, unfurl the ribbon to tie itaround your neck, to see your freedomknotted in its silk, and breathelife into her mouth. You will watch herunfold her wings wide, talonswill scratch the soft air when she cloaksyou tight until you morph intoa harpy to write a septet poem in red ink.More from Özge Lena ↓@lenaozge on InstagramYou can find her on Substack @lenaozge where she presents her new approach to poetry, Catapoetry. It is a poetic framework about the interwoven and inseparable catastrophes of our age.You can listen to me read luminous girl lullaby by Özge Lena on Instagram @rembrandts.cureMentioned in this episode:Write After: National Poetry Month with One Poem OnlyWrite After is a way to encourage poets to listen and write, and use National Poetry Month to highlight how listening to poetry makes us better poets. I know I write the best when I’m surrounded by beautiful poetry–it’s part of the reason I created this podcast, and I want to encourage others to share this practice. We'll get started in April. You can share to #WriteAfterOPO.#WriteAfterOPO

To Fall Is to BeginIrina Vérènei won’t be draggedpast the pearly gates—i’ll leave of my own volition.with these heavenly rulesstifling my breath,i must say,it seems a wise decision.amidst the flamesand the curling smoke,i shall rise anew—after all,a fall from heaven,a descent to hell,is a baptism, too.More from Irina Vérène ↓@queen_of_gore on InstagramThey are featured in Haunted Words Press' anthology, Our Dearest Devotions, which contains their flash fiction piece about friendship, fae magic, and gender transition.Mentioned in this episode:Write After: National Poetry Month with One Poem OnlyWrite After is a way to encourage poets to listen and write, and use National Poetry Month to highlight how listening to poetry makes us better poets. I know I write the best when I’m surrounded by beautiful poetry–it’s part of the reason I created this podcast, and I want to encourage others to share this practice. We'll get started in April. You can share to #WriteAfterOPO.#WriteAfterOPO

Becoming AgainReyaI didn’t rise like fire —I rose like forgiveness.Lost me once, still trying,sky’s the limit, I’m craving the climb.Thoughts that once broke menow make me alive again.Words find me, like a heart reborn —one heartbreak broke a million dreams,but that heartbreak built me stronger —heartless enough to fight for them again.More from Reya ↓@moodmakerperson on InstagramHer book, Teenage Tide, is available now.Mentioned in this episode:Write After: National Poetry Month with One Poem OnlyWrite After is a way to encourage poets to listen and write, and use National Poetry Month to highlight how listening to poetry makes us better poets. I know I write the best when I’m surrounded by beautiful poetry–it’s part of the reason I created this podcast, and I want to encourage others to share this practice. We'll get started in April. You can share to #WriteAfterOPO.#WriteAfterOPO

Here’s your recap of this week’s poems plus one new poem to carry us into the week ahead.Dec 29 - Eclipse of the Self by Ruvaani @ruvaani.unclaimed on Instagram. Her book, The Sunken Daffodil, is out now.Dec 30 - Cold Plunging by Kristin Yates @beautefantasy on Instagram. You can find links to her published work on her Linktree.Dec 31 - Of love and hell by Kajal @mermaidspen_ on Instagram and @mermaidspen on Substack.Jan 1 - New Dawn by Benedicta Kyeremaa Addai @Kyere_mah on Instagram. She was published in the anthology, Ancestors, answer me, a compilation of shortlisted poems entered into the 2025 New Voices Poetry Contest Curated by Creative Project Ghana. The New Voices Contest was born from a desire to give poetic voices in Ghana a platform to celebrate the richness of Ghanaian expression, language and imagination. A copy of the anthology can be found at the website of New Voices Poetry Contest or Creative Ghana Project on Instagram.Jan 2 - January Born by JC @theincidentalpoet on Instagram and Substack.Jan 3 - "My heart is a museum of every person I've ever loved" by Megan Phillips @metaphor_megg on Instagram. Her book, Uncomfortably Present, is available now.Jan 4Crawl SpaceMaggie DeversThis was the year of the snakeBut I didn’t realize it until the endNow I feel free from my itchy skin Like emerging from the steam roomPores open, every ounce of old squoze out The beginning of the year brought exit,Retreat from our burrow until the fire subsided This summer we saw a rattle on the trailThey sun themselves right in the middle of the footpath Your vibrations alert them to exit before you see them Unless they’re feeling particularly drowsyAnd who hasn’t felt slow half napping in the midday lightWe crashed out of fall and into winter with a joltIt was impossible to move until we found releaseIn slithering along the sand to the sea Where we could dig our toes inAnd recall our feet, polish them new with the gritAnd mummer to our insides how glad we wereTo be cartwheeling as the sun set on the snakeMore from Maggie Devers ↓My debut poetry collection, For My Daughter, available as an audiobook.Purchase a signed copy of For My Daughter or get one free by subscribing to the podcast: One Poem Only on PatreonFollow me on Instagram for more poetry @rembrandts.cureMentioned in this episode:Write After: National Poetry Month with One Poem OnlyWrite After is a way to encourage poets to listen and write, and use National Poetry Month to highlight how listening to poetry makes us better poets. I know I write the best when I’m surrounded by beautiful poetry–it’s part of the reason I created this podcast, and I want to encourage others to share this practice. We'll get started in April. You can share to #WriteAfterOPO.#WriteAfterOPO

“My heart is a museum of every person I’ve ever loved” Megan Phillips My heart is a museum of every person I’ve ever lovedMy Dad’s birthday is national start over dayYesterday I told the ocean that I would let go of all the victim bullshitI would let the past me be in the rearviewI will be new after washing my feet in the sandVenus, I said,I will have more funAnd loveAnd I won’t be bitter and sadAbout what I don’t haveI will appreciate being 34 and on vacation with my husband aloneI will appreciate the new pet sitter who I know will train my dog I will appreciate the rabbits I saw 3-4 times this weekI will appreciate the small crab on the beach who was walked on but god damn it, he livedMy heart is a museum of every person I’ve ever loved His Mom is Portmeirion plates and ‘Hey there Delilah” Because she thought it reminded her of usWhich made no damn sense but it’s her song nowMy heart is a museum of every person I’ve ever lovedMy grandfather it’s coffee shops and poppiesMy grandmother it’s yellow daffodils cigarettes and knit sweatersMy mom is MAC Red lipstickMy Dad is tanned freckled skinMy husband is blue eyes and big handsMore from Megan Phillips ↓@metaphor_megg on InstagramHer book, Uncomfortably Present, is available now.Mentioned in this episode:Write After: National Poetry Month with One Poem OnlyWrite After is a way to encourage poets to listen and write, and use National Poetry Month to highlight how listening to poetry makes us better poets. I know I write the best when I’m surrounded by beautiful poetry–it’s part of the reason I created this podcast, and I want to encourage others to share this practice. We'll get started in April. You can share to #WriteAfterOPO.#WriteAfterOPO

January Born JC I was winter’s child,wrapped in borrowed wool,breath small as frost on windowpanes. The world outside was brittle then,trees bare-boned againsta sky that never learned warmth,roads lined with grit and quiet. Inside, there was laughter,steam from mugs that foggedthe kitchen glass,a lullaby of radiators clankingas if they toowere proud to keep me alive. January taught me patience—that buds sleep long before they bloom,that light returns in rationed teaspoons,that beginnings aren’t always bright,but they are strong. And so when I look back,I see my first days threaded with cold,yet stitched with care,a child born not to fireworks,but to the hush of snow,the steady hands of a yearjust learning how to start again.More from JC ↓@theincidentalpoet on Instagram and SubstackMentioned in this episode:Write After: National Poetry Month with One Poem OnlyWrite After is a way to encourage poets to listen and write, and use National Poetry Month to highlight how listening to poetry makes us better poets. I know I write the best when I’m surrounded by beautiful poetry–it’s part of the reason I created this podcast, and I want to encourage others to share this practice. We'll get started in April. You can share to #WriteAfterOPO.#WriteAfterOPO

New DawnKyeremah ‎Smile on me,‎the Sun is awakening.‎Yesterday and today left no crumbs‎We begin from there.‎‎I won't tell you how to live ‎But be happy, ‎be happy ‎‎One step at a time ‎Love, eat and pray‎Give thanks and make merry.‎‎Today will be gone ‎So will you, someday ‎But what will matter‎Is that you lived well.‎‎So be happy,‎be happy. More from Kyeremah ↓@Kyere_mah on InstagramShe was published in the anthology, Ancestors, answer me, a compilation of shortlisted poems entered into the 2025 New Voices Poetry Contest Curated by Creative Project Ghana. The New Voices Contest was born from a desire to give poetic voices in Ghana a platform to celebrate the richness of Ghanaian expression, language and imagination. A copy of the anthology can be found at the website of New Voices Poetry Contest or Creative Ghana Project on Instagram. Mentioned in this episode:Write After: National Poetry Month with One Poem OnlyWrite After is a way to encourage poets to listen and write, and use National Poetry Month to highlight how listening to poetry makes us better poets. I know I write the best when I’m surrounded by beautiful poetry–it’s part of the reason I created this podcast, and I want to encourage others to share this practice. We'll get started in April. You can share to #WriteAfterOPO.#WriteAfterOPO

Of Love and Hell Kajal Of how the hell fell in loveand went straight to heaven, I know the story of a dovewho used to weep for a raven.Nights when Earth criedfor tearing Sun and Moon apart,When horizons used to pain world,there was no war in the name of art.Take me back to the timewhen agony was not a trend, time of ancients,where lies beginnings end.More from Kajal ↓@mermaidspen_ on Instagram@mermaidspen on SubstackMentioned in this episode:Write After: National Poetry Month with One Poem OnlyWrite After is a way to encourage poets to listen and write, and use National Poetry Month to highlight how listening to poetry makes us better poets. I know I write the best when I’m surrounded by beautiful poetry–it’s part of the reason I created this podcast, and I want to encourage others to share this practice. We'll get started in April. You can share to #WriteAfterOPO.#WriteAfterOPO

Cold Plunging Kristin Yates Breath leaves my lipslike a bird, andI feel the cardinalsand the chickadeesand the coldin my handssing.I become the shiverof saying it:I love youenoughto let you live.More from Kristin Yates ↓@beautefantasy on InstagramYou can find links to her published work on her LinktreeMentioned in this episode:Write After: National Poetry Month with One Poem OnlyWrite After is a way to encourage poets to listen and write, and use National Poetry Month to highlight how listening to poetry makes us better poets. I know I write the best when I’m surrounded by beautiful poetry–it’s part of the reason I created this podcast, and I want to encourage others to share this practice. We'll get started in April. You can share to #WriteAfterOPO.#WriteAfterOPO

Eclipse of the Self Ruvaani I dissolved in the shadow of my own becoming,where every heartbeat was an echo of absence,and every breath a question unspoken.The world pressed against my ribs,but in the hollow between despair and forgetting,a seed trembled—ancient, patient, luminous.From it rose fire unbidden,not to burn what remained,but to weave the fragments of meinto a new geometry of being.I walked through the ruins of yesterday,not seeking light, but becoming it,each step an unmaking and a return,each scar a hymn,each tear a river that bore me home.And when dawn finally leaned into my chest,I did not rise as I was—I rose as I had always been:a soul forged in shadow,tempered in loss,and rebornin the quiet, unrelenting brilliance of myself. More from Ruvaani ↓@ruvaani.unclaimed on InstagramHer book, The Sunken Daffodil, is out nowMentioned in this episode:Write After: National Poetry Month with One Poem OnlyWrite After is a way to encourage poets to listen and write, and use National Poetry Month to highlight how listening to poetry makes us better poets. I know I write the best when I’m surrounded by beautiful poetry–it’s part of the reason I created this podcast, and I want to encourage others to share this practice. We'll get started in April. You can share to #WriteAfterOPO.#WriteAfterOPO

Here’s your recap of this week’s poems plus one new poem to carry us into the week ahead.Dec 22 - From a Home, to a House by Gunneet Kaur Bhamra @wordsmith._.witxh on Instagram. She's founder of a creative club for teenage writers, called The Pioneering Pens. Members learn new forms and styles of poetry, have monthly theme based challenges, edit weekly newsletter and make every voice heard. If you're interested in joining, DM Gunneet @wordsmith._.witxh.Dec 23 - For the Pines by Amanda Galeotti @amandagaleotti on Instagram.Dec 24 - The Miseducation (How the Sugarcane Remembers Us) by Lia D. Elen Listen to me read another poem by Lia on Instagram @rembrandts.cure.Dec 25 - “little tree” by E.E. CummingsDec 26 - Silent Echoes by Zahra @zaarraaaa__ on Instagram.Dec 27 - Return to Light by Gordan Struić @gstruic on Instagram, @gordanstruic on Substack.Dec 28Her Name Maggie DeversHer name is not the Venus of Willendorf,But she will answer to it.Her name exists in another tongue We no longer knowA language that came before Venus.I imagine her name meant bounty,Her name meant overflow,Her name meant life.Scholars say she shows us the ideal of ancient beauty,But I see woman.And the weight she holds in her hips Outlives her carver,Outlives the rock,Outlives mountainsTo find us and fill us with her form.More from Maggie Devers ↓My debut poetry collection, For My Daughter, available as an audiobook.Purchase a signed copy of For My Daughter or get one free by subscribing to the podcast: One Poem Only on PatreonFollow me on Instagram for more poetry @rembrandts.cureMentioned in this episode:Write After: National Poetry Month with One Poem OnlyWrite After is a way to encourage poets to listen and write, and use National Poetry Month to highlight how listening to poetry makes us better poets. I know I write the best when I’m surrounded by beautiful poetry–it’s part of the reason I created this podcast, and I want to encourage others to share this practice. We'll get started in April. You can share to #WriteAfterOPO.#WriteAfterOPO

Return to Light Gordan Struić The longest night exhales,and somewhere beneath the frosta seed remembers warmth.I walk through fieldswhere shadows thin like old thoughts,each breath a small sunrise.Inside me,the dark softens —becomes room for light again.More from Gordan Struić ↓@gstruic on Instagram@gordanstruic on SubstackMentioned in this episode:Write After: National Poetry Month with One Poem OnlyWrite After is a way to encourage poets to listen and write, and use National Poetry Month to highlight how listening to poetry makes us better poets. I know I write the best when I’m surrounded by beautiful poetry–it’s part of the reason I created this podcast, and I want to encourage others to share this practice. We'll get started in April. You can share to #WriteAfterOPO.#WriteAfterOPO

Silent Echoes Zahra In the quiet descent of twilight's curtain, I stand, a solitary figure, uncertain.Lost within the shifting hues of fading light, I navigate the spaces where solitude takes flight.Threads of connection, delicate and fine, A tapestry woven with the hands of time.Moments form a mosaic, a complex array, Each fragment a story, in shadows they sway.Silent whispers linger in the vast expanse, Shadows dance in a ghostly, transient trance.Invisible threads weave a spectral embrace, A tapestry of solitude, woven with grace.Longing for touch in the silence profound, Exploring realms where solitude is found.Laughter, a distant echo in the quiet air, Navigating the chambers of introspective lair.A dance with sorrow, an intimate ballet, In the moonlit theater where emotions play.Yearning for pain, an unconventional plea, To delve into depths, to just be free.No rhythmic pulse guides this introspective stroll, Just the current of feelings, an unfolding scroll.In the canvas where shadows gently persist, I paint my essence, an unspoken twist.More from Zahra ↓@zaarraaaa__ on InstagramMentioned in this episode:Write After: National Poetry Month with One Poem OnlyWrite After is a way to encourage poets to listen and write, and use National Poetry Month to highlight how listening to poetry makes us better poets. I know I write the best when I’m surrounded by beautiful poetry–it’s part of the reason I created this podcast, and I want to encourage others to share this practice. We'll get started in April. You can share to #WriteAfterOPO.#WriteAfterOPO

“little tree” E.E. Cummings little treelittle silent Christmas treeyou are so littleyou are more like a flowerwho found you in the green forestand were you very sorry to come away?see i will comfort youbecause you smell so sweetlyi will kiss your cool barkand hug you safe and tightjust as your mother would,only don't be afraidlook the spanglesthat sleep all the year in a dark boxdreaming of being taken out and allowed to shine,the balls the chains red and gold the fluffy threads,put up your little armsand i'll give them all to you to holdevery finger shall have its ringand there won't be a single place dark or unhappythen when you're quite dressedyou'll stand in the window for everyone to seeand how they'll stare!oh but you'll be very proudand my little sister and i will take handsand looking up at our beautiful treewe'll dance and sing"Noel Noel"Mentioned in this episode:Write After: National Poetry Month with One Poem OnlyWrite After is a way to encourage poets to listen and write, and use National Poetry Month to highlight how listening to poetry makes us better poets. I know I write the best when I’m surrounded by beautiful poetry–it’s part of the reason I created this podcast, and I want to encourage others to share this practice. We'll get started in April. You can share to #WriteAfterOPO.#WriteAfterOPO

The Miseducation (How the Sugarcane Remembers Us)Lia D. ElenThey told us the cane was sweet,that sugar was a gift-never whispering of century-long bonesground into their stalks.My great-grandmothers spoke truth in drum and smoke,their hands weaving rivers of power,the earth crowning them healers.Still, the priests named them devils.Still, their altars were burned.Yet Atabey whispers now,mother of waters, womb of hurricanes-even though classrooms replaced her with Eve,teaching us paradise was theirs to grant.And the textbooks?They too crowned Columbus, King,while Taino caciques were reduced to whispers bent beneath English mouths-Though I hear them thunder in the veins of the mountains.They branded Nanny a "rebel,"never queen, never general.Her rifle smoke the incense of our freedom,her blood still a covenant in the hills.We recited Wordsworth and Shakespeare,while my forbears' chantswere sealed beneath the tongue of shame.The cane-field was painted as industry,never cemetery.Each stalk a headstone that remembers,each sweetness a silence imposed.The memories in the sugar cuts-in the tea, in the trade, in the wages.The miseducation echoes on-in every Xamaycan child who does not knowAtabey's name, Nanny's fire,the caciques' crowns, my great-grandmothers' drums.ButThe cane still hides fire in its stalk.We chew,we who SEE,we who feel,KNOWthe sweetness burns.So now we'll spit, and make the silence end.For this-this poem-is a revolt,on Blue Mountain tops where ancestors still drum in trade winds.May the wind carry this chant.May we taste our truth in sugar cubes and remember our names.I offer it to their fire.More from Lia D. Elen ↓@lia.d.elen on InstagramMentioned in this episode:Write After: National Poetry Month with One Poem OnlyWrite After is a way to encourage poets to listen and write, and use National Poetry Month to highlight how listening to poetry makes us better poets. I know I write the best when I’m surrounded by beautiful poetry–it’s part of the reason I created this podcast, and I want to encourage others to share this practice. We'll get started in April. You can share to #WriteAfterOPO.#WriteAfterOPO

For the PinesAmanda GaleottiI’ve known the paralyzing anguishOf the dark nights of soulWhen the gleaming edge of a bladeGlints like a glittering saviorI’ve been in cave pitch blindnessI’ve wondered in a world of 8 billionHow loneliness could ever put down rootsIn despair, I’ve found communionwith mosquitoes and loonsblack bears and ravensAnd every phase of the moonWith sparkling stars, acting a sceneAnd treesAll of themEspecially the pineWith drooping boughsAnd bleeding sapSomehow when even the ash and sycamore have sunken to winter desolationBowed low by loads of winter snowThe pine holds the hope, keeps the needlesTo weave a haven for winter wayfarersHow much grief have they swallowed for usJust by being with us in winterMore from Amanda Galeotti ↓@amandagaleotti on Instagram@amandanichole on SubstackMentioned in this episode:Write After: National Poetry Month with One Poem OnlyWrite After is a way to encourage poets to listen and write, and use National Poetry Month to highlight how listening to poetry makes us better poets. I know I write the best when I’m surrounded by beautiful poetry–it’s part of the reason I created this podcast, and I want to encourage others to share this practice. We'll get started in April. You can share to #WriteAfterOPO.#WriteAfterOPO

From a Home, to a HouseGunneet Kaur BhamraFrom the place, where comfort was found,And people meant happiness and laughter.From the lazy and cozy mornings,And chattering and cheery evenings.From those late-night family games and gossips,Because “tomorrow's a holiday... what a bliss!”To the place where comfort is only sought,Where people mean suffocation.To busy and chilly dawns,And gloomy and exhausting dusks.To these late-night family dramas and decisions,Because “tomorrow's a holiday… what the hell?”Yeah, I wanted to grow, and so I have!But I didn't want to travel,from a carefree, loud childhood,To a responsible, silent adolescence;from a home, to a house!Take me back to the delightful hours in the sunlit veranda.Take me back to the chaos of the crowded kitchen.Take me back, for once - just once - to my home...More from Gunneet Kaur Bhamra ↓@wordsmith._.witxh on InstagramShe's founder of a creative club for teenage writers, called The Pioneering Pens. Members learn new forms and styles of poetry, have monthly theme based challenges, edit weekly newsletter and make every voice heard. If you're interested in joining, DM Gunneet @wordsmith._.witxh.Mentioned in this episode:Write After: National Poetry Month with One Poem OnlyWrite After is a way to encourage poets to listen and write, and use National Poetry Month to highlight how listening to poetry makes us better poets. I know I write the best when I’m surrounded by beautiful poetry–it’s part of the reason I created this podcast, and I want to encourage others to share this practice. We'll get started in April. You can share to #WriteAfterOPO.#WriteAfterOPO

Here’s your recap of this week’s poems plus one new poem to carry us into the week ahead.Dec 15 - The Keeper’s Dream by Kiki Johnson @kiki_poetry on InstagramDec 16 - The Belle Of Yule by Melani Udaeta @melrose_poetry18 on Instagram. Her book, Of Love and Music, is out now.Dec 17 - Clava Cairns by Jessica Aure Pratt @jessaure.poetry on Instagram. @jessaurepoetry on Substack. You can listen to me read Into the Abyss by Jessica on Instagram @rembrandts.cure.Dec 18 - The Art of Returning by Dr. Deepak Dev @deeepak.devv on Instagram. @drdeepakdev on Substack. His book, Symphony of the Erased - Verses Resurged & Reclaimed, is out now.Dec 19 - Angels In Our Mouths by Sandra Beth Levy @slevy43 on Instagram. Her first poetry book, Unfurling The Scroll Of Seven Decades, will be out in 2026.. Sandra has had recent poems published in the Roots and Ruins: Poetry Anthology published by Arcana Poetry Press. And Issue 1 of A Curious Moon, an online literary magazine. As well as The Vagabond’s Verse-Weekly Verses on December 5th. And three poems in a SHINE Poetry Series spotlight on December 10th.Dec 20 - Still Light Unveils by Marissa M. Zhu @marissazhu on Instagram. @marissamzhu on Substack where she publishes The Wanting: A literary exploration of desire as generative force—neither absence to cure nor state to transcend. Love notes to the hunger that never resolves, only transforms. Her debut poetry manuscript, Memories We’ve Never Made, blends cinematic lyricism with psychological precision. In this 30-piece collection, Marissa examines how even unrealized loves can leave indelible imprints.Dec 21But For A Sacred DeerMaggie DeversThey come like rabid dogsBaying for blood And fling tired tropesInto the airLike drums beating A dead horse And it’s simpleHow we tear ourselves to piecesFor the sake of a few bad apples,How we let the loudest voices take holdTo find a scapegoatAnd spill,and spill,and spill the bloodIn hope for winds to comeAnd free us from this horrid placeNever questioning where the gale leadsOr what we’ll find when we get there.More from Maggie Devers ↓Read my debut poetry book, For My DaughterFollow me on Instagram for more poetry @rembrandts.cure Mentioned in this episode:Write After: National Poetry Month with One Poem OnlyWrite After is a way to encourage poets to listen and write, and use National Poetry Month to highlight how listening to poetry makes us better poets. I know I write the best when I’m surrounded by beautiful poetry–it’s part of the reason I created this podcast, and I want to encourage others to share this practice. We'll get started in April. You can share to #WriteAfterOPO.#WriteAfterOPO

Still Light Unveils Marissa M. ZhuMoonrise drapes her muslin throat across the room. Everything hushes. Desire folds itself into brocade: my letter pressed beneath perfume bottles, your name stitched inside a pillow's seam. The sky forgets its vowels. Fingers braid the air with rumor. Windows withhold our reflections. Your face is washed in cathedral glass. We soak harsh truths in amber-dipped tongues. Even our silences blush. — Daybreak has no patience for embroidery. Sunlight burns what night obscured. It peels back the curtain, unveiling half-corked truths. So now— tell me what you meant last night. Not in riddles, not in wine. Tell me why your hand trembled toward mine, then away. Why you said nothing when I leaned close enough to hear your breath catch on my name. — Say it plain. Say you wanted to stay. Say you didn’t. Say you meant to kiss me. Say you still do. Or say nothing. Again. Watch how morning holds even silence to the window. How shadows lean toward noon, how yesterday's wine stain becomes today's open door.  More from Marissa M. Zhu ↓@marissazhu on Instagram@marissamzhu on Substack where she publishes The Wanting: A literary exploration of desire as generative force—neither absence to cure nor state to transcend. Love notes to the hunger that never resolves, only transforms.Her debut poetry manuscript, Memories We’ve Never Made, blends cinematic lyricism with psychological precision. In this 30-piece collection, Marissa examines how even unrealized loves can leave indelible imprints. Mentioned in this episode:Write After: National Poetry Month with One Poem OnlyWrite After is a way to encourage poets to listen and write, and use National Poetry Month to highlight how listening to poetry makes us better poets. I know I write the best when I’m surrounded by beautiful poetry–it’s part of the reason I created this podcast, and I want to encourage others to share this practice. We'll get started in April. You can share to #WriteAfterOPO.#WriteAfterOPO

Angels In Our Mouths Sandra Beth Levy On the tip of my tongue sit the ancient rabbisYeshiva style they debate how many angels dance in my mouth thousands, millions, more than the stars in heavenThe oldest star in space is named Methuselah grandfather of Noah, oldest biblical patriarchScientists date Methuselah back fourteen billion yearsBefore our universe exploded into existence with a Big BangMy vibrant lips lick the aftertaste of loveSweetened by my lover’s honey-bronzed skinHis breath a flood of promiseMy loins blessed by a holy grandmother hugging her oceansInnumerable angels dance in our watering mouths more than the animals Noah protected on his arc more than the stars created with a Big BangThe rabbis sit on the tip of my tongue and argueAs they try to count the angelswho dance wild with abandon upon our curved cheeksfor longer than Methuselah’s light streaks across our universeMore from Sandra Beth Levy ↓@slevy43 on InstagramHer first poetry book, Unfurling The Scroll Of Seven Decades, will be out in 2026.Sandra has had recent poems published in the Roots and Ruins: Poetry Anthology published by Arcana Poetry Press And Issue 1 of A Curious Moon, an online literary magazine.As well as The Vagabond’s Verse-Weekly Verses on December 5thAnd three poems in a SHINE Poetry Series spotlight on December 10th.Mentioned in this episode:Write After: National Poetry Month with One Poem OnlyWrite After is a way to encourage poets to listen and write, and use National Poetry Month to highlight how listening to poetry makes us better poets. I know I write the best when I’m surrounded by beautiful poetry–it’s part of the reason I created this podcast, and I want to encourage others to share this practice. We'll get started in April. You can share to #WriteAfterOPO.#WriteAfterOPO

The Art of Returning Dr. Deepak Dev — for the ones who stayed through winterSome winters arrive without snow —only the long ache of unfinished warmth.Even the mirrors frost inward,as if the soul has forgotten its reflection.But the earth knows better.It keeps its promises underground —roots rehearsing resurrection,petals studying silence until they can speak again.Renewal is not a sunrise.It’s a hand reaching through cold air,finding pulse where no pulse was expected.It’s the body remembering it once belonged to light.Every thaw is an act of faith,not in what returns,but in what endured unseen.When the solstice breathes its first pale dawn,I will not pray — I will listen.For in that hush,you can hear the quiet miracle of warmthdeciding to begin again. More from Dr. Deepak Dev ↓@deeepak.devv on Instagram@drdeepakdev on SubstackHis book, Symphony of the Erased - Verses Resurged & Reclaimed, is out now.Mentioned in this episode:Write After: National Poetry Month with One Poem OnlyWrite After is a way to encourage poets to listen and write, and use National Poetry Month to highlight how listening to poetry makes us better poets. I know I write the best when I’m surrounded by beautiful poetry–it’s part of the reason I created this podcast, and I want to encourage others to share this practice. We'll get started in April. You can share to #WriteAfterOPO.#WriteAfterOPO

Clava CairnsJessica Aure PrattClava CairnsA Scottish Bronze Age stone burial complex4,000 years, pink standing stone faces winter solstice sunset, entryway to death, passage to return.solstice standing stoneface deathentryway to sunstone facessunset passage pinkface winterstandreturn to stonedeath facessunset yearsreturnpink facesentryway to stoneto solstice4,000 year returnpink sunsetpassage to stone deathturn years tostanding entrywayturn pink deathwinter to returnto sunset4,000 years to standpink sun stonedeath to yearsturn stonereturn sunMore from Jessica Aure Pratt ↓@jessaure.poetry on Instagram@jessaurepoetry on SubstackYou can listen to me read Into the Abyss by Jessica on Instagram @rembrandts.cure.Mentioned in this episode:Write After: National Poetry Month with One Poem OnlyWrite After is a way to encourage poets to listen and write, and use National Poetry Month to highlight how listening to poetry makes us better poets. I know I write the best when I’m surrounded by beautiful poetry–it’s part of the reason I created this podcast, and I want to encourage others to share this practice. We'll get started in April. You can share to #WriteAfterOPO.#WriteAfterOPO