Then again, how can I not write about spring? To live in this beautiful world without noticing it, without being grateful, is a dereliction of my responsibility to see with open eyes and to offer praise. How can I write about spring coming to the Berkshires when so much is so profoundly broken? It feels like fiddling while Rome burns, or admiring pretty wildflowers while ignoring forest fires. Jill Pearlman, Exactly As Spring Is, Only More So Luxuriant, terrible, ridiculous, eternal.

A just-dead flower as fleet bird, then cast-off sheath. The familiar and worldly array of things holds worlds in its grip. The nonexistent in the existent steps forward so delicately. Now its daytime hosiery has been washed out and is hanging on the line. Not long ago their flowers were plush, wet and sticky. They oscillate, back and forth, in and out. They are both rapid and still, hovering in the folds of time. The daffodils mesmerize me: tiny geese with pointed head and tucked wings fly arrowlike across the smooth sea. Pavement of scattered chartreuse pollen with tire marks. Night had sowed magical rain, the day comes forth in pea green, yellow green, everything green. It will reward young writers with a cash prize for their poetry to help continue MJ’s teaching legacy. We are organizing a fund through SUNY Brockport in M.J.’s memory, the “M.J. I’ve been sharing her work since I first started doing this six years ago, and I’m sad to lose her luminous posts (see for example October 30, 2021), but cheered that they’re starting a poetry prize in her honor: But I must inject a sombre note as well: this week we learned via a post at her blog that M.J. Welcome to a special May Day edition, with earthy celebration and worker solidarity in equal measure. You can also browse the blog digest archive, subscribe to its RSS feed in your favorite feed reader, or, if you’d like it in your inbox, subscribe on Substack. Although I tend to quote my favorite bits, please do click through and read the whole posts. A personal selection of posts from the Poetry Blogging Network and beyond.

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