Lauren M. B. Connolly
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lmbconnolly.bsky.social
Lauren M. B. Connolly
@lmbconnolly.bsky.social
170 followers 320 following 19 posts
Untangling the mysteries of the universe. Writes from the Pacific Northwest.
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The US has a new poet laureate! Arthur Sze, is the first Asian-American to serve in this role. #poetry
www.npr.org/2025/09/15/n...
Arthur Sze named 25th U.S. poet laureate
Sze is a poet with a lot of acclaim — he's won the National Book Award, was a Guggenheim fellow and was a finalist for the Pulitzer. He aims to promote interest in translated poetry in his new role.
www.npr.org
September 15, 2025 at 8:34 PM
Reposted by Lauren M. B. Connolly
perugiapress.bsky.social
Today’s the day! Perugia Press’s annual prize is open for subs, now through Nov. 15. Open to women poets, inclusive of gender-expansive identities, who have not published more than one full-length collection. Full guidelines & submission info @ linktree in bio. We look forward to reading your work!
August 1, 2025 at 3:58 PM
lmbconnolly.bsky.social
Thanks to the Consulate-General of Japan in Toronto for including my two Sakura haiku-ish poems in their celebration. 🌸
pink blossoms fall / snowflakes/of spring pink blossoms rain down / hope of sweetness and /summer cherries
May 20, 2025 at 10:44 PM
lmbconnolly.bsky.social
“Magellanic Penguin” by Pablo Neruda #nationalpoetrymonth #poetry #flippersup
April 4, 2025 at 8:15 PM
lmbconnolly.bsky.social
"A Litany for Survival" by Audre Lorde from the Collected Poems of Audre Lorde #nationalpoetrymonth #poetry #survival 🌸🌸🌸
A Litany for Survival BY AUDRE LORDE For those of us who live at the shoreline standing upon the constant edges of decision crucial and alone for those of us who cannot indulge the passing dreams of choice who love in doorways coming and going in the hours between dawns looking inward and outward at once before and after seeking a now that can breed futures like bread in our children's mouths so their dreams will not reflect the death of ours; For those of us who were imprinted with fear like a faint line in the center of our foreheads learning to be afraid with our mother's milk for by this weapon this illusion of some safety to be found the heavy-footed hoped to silence us For all of us this instant and this triumph We were never meant to survive. And when the sun rises we are afraid it might not remain when the sun sets we are afraid it might not rise in the morning when our stomachs are full we are afraid of indigestion when our stomachs are empty we are afraid we may never eat again when we are loved we are afraid love will vanish when we are alone we are afraid love will never return and when we speak we are afraid our words will not be heard nor welcomed but when we are silent we are still afraid So it is better to speak remembering we were never meant to survive. "A Litany for survival" by Audre Lorde from The collected poems of Audre Lorde.
April 3, 2025 at 3:42 PM
lmbconnolly.bsky.social
"If I Must Die" by Fefaat Al-Areer #poetry #nationalpoetrymonth #palestine
If I Must Die By Refaat Al-Areer If I must die, you must live to tell my story to sell my things to buy a piece of cloth and some strings, (make it white with a long tail) so that a child, somewhere in Gaza while looking heaven in the eye awaiting his dad who left in a blaze- and bid no one farewell not even to his flesh not even to himself- sees the kite, my kite you made, flying up above and thinks for a moment an angel is there bringing back love If I must die let it bring hope let it be a tale.
April 2, 2025 at 5:29 PM
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Poetry is not a Luxury by Audre Lorde (from Sister Outsider) 🌼
The quality of light by which we scrutinize our lives has direct bearing upon the product which we live, and upon the changes which we hope to bring about through those lives. It is within this light that we form those ideas by which we pursue our magic and make it realized. This is poetry as illumination, for it is through poetry that we give name to those ideas which are — until the poem - nameless and formless, about to be birthed, but already felt. That distillation of experience from which true poetry springs births thought as dream births concept, as feeling births idea, as knowledge births (precedes) understanding. As we learn to bear the intimacy of scrutiny and to flourish within it, as we learn to use the products of that scrutiny for power within our living, those fears which rule our lives and form our silences begin to lose their control over us. For each of us as women, there is a dark place within, where hidden and growing our true spirit rises... These places of possibility within ourselves are dark because they are ancient and hidden; they have survived and grown strong through that darkness. Within these deep places, each one of us holds an incredible reserve of creativity and power, of unexamined and unrecorded emotion and feeling. Poetry is not a luxury. It is a vital necessity of our existence. It forms the quality of the light within which we predicate our hopes and dreams toward survival and change, first made into language, then into idea, then into more tangible action. Poetry is the way we help give name to the nameless so it can be thought. The farthest horizons of our hopes and fears are cobbled by our poems, carved from the rock experiences of our daily lives.
April 1, 2025 at 7:09 PM
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Poetry is not a Luxury for love, art or protest.
April 1, 2025 at 7:07 PM
lmbconnolly.bsky.social
A bittersweet poem by Clare Azzopardi, “Excerpt from ‘Autumn’”
Translated by Albert Gatt from Maltese. In the most recent issue of Modern Poetry in Translation
Excerpt from ‘Autumn’ it could be the leaves how they shower from the sky how they blanket the ground how they come down just for you rain a rain o’ foliage, a refreshing shroud of leaves how you have nothing but words that speak more leaves how they shield you how you blow them oD suddenly revealed how you spit them out of your mouth there now, take a breath, breathe any way you can it could be the leaves your tongue one withered leaf a day how they can’t get the taste of you how they overwhelm you how they fill you up how this is all you have the leaves now sodden now dry now peeping through the window I can’t see you where have you gone? take a breath let me catch a slight shi" in the leaves how your face is it could be you how you’re heaping at the pavement’s edge how there’s no other way you could be it could be leaves from this autumn and the next an autumn of leafy blankets showers coming down on you how it’s not manna but it’s still coming from the sky I’m wondering how you’ll This poem is about homelessness. Through the window, as leaves fall and the trees prepare for winter’s sleep, we catch sight of a man sleeping on the pavement, covered in leaves. Leaves are all he has, they are all he feeds on. But what will happen when winter comes and there are no more leaves to conceal and protect him? A Maltese woman with curly hair, hoop earrings, a black shirt and glasses smiles into the camera. She is set against a plain grey background.
September 5, 2023 at 4:17 AM