Between the yardstick and the mile
The Rumor animates fields of Anemones.
It feeds the fish that drinks the rain.
It turns the plumes of broad winged hawks,
Huffs into sails of lonely ships.
It warms the tomb with candle flame
And further than this star.
All things breath in its trace,
Taste with its tongue,
Belie the exigence of form.
And in a book I read,
The wounded heart was freed
Upon a day when the rain fell up.
Can one dream of what can never be?
Is it outside of human possibility?
Words and words thrown at the corner
Where no one stands.
– Ken Wilding / Spring Lake, Michigan
Tag: Poetry
“Detroit” – Joy Gaines-Friedler
PSM member Joy Gaines Friedler’s poem, Detroit, is up on Vox Populi along with some of her photographs.
Walking Through the Hollow / Ben Snider
Walking Through The Hollow
No birds call, no crickets sing
No wind blows through no trees
No words echo, no flowers spring
No self has no value here
No heart beats, no pains sting
No way up to no way down
No way left for my being
No way right, no way wrong
No way out of no seeing
No feet on no ground
No me to know the meaning.
Ben Snider / Arcadia, Michigan
Prompt: The Right to Write
From Julia Cameron’s The Right to Write.Set aside a half hour:
Settle yourself in to write. First take ten minutes to describe where you are. (I’m in my office and furious.) Try to capture your mood, the room, anything delightful or interesting that catches your attention. Number your paper from 1-5. Very quickly list five things that would be interesting to write about. Choose one topic. What would you write about it? Why would you write about it? Spend five or so minutes writing about that.Do not go for Art, capital A, or even writing, capital W. Think of this instead as word play. Do not worry about being deep or sensible or practical.
Ode to a Dutch Pump / Becky Ventura
Prompt: Something You Hate
Take something you love, something you hate, something you don’t understand. Put them in the cement mixer of your brain and write a poem. Below you’ll find a response to this promt from Becky Ventura.
Poem in Which the Poem Works Very Hard to Identify Itself / Kristen Brace
This poem by Kristen Brace won the Barbara Sykes Memorial Humor Prize in PSM’s annual poetry contest. It appeard in the fall issue of Peninsula Poets.
Opposite the Direction We Are Traveling / Phillip Sterling
See Phillip Sterling’s poem, “Opposite the direction we are traveling” in 
From his book, Animal Husbandry.
Capture Theory / Joy Gaines-Friedler
Midland / Nancy Cook
Nancy Cook’s poem “Midland“, a response to the 2020 flood that made national headlines, was the winner of the Founder’s Prize in the 2020 poetry contest of the Poetry Society of Michigan.
