As promised, here’s a behind-the-scenes look at a poem from my new book, A Suit or a Suitcase, and the poem itself deals with scenes and looking. Today I’m sharing a handwritten annotation of “In Geologic Time, It Happened Just Seconds Ago.” It was first published in The Southern Review (many thanks to editor Jessica Faust!) and this month was featured on Poetry Daily. Here’s how it appears there, so you have a clean version:

“In Geologic Time, It Happened Just Seconds Ago” is a poem that came together over many years. In 2005 I first jotted down notes about the canyon, the view from Airport Mesa, and the Milky Way while on my honeymoon in Sedona, Arizona. Over the next twenty years or so, I returned to that material now and then, but never had the poem in my grasp, just images. After my divorce, I went back to those old, failed drafts to see what I could find. That excavation led me to a poem that is, in its own way, about excavation, and about seeing things later through a different lens.

What helped me find and shape the poem was seeing an opportunity to play with repetition and variation. Like jazz musicians, we writers can improvise and riff! I’ve noted some of that riffing in the handwritten annotation below.

As I note here, I saw the opening—“Our honeymoon was a strand of scenic overlooks”—as an opportunity to play with variations on that sentence. Mid poem it becomes “Our honeymoon was a stranded scene I overlooked,” and in the end it becomes “Our honeymoon was a strand, a strangeness, a look ahead.” Riffing on the words in those sentences inspired me to play with other words and to find possible variations. Ultimately I built the form of the poem around those variations and revisions/distortions, with the end words in lines 1-3 (strand, wrote, scenic) corresponding to the end words in lines 4-6 (strange, penned, scene), and so on.

If you quickly scan the poem, you’ll see that the end words in each odd tercet (1, 3, 5, 7, 9, 11) are somewhat mirrored in the following even tercet (2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12). The last two stanzas also circle back to the beginning. Is it a little fussy? Yes! But I’m grateful to the weird jazz of this poem, and all of those links, because it’s what helped some notes that languished for more than two decades finally become a poem! The form made it possible.

That said, is the weird jazz detectable—in that it’s hearable—but also mostly invisible to readers? I suspect yes, but you tell me! Did you notice this when you first read the poem? As I was revising, I didn’t see a way to call attention to the “matching” end words without hooting the reader over the head. I mean, I wasn’t going to bold them! So at least this annotation gives me the opportunity to share something about the poem’s architecture that might not be apparent on first or second read.

In the annotation, you’ll see I’ve noted some of the sound play in this poem. I’ve noted rhyme (white/night in stanza 6, overlooked/took in stanzas 7-8), alliteration, assonance, and consonance, including places where the sound play is downplayed because of the form. For example, both the sanguine/sunsets and the recorded/rock alliteration are toned down by the line breaks, as the words are given some distance from one another. This can be especially helpful with alliteration, which can slip into tongue twister territory (case in point!) if we’re not careful.

Generally speaking, enjambment allows for suspense—a kind of floating—at the ends of lines, so that the reader needs to keep reading to know where the sentence is going. Most of the lines in this poem are enjambed; only eight are end-stopped, with punctuation (comma, period), which I think adds to the sense of improvisation and re-seeing: the reader, like the speaker, is a little off-kilter, trying to make sense of the memory. Memory, perception, and revision are themes that come up again and again in A Suit or a Suitcase, and they all live in this poem.

I think of my poem “Wife for Scale” from Goldenrod (2021), also featured on Verse Daily, as a sister poem to this one. Read them both and see if you agree? (Fun fact: I have two geologists in my family, my youngest sister and her husband. If I ever need a rock identified, I know who to ask!)

I’m giving a craft talk on Thursday evening, hosted by the Hudson Valley Writers Center. I won’t be talking about “In Geologic Time, It Happened Just Seconds Ago” specifically, but I will be talking about something that happens in the first two stanzas of the poem: an admission of a mistake. The talk is called “The Golden Repair: Embracing Imperfection in Our Poems.” I think it’ll be fun!

What else? We’re celebrating National Poetry Month on The Slowdown, so I hope you’ll join our newsletter and consider donating if you’re able. I don’t have to tell you that public media has taken quite a hit over the past year.

Thanks for being here at For Dear Life. It means a lot. I hope that experimenting with some “weird jazz”—repetition and variation—will help a draft of yours finally find its form. Here’s to that!

Take good care—
Maggie

Hi, Friend.

What a joy to see your questions and to hear what’s front of mind for you. It can feel like you’re on your own little island when you’re writing, but of course that’s not true; none of us creates alone, and none of us succeeds alone.

One of the things I love most about hosting The Slowdown is that it connects me to other writers. I find poems and poets I wasn’t familiar with before, and I’m given the opportunity to shine a light on their work. One of the things I love most about this newsletter is being in conversation with you directly, without being at the mercy of the algorithm on social media, or hoping that we might be in the same city at the same time. (Of course I’m extra delighted when I get to meet folks in person, but I know that’s not always possible!)

The more connected and supported we feel as we write, the easier it is to keep going, even when it’s difficult. And it’s often difficult! Today I’m answering some questions from supporting subscribers about facing difficulty. There are so many good questions this time around—about deciding how and where to publish, finding the “heat” of a poem, contending with disappointment or dissatisfaction in one’s writing life, and more—so let’s dig in.

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Hi, Friend.

First, some gratitude: Thank you for bearing with me through the madness of the past few months. It struck me today that in the past year I’ve released and toured on three different books: Dear Writer, The People’s Project (coedited with my dear friend Saeed Jones), and A Suit or a Suitcase. Add in working on new projects, hosting The Slowdown, and parenting two busy teenagers, and it’s easy to see why life feels so full. Beautiful and full. I wouldn’t mind an eighth day of the week.

Now that I’m home from my events for A Suit or a Suitcase, I’m also reflecting on how much fun that was, getting to meet readers in various cities. The conversations we had—both during the events themselves and at the signing tables afterwards—were invigorating and deeply moving. We laughed a lot. Sometimes we cried. I came home from book tour buoyed and inspired, with new ideas to carry into my own writing (and living)—so why not keep it going now that I’m home? It’s been a while since I opened up an AMA for supporting subscribers, so here we go!

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Today we have a little (but enormous) pep talk written by a friend of mine, someone whose perspective and wisdom I turn to—Eric Zimmer.

You might know his popular podcast, The One You Feed. You might have heard about his new book, How a Little Becomes a Lot: The Art of Small Changes for a More Meaningful Life, which comes out in just a couple of weeks. Eric is a friend of mine here in Columbus, someone I see at concerts and readings, and I’m honored to share his thoughts—and a poem he selected—with you here. I needed this myself!

Take good care out there.

Love,
Maggie

Hi, Maggie’s friend—

I’ve been following the news from Iran this week. The bombings, the school, the families trying to get out. I won’t pretend to have anything useful to say about the geopolitics of it.

I just know that when I see it, my brain starts doing that thing where it tries to hold the entire weight of the world at once. Every worst-case scenario, every possible next step, all the tragedy at once.

It’s not a useful mode. But it’s a hard one to shut off.

Maggie talks about poems as a stone we carry in our pockets. I’ve had this one in my pocket a lot lately. It’s a poem by Derek Mahon. He writes:

There will be dying, there will be dying,
but there is no need to go into that.

I love that line because it doesn’t shy away from the suffering. It names it directly. Loss is real. It’s always been real. But Mahon doesn’t let that truth swallow the whole poem. He refuses to.

I tend to do the opposite. I take the hardest thing I know and carry it into every room. I rehearse it. I turn it over until it fills the whole day. You might do something similar. Most people I talk to do.

But we are not able to solve the entire human condition before lunch. (Probably not even by dinner.)

Mahon writes again:

the sun rises in spite of everything
and the far cities are beautiful and bright.
I lie here in a riot of sunlight
watching the day break and the clouds flying.
Everything is going to be all right.

Today, somewhere, there is still a morning. Light coming through a window. A cup of coffee going cold on a table. A decision about what to do with the next hour that has nothing to do with what’s on the news.

For me, the practice is simply returning to the next right thing. The one that moves the world toward the sun, toward a direction I actually want to go. Send a message. Go for a walk. Write the paragraph.

Little by little, a little becomes a lot.

We can’t fix all of it. (Any of it?) But we can take care of the small piece of the world sitting right in front of us.

Eric Zimmer is an author, teacher, speaker, and the creator of The One You Feed podcast—an award-winning show with over 50 million downloads across 800+ conversations exploring meaningful living. At 24, Eric was homeless, addicted to heroin, and facing prison. His journey from those depths sparked his lifelong inquiry into human transformation and resilience. Through his behavior coaching, workshops, and mentorship, he has guided thousands worldwide in creating sustainable habits that last—not through willpower or epiphany, but through steady change. His approach combines cutting-edge science with timeless wisdom, providing practical pathways to greater integrity and deeper meaning.

(PS: My favorite conversation about my 2020 book Keep Moving: Notes on Loss, Creativity, and Change was the one I had with Eric on The One You Feed. You can listen to it here.)

Today’s annotation isn’t a poem but a playlist. You might remember that I did this before You Could Make This Place Beautiful was published: I made a playlist of songs I associated with the book, and then talked a little about some of them.

On my Spotify, you can find all of my public playlists, including a few for my recent books: Dear Writer, You Could Make This Place Beautiful, Goldenrod, and Keep Moving. The playlist for A Suit or a Suitcase is just shy of three hours long (and I may just keep adding to it), but I’ve chosen a handful of tracks to annotate here with some notes.

“It’s Your Own Body and Mind,” Angelo de Augustine & Sufjan Stevens

Many of the poems in this book grapple with the self, including the title poem. The jacket copy describes the book as “a collection of poems on the sometimes-blurry distinction between mind and body, and how the self shifts and moves through time and space.” Sufjan Stevens is one of my favorite songwriters and also one of met favorite singers, and this record is one I listen to a lot, usually on vinyl. I love the sweetness of the harmonies. It’s perfect writing music, if you ask me.

“Winchester Mansion of Sound,” Neko Case

Neko Case is probably my favorite songwriter, period, and that voice! (She’s also a terrific memoirist and is here on Substack.) This song off her new record struck me as right for this playlist, especially these lines: “You're too much life for just one body, body, body” and “There’s too much life/ for just one lifetime.” (I think about these things all the time. How can it be that we are the same people we were ten, twenty, or thirty years ago, but also different people?) Plus, I’m obsessed with the piano in this song. Brilliant.

“Bodys,” Car Seat Headrest

I didn’t want all of the songs on this playlist to be mid tempo and on the melancholy side, though my music taste often leans in that direction. This Car Seat Headrest song has been a favorite of mine for several years, so I was happy to have a reason to share it with you here. It’s earnest and vulnerable but also witty, and I think it’s impossible to listen to “Bodys” and not move your body. Dance break! You’re welcome!

“Breaking Down (Acoustic),” Superchunk

One thing I love about Superchunk is the tension between the music and the lyrics; the sound is often sunny and bright, thanks to Mac McCaughan’s sweet voice and the instrumentation, but when you hone in on the words—whew. I first fell in love with the original version of this song, but now I have a soft spot for the acoustic version. As a poet, I also nerd out on the use of S and F alliteration. Listen for it.

“Where Is My Mind?” the Pixies

I have clear memories of driving around in my car as a teenager, windows down, scream-singing this song with my friends. If I’m being honest, I still do that, but these days I’m mostly driving solo or with my kids (who will also sing along to this one, because it’s flawless). Many years ago I saw the Pixies play it live, with Ohio’s own Kim Deal on those haunting ooooh, and last year my kids and I saw Nada Surf cover it live. And, yes, we sang along. I hope you will, too.

“Theologians,” Wilco

I’ve been listening to Wilco since their first record (and I was a big Uncle Tupelo fan before that), and they’re one of the bands that sort of fit the bill no matter the season, the occasion, or my mood. I can always listen to Wilco. There are multiple songs of their that would be right at home on this playlist, but this one was a must-have. I’m not a religious person, but I’m someone who thinks a lot about life’s big questions, and I try to remain curious and open rather than dogmatic, and “Theologians” feels right for that.

“Hey Shadow (Demo),” The Replacements

One of the sad facts of my life is that I haven’t seen The Replacements live. Paul Westerberg solo? Yes, but not the band. I’ve listened to this band probably nearly every day—certainly every week—for more than thirty years. Yes, when I visit Minneapolis, as I’ll do again on book tour next month, I think, “This is Replacements country!” And yes, I want at least one Replacements song played at my funeral. But this one made the playlist because shadows are a motif in this book. (The playlist ends with “Oh, Shadowless” by Neko Case.)

I hope you find some tried-and-true favorites on the A Suit or a Suitcase playlist, and I hope you make some new discoveries, too. Let me know what your favorite tracks are! And thank you for ordering the book. I’m really looking forward to sharing it with you when I hit the road in March.

Happy listening—
Maggie

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Hi, Friend.

My last post was about what’s bringing me joy—the good stuff—and I realized that I should have included being the host of The Slowdown. It’s been a joy and a privilege to share a poem and a moment of reflection with you each weekday! The process begins with a treasure hunt—finding poems to share—and continues with writing the scripts that introduce the poems. I love engaging with the poems in this way, priming the listener for the poem to come.

If you haven’t yet subscribed to our newsletter, you can do so here, and the poems will come right to your inbox, along with an abridged version of my introduction. If you could use more poetry first thing, before the world has a chance to get at you—because who doesn’t need that?—I hope you’ll subscribe.

As I mentioned in my previous post about Richie Hofmann’s poem “Lamb,” I come to these texts as a reader, a fellow poet, and a teacher. Sometimes I wish I could stick around a bit at the end of an episode and talk about what drew me to the poem, or point out what I specifically admire about it. And then I realized I can do that here!

Today I’m sharing some thoughts on a poem I admire a great deal, “A dead whale can feed an entire ecosystem” by Rachel Dillon.

A dead whale can feed an entire ecosystem

but in this poem nothing dies.

Alone in the poem, I make myself
brave. No—I show brave
to my body, take both to the ocean.

Come hurricane, come rip current,
come toxic algal bloom.

In March, I drift past the estuary
to watch an eight-foot dolphin
lap the Mill River

like a cat pacing a bathtub,
sick and disoriented.

Biologists will unspool her empty intestines,
weigh her gray cerebellum.
She swam a great distance to die

alone. I’m sorry—I lied. I can’t control
what lives or dies. I need a place

to stow my brain. To hold
each moment close as a sand flea
caught in my knuckle hairs.

Please, someone—
tell me a poem can coax

oil from a sea bird’s throat.
Tell me what to do
with my hands—my hands—

what can my hands do now?

As I say in the introduction, I think about this quote from Fred Rogers, of the famous PBS show Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood, so often: “When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, ‘Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.’”

“Look for the helpers” is a phrase I think about a lot. We also need to be the helpers. We all want to do good with the skills, talents, and resources we have. So to ask, “What can a poem do to help?” is to gesture toward a bigger question: “What can art do?” What can literature, or music, or film, or performance, visual art do for us, particularly when we are struggling?

I think art can articulate the beauty and horrors of being alive. I think it can make people feel seen and understood, and therefore less alone. I think it can bear witness to what our planet is enduring. This poem does all of that, and it does it with style.

When I first read “A dead whale can feed an entire ecosystem,” I was struck by the poet’s use of line and stanza. The title is a run-in, part of the opening sentence. The stanzas alternate between couplets (two-line stanzas) and tercets (three-line stanzas). On one hand, visually the title and first line together form a kind of couplet because of the run-in. On the other hand, title aside, the poem is bookended by single lines.

I also immediately admired the line breaks, and the interplay between enjambed and end-stopped lines. The second stanza is a great example of the power of enjambment to create suspense and surprise the reader.

Alone in the poem, I make myself
brave. No—I show brave
to my body, take both to the ocean.

“Alone in the poem, I make myself” has its own logic, as the speaker is creating her persona—making the self—while making meaning. But then the meaning shifts when we get to the next line. She’s making herself brave. The period there after only one syllable is jarring, so the word brave is emphasized. It’s further emphasized by being repeated in the line.

The transition from stanza six into stanza seven (I’m glad you’re not middle school boys, so I can say those numbers without hearing SIX SEVEN! in response) mirrors some of the moves of that second stanza. “She swam a great distance to die” makes sense on its own, but the image becomes more painful when we get to the next line. Again the period after alone emphasizes the word. And again, as in stanza two, there’s a reconsidering that happens here: “I’m sorry—I lied” reminds me of the “No—” in stanza two, down to the em dash.

She swam a great distance to die

alone. I’m sorry—I lied. I can’t control
what lives or dies. I need a place

Overall, the amount of white space, the amount of enjambment, and the short lines slow the poem down. We’re getting plenty of time to parse the syntax and savor each line. The poem either begins with a single line or as a couplet that includes the title, depending on how you look at it, but the last line is certainly on its own. It’s emphasized because it’s all by itself, cushioned in white space. The question is also emphasized by the repetition of “my hands”:

Tell me what to do
with my hands—my hands—

what can my hands do now?

The speaker is pleading. There’s a sense of desperation and a deep desire to be useful. To be a helper. The repetition three times here also mirrors an earlier repetition: the anaphora in stanza three. Anaphora is the repetition of a word or phrase at the beginning of successive clauses, lines, sentences. In this stanza, “come” is repeated three times:

Come hurricane, come rip current,
come toxic algal bloom.

This poem is full of surprises, reconsiderations, and switchbacks. Form and content are working in tandem. The speaker of “A dead whale can feed an entire ecosystem” wonders aloud about what it can do to be a helper. And, I’d argue, in its articulation, and in its witnessing, it is a helper. I hope if you enjoyed this poem, you’ll seek out more work by Rachel Dillon.

Thanks for reading, and for listening to The Slowdown, and for being here.

Happy listening, & reading, & writing—
Maggie

Happy Monday, Friend.

I haven’t posted a good stuff round-up in a while—and frankly, the news feels like a relentless round-up of bad stuff, so I need to shift my attention. Last night was some very, very good stuff, between Bad Bunny’s joyful celebration of the Americas and Brandi Carlile’s moving performance of “America, the Beautiful.” I don’t know about you, but I needed that. My kids did, too.

What else is good these days? My birthday is this Friday, and my fifth book of poems, A Suit or a Suitcase, is out next month! Pre-ordering the book would be a perfect birthday gift, and you’ll get a gift of your own, too, while supplies last—a custom broadside of the title poem. If you bought a book with a ticket for one of my book tour stops, you’re also eligible. Just enter your information here!

Is there a subtle cloud print in the background of the broadside? Yes. I love it. Big thanks to the design team!

That opening couplet of “A Suit or a Suitcase” has me thinking a lot about my country right now.

You ask what I’ll miss about this life.
Everything but cruelty, I think.

The cruelty has been devastating to witness. We have a long way to go and a lot to learn—about ourselves, our history, and each other. In these harrowing times, I’m so grateful for writers, artists, and educators, and for their work—films, plays, books, and music—that teaches us about ourselves, our history, and each other, and that reminds us of what it is to be human.

Over the past couple of months, I’ve seen a handful of films that moved me to tears: Sentimental Value, Hamnet, The Testament of Ann Lee, and Armed Only with a Camera: The Life and Death of Brent Renaud. This is very good stuff. Essential stuff. And I can’t wait to see The Chronology of Water, an adaptation of one of my all-time favorite memoirs by Lidia Yuknavitch.

I’ve been trying to read more and doomscroll less. It’s so much better for my nervous system. Favorite recent reads: Melissa Faliveno’s terrific debut novel Hemlock (if you haven’t read her essay collection Tomboyland, I loved that, too!); Bianca Stone’s latest collection of poems, The Near and Distant World; and Tracy K. Smith’s latest, Fear Less: Poetry in Perilous Times. This is from Smith’s introduction:

“The intention of a poem—like a car, come to think of it—is to take you someplace. Into someone’s life or their psyche: their sense of wish or hope, revelation or regret. A stranger approaches, whispers in your ear—Hey, let me tell you what it was like—and proceeds to take you far beyond your known self and your intrinsic view of the world. In so doing they might also remind you of something new (or long forgotten) about who you are or who you once were.”

YES YES YES. I’m not all the way through the book yet, but I highly recommend it already.

What I’ve been listening to: Lucius, José González, Bad Bunny (we’re Team Benito in our house), and my 80s playlist, Lexapro for the Ears. Soon I’ll share the playlist I made for A Suit or a Suitcase! It’s an eclectic mix, with songs by Car Seat Headrest, Stars, Sufjan Stevens, The Magnetic Fields, Neko Case, and Radiohead.

I know all of this (*gestures at the world*) is a lot right now, but I as long as I can glean some pleasure from even small things, I will. Life is absurd. More little pleasures, please. Bread fresh out of the oven, smeared with butter with smoked salt. A living room dance party. A stripy sunrise. My dog’s contented snuffle-sighs. Sheets warm from the dryer. A funny text from a neighbor. I’ll take it. No joy is too small.

What’s bring you joy or relief right now, in these digging-past-rock-bottom times? Whatever it is, I wish you more of it. Thanks for being here.

Love,
Maggie

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Hi, Friend.

A confession: It’s hard for me to write right now. So I’m writing this tiny pep talk as much for me as for you. There’s a little voice inside that says, “What does any of this matter?” It says, “What can a poem do?” Maybe you hear that little voice sometimes. Maybe it’s gotten bigger and louder lately. Maybe it says that a poem can’t protect people from being targeted, abducted, or murdered in the street—so what’s the point?

It’s hard to write, feeling like you’re bringing a pen to a gunfight.

But can poems remind us of our humanity? I think they can, and I think we desperately need a reminder.

Recently, someone commented on a poem of mine, “I wish we could force the president, and these ICE agents, to read poetry every day.” As if maybe, just maybe, if they read poems, they couldn't keep doing what they’re doing. As if the poems would change them. I thought of the wise words of Richard Blanco, who was the fifth Presidential Inaugural Poet for President Barack Obama.

YES. Poetry changes us. Poetry has certainly changed me. But I approach poetry with openness, expecting to be changed. I approach it with gratitude for what I know it has to offer. I approach it as someone who is interested in humanity. It’s hard for me to imagine not being interested in humanity. If I found myself in that dark, narrow space, could poetry reach me there? Can poetry reach the people among us whose hearts have been hardened? I don’t know, but we can try. I’m not ready to give up on us yet.

I’ve also been thinking about something I read in the New Yorker, from the writer Philip Pullman.

We’re transformed by our experiences—the people we meet, the things we try, the places we go, and the art we engage with. Poetry can be part of that transformation, if we let it. It’s my hope with every episode of The Slowdown: that a poem might reach someone where they are and work its magic.

Poems can help us articulate what we struggle to find words for. Poems can be there for us in our grief, and in our joy, and in our confusion. In an earlier For Dear Life post, I wrote that sometimes a poem is the stone you carry in your pocket—the one you rub when you’re worried. So let’s fill our pockets with poems. Here’s a long list of Poems that make you glad to be alive. I need those poems now, and maybe you do, too.

And maybe you need this reminder from Brecht?

Please, let’s keep writing. Let’s keep singing, even if we’re singing about the dark times. It matters.

The pen is mighty.

Take good care out there.

Love,
Maggie

It feels like a strange time to be talking about a new book of poems. I’m heartsick. I’m angry. But in harrowing times, I also think we could use more poetry and more time in community. I’m craving both right now, so I’m grateful for the opportunity to visit a handful of cities this spring with A Suit or a Suitcase.

It’s always surprising and moving when we can get into a room together, isn’t it? We leave those rooms a little different than when we entered them.

My last collection, Goldenrod, came out in 2021 (how was that five years ago?!), and the tour was virtual because of the pandemic. So this will be extra special, because it’s my first in-person poetry book tour. I’m sharing my schedule with For Dear Life subscribers before I share it on social media or my website, so you’re seeing this first. Thank you so much for your continued support of me and my work. It means more than I can say.

Below you can see the cities, venues, conversation partners, and indie bookstores, and the links for all events are under the graphic, so you can grab tickets.

March 23 | 7PM
St. Ann’s Church (Brooklyn, NY) with Books Are Magic
in conversation with Amber Tamblyn
MORE INFO & TICKETS HERE

March 24 | 7PM
Queermunity (Minneapolis, MN) with Magers & Quinn Booksellers
in conversation with Michael Bazzett
MORE INFO & TICKETS HERE

March 25 | 6:30PM
The Island School (Bainbridge Island, WA) with Eagle Harbor Books
in conversation with Erin Malone
MORE INFO & TICKETS HERE

March 26 | 6:30PM
Literary Arts (Portland, OR)
exciting update: in conversation with Joy Sullivan
MORE INFO & TICKETS HERE

March 27 | 6PM
Tattered Cover Book Store (Denver, CO)
exciting update: in conversation with Nicky Beer
MORE INFO & TICKETS HERE

April 2 | 7PM
The Drexel Theatre (Bexley, OH) with Gramercy Books
in conversation with Marcus Jackson
MORE INFO & TICKETS HERE

Enormous gratitude to everyone who is making these evenings possible: to the poets who are being so generous with their time, and to the indie bookstores and venues who are hosting us.

If I’m coming to your neck of the woods, I’d love to see you. These terrific indie bookstores would be grateful for your support, too. Spring will be here before we know it!

Take good care—
Maggie

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I’m sure this comes as no surprise, but when I read something by another writer—a poem, an essay, a book—I’m immediately curious about its backstory. What was the inspiration behind it? How did the writer arrive at those specific craft choices? How was the finished piece different from what they might have expected at the outset? When I launched this newsletter, I knew that one of the things I wanted to do was pull back the curtain as a poet and offer some behind-the-scenes looks.

Today I’m sharing an handwritten annotation of “Document,” a poem from my new book, A Suit or a Suitcase, which comes out in March. (Preorders are a love language!) The poem is also one of two new poems of mine in the gorgeous January/February 2026 issue of Poetry. Here’s how it looks in the magazine:

I wrote “Document” last spring at a cabin in the woods in southern Ohio. I call it my happy place, and at least part of every book I’ve ever published has been written there. I remember sitting in a chair by the fire, looking out the window, and noticing sunlight coming down through the leaves. (The word in Japanese is komorebi, meaning “sunlight filtering through trees.”) I’d been thinking—and writing—a lot about memory and the way the self is revised over time. These are themes that come up again and again in A Suit or a Suitcase.

I’ve been going to that cabin, or one neighboring it, for 22 years. I’ve been watching sunlight (or rain, or snow, or high winds) through those trees for 22 years. It’s a repeated experience and yet a new experience every single time. Even if the trees and the view are exactly the same, the light is not, and the season is not, and the time of day is not, and I am not. The perspective changes because the viewer changes.

I sometimes joke with writer friends about the hubris of saving a draft and calling it final. Because inevitably it’s revised again, and the file needs to be renamed accordingly. Maybe you can relate to this as a writer who has named a file “final_revised” or “final_final_2.” Maybe you can relate to this as a human being who feels yourself changing—being revised by the passage of time and by your own experiences—even if it’s in small ways that may not be noticeable to others. Maybe both ring true for you. Our writing changes. So do we.

In the handwritten annotation of “Document” below, I’ve noted some of the craft choices I made related to word choice, sound play, line breaks, and the overall movement of the poem.

Looking at the annotation, I first notice the form: tercets, or three-line stanzas. I tend toward a shorter stanza (couplets and tercets especially) because I often like a slower pace; the white space between each stanza slows the reader down and gives more opportunities for smaller exits and entrances aside from the grand entrance of the first line and the final exit of the last line. I can see from reading the first stanza that my instinct was to break at “let them go” for suspense and tension, and to use the extra white space o/f the stanza break to carry that suspense a bit longer. The first tercet then became a kind of template for the rest of the poem. It set the pattern.

There is a fair amount of sound play in this poem. In the opening line I hear what I’m describing as “clippy” consonance: light, staccato sounds, “T” and short “I” especially. I’ve noted alliteration, assonance, and consonance throughout, including the numbers, which are primarily “S” numbers to be alliterative with sun. I’ve also pointed out anaphora, which appears at the beginning of lines in the first stanza (“each time”) and again in the final stanza (“cataloging”).

Line breaks throughout the poem play on suspense and, I hope, sometimes subvert the reader’s expectations. For example, in stanza four, the line break at “keeping me” could lead a lot of different places, and I think “company” comes as a surprise. That surprise would be lost if we kept “keeping me company” together on one line. (This is something I’d recommend playing with in your own poems: testing out breaking lines at various words to see which ones generate the most interest and charge.)

Generally speaking, enjambment allows for suspense—a kind of floating—at the ends of lines, so that the reader needs to keep reading to know where the sentence is going. In any poem with varied line endings, there’s a tension between the closure of end-stopped lines and the openness (and ongoingness) of enjambed lines.

Reading the poem again, I think the sense of closure also comes from the slowing down of the pacing in the last two stanzas, in which every line is end-stopped with some kind of punctuation: comma, em dash, or period. End-stopped lines (lines that end with any type of punctation) are places where the brakes are being pumped, with terminal punctuation (like a period) being a hard stop. The end of the poem feels very closed and final to me, because the word final itself is repeated so many times, and is doubled in the last instance.

I remember finishing this poem at the cabin and knowing that even though it was very new, it belonged in A Suit or a Suitcase. Sometimes that happens—a poem comes quickly, but it makes a case for itself. I’m curious if that’s happened to you! If so, or if you have any questions or comments for me, I hope you’ll share.

What else? I’ll have some travel news to share with you before too long! We’ve finalized tour cities for A Suit or a Suitcase, so I’ll post the locations and dates as soon as I can. In the meantime, the event links for Brooklyn (with Amber Tamblyn) and Columbus (with Marcus Jackson) are already live, and you can register now. I’d love to see you!

Take good care—
Maggie

Hi, Friend.

Happy New Year! I’m writing to you from bed where I’ve been holed up, ill, for the past week. I’ve been itching to write to you, and I’m finally feeling my mind come back—what a good feeling that is!—so today’s the day. As you know, I’ve been the host of The Slowdown since August. It’s been a joy and a privilege to share a poem and a moment of reflection with you each weekday. If you haven’t yet subscribed to our newsletter, you can do so here, and the poems will come right to your inbox, along with an abridged version of my introduction. We all need more poetry in our lives, frankly.

One of the things I love about the podcast is that it gives me an opportunity to shine a light on other poets. Each script I write introduces the day’s poem; it’s the opening act, but the poem itself is the headliner. The poem, of course, is the star! As I was telling our senior producer, Myka Kielbon, sometimes I wish I could stick around a bit afterwards and talk about what drew me to the poem, or point out what I specifically admire about it. I thought out loud to Myka during one of our recording sessions: “What if I could find a home for something like that on my Substack?”

So here we are, and that’s what I’m experimenting with: a series of posts in which I say a bit more about the poems I select for the show, and what I admire about them. I’m not an authority on anyone’s writing but my own—and even that is up for debate, as so much of our work is intuitive and can remain mysterious even to us—but I come to these texts as a reader, a fellow poet, and a teacher. In fact, for those of who are teachers, I think The Slowdown would be enormously useful in the classroom. Listen to daily episodes as a way to set the stage for student writing, or to introduce a writing prompt related to that day’s poem.

Let’s start with “Lamb” by Richie Hofmann. I’m going to link to the poem on the Academy of American Poets site here as well, because it includes some context from Hofmann that I think readers will find useful, and a reading by the poet himself. Here is our episode, with the poem below it.

Lamb
by Richie Hofmann

I had a lamb I brought everywhere

who only had one eye.

At the train stations,

all the grown-ups would say, be mindful

of your things, little boy,

someone will steal right out of your pocket

or take the watch off your wrist.

My dad had a beautiful overcoat.

The lamb’s white fur got smudged.

My brother was a baby,

and in the restaurants,

the old waiters would pick him up

and kiss him again and again on the cheek

with their mustaches

and tell my parents

that they promised they would bring him back in a minute

but now they needed to show the chef.

I don’t remember when the eye became unglued

and who knows where it went.

On long train rides,

I remember falling asleep,

putting my finger in the hole where it used to be.

Once he had to go in an overhead bin,

and he was freezing when I kissed him again.

First, a little about what drew me to this poem. As I say in the introduction, I had a beloved doll as a child that I took everywhere with me. “Pink Baby” was adopted by my son when he was small (see photo at the end of the post), but now that he’s outgrown her, she’s sitting on a bookshelf in my writing room.

When I first read “Lamb,” I was immediately drawn to the juxtapositions and associative leaps in this poem, which feel close to the child’s mind to me. The line breaks and use of punctuation in this poem slow the poem down, so the details unfold bit by bit. This feels intuitively right to me. When children tell stories, sometimes the relationships between details—the causality—isn’t clear. Near the center of the poem, for example, are these three lines, all and-stopped with punctuation, which slows the reader down:

My dad had a beautiful overcoat.

The lamb’s white fur got smudged.

My brother was a baby,

Here we get three statements, all simply structured (subject/verb: my dad, the lamb’s fur, my brother), but all are possessive, and a closer look reveals the links in the chain. In the speaker’s memory, the father’s “beautiful overcoat” is linked to the lamb’s coat getting dirty. The lamb getting smudged links to the baby brother being passed around to strangers. There is so much vulnerability in these images and scenes. The “one eye” brought up in line two is circled back to toward the end: the child putting his finger into the socket of the missing eye as he would fall asleep. Talk about a vulnerable image! (It’s interesting, too, that the advice about pickpockets in the second sentence of the poems, lines three through seven, is about being stripped of things that are conventionally valuable—money, a watch—but what the child is most concerned about is something sentimental and therefore priceless.)

Having a beloved doll or blanket as a child is visceral—we hold them close, and we remember those smells and textures—and it’s that is made clear in the final line of this poem. Here the lamb is nearly resurrected—brought back from the overhead bin, where we are told her had to go. (Certainly the child would have preferred to keep him close.) The lamb is returned, freezing, but safely back in the arms of the child, who kisses him. Not it—him. There is something so lovely, nearly romantic, in the closing. I’m relieved for both the lamb and the child, that they are reunited. The subtle end rhyme of “bin” and “again” is such a beautiful touch, too.

Some very good news: Richie Hofmann’s new book of poems, The Bronze Arms, is out in February! You can preorder it now, and I hope you’ll join me in doing so. I’m a huge fan of his work.

Thanks for reading, and for listening to The Slowdown, and for being here. Last year was the busiest year I’ve ever had—a real whirlwind that was joyful and productive, but also full of challenges. I look forward to slowing down a bit, writing a lot, and spending more time in this space in 2026. I wish you and yours all the best in the new year.

Happy listening, & reading, & (I hope!) writing—
Maggie

Hi, Friend.

Now that we’re in the last month of the year, I wanted to share with you the art that moved me in 2025: the books, the films, the visual art, the music, the live performances. Buckle up, because I have a lot of recommendations!

As you might imagine, independent bookstores really depend on holiday sales, and this is a great time of year to shop independently instead of at the enormous online retailers (who don’t need your money, frankly). You can even use that site that won’t be named to find titles and make a wish list, and then take that list of books to your local indie and buy from them instead. If you don’t have an indie or a brick-and-mortar chain bookstore near you, check out Bookshop.org, which gives a portion of its profits to independent bookstores.

To get you started, in case you’re looking for recommendations, here are some of my favorite books from 2025, plus a couple of books coming out in 2026, including a new collection of poems by yours truly, my first book of poems in five years. I love preordering books as holiday gifts, and giving a card that tells the recipient what title(s) they’ll be receiving and when. That with some dark chocolate, coffee, or tea? Instant holiday hero.

Lion by Sonya Walger
Startlement: New and Selected Poems by Ada Limón
Paper Crown: Poems by Heather Christle
Terminal Surreal: Poems by Martha Silano
The Dad Rock That Made Me a Woman by Niko Stratis
Scorched Earth: Poems by Tiana Clark
The New Economy: Poems by Gabrielle Calvocoressi
A Silent Treatment: A Memoir by Jeannie Vanasco
Collected Poems of Stanley Plumly, coedited by David Baker and Michael Collier
The End of Childhood: Poems by Wayne Miller
Transit: Poems by David Baker (preorder)
A Suit or a Suitcase: Poems by…me (preorder)*

*My neighborhood bookstore, Gramercy Books, allows you to order signed and personalized copies of my books, and they’ll ship to you anywhere in the continental US. I love walking down to Gramercy to sign books and make them out to the people you care about most: friends, kids and grandkids, teachers, neighbors. So please know that’s an option this holiday season! The folks at Gramercy—and I—appreciate your support.

There were so many terrific records released this year, and some songs I’ve played on repeat (“Rebuilding Year” by Hallelujah the Hills with Ezra Furman, and “Dopamine” by Robyn are two recent ones). Here are ten of my favorite albums this year, in no particular order.

Deep Sea Diver, Billboard Heart
Wednesday, Bleeds
S.G. Goodman, Planting by the Signs
Ezra Furman, Goodbye Small Head
Bad Bunny, DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS
Snocaps, Snocaps
Flock of Dimes, The Life You Save
Saintseneca, Highwallow & Supermoon Songs
Neko Case, Neon Grey Midnight Green
Will Johnson, Diamond City

I saw more films in the theater in 2025 than I have in years. It’s not just better with a bigger screen and surround sound; it’s nice to have a communal experience, and to support independent cinema. Here are some of my favorites from this year.

Sinners, written and directed by Ryan Coogler
One Battle After Another, written and directed by Paul Thomas Anderson
Sorry, Baby, written and directed by Eva Victor
In the Mood for Love (25th Anniversary), written and directed by Wong Kar-Wai
If I Had Legs I’d Kick You, written and directed by Mary Bronstein
Rental Family, directed by Hikari, co-written with Stephen Blast

Some of the most powerful experiences I had this year were at concerts, plays, and museum exhibitions. In April I visited MOMA in San Francisco and was wowed by the Ruth Asawa retrospective and especially the video installation The Visitors by Icelandic artist Ragnar Kjartansson. If The Visitors comes to a museum near you, RUN to see it. Trust me. In July I was completely floored by John Proctor Is the Villain on Broadway. In September I flew to Texas to see Magnolia & Johnson Electric Co. play two transcendent nights in Austin and San Antonio. They’re touring more in 2026, and if you have a chance to catch one (or two, or three) of those live shows, you absolutely should. I’ll leave you with a photo of my beloved Jason Molina Vans, with lyrics from “Farewell Transmission” on them.

Last but not least, I’ve shared many poems since taking over as the host of The Slowdown podcast in August. One thing I’m planning to do in the new year is share some craft posts about poems I select for the podcast, so keep an eye out for those. In the meantime, here’s a beloved poem by W.S. Merwin, “Thanks,” that I read every Thanksgiving, but it’s a poem I could return to every single day. Maybe you need it, too.

What poems, books, music, films, and performances lit you up this year? Please share your own recs!

Happy reading & watching & listening—
Maggie

Hi, Friend.

It’s been the busiest year for me in recent memory. I’ve never juggled as much professionally as I have in 2025, and that’s taken me away from this space. I miss it—and you! I miss thinking my way into poems and essays here, and sharing with you, and hearing what you’re curious about. I’m not going to be on the road much again until March, when my next book is out, so plan on hearing from me more as I nest and think and write…and nest some more.

Today I wanted to offer you thirteen different ways (thanks for the framing, Stevens) to revise a stubborn piece of writing. (Looking is the right verb here, because to revise, after all, means “to look at again,” to re-envision.)

These strategies work across genres—I know this because I’m using them in poems, essays, picture books, and now (*gulp*) the novel I’m working on. As I insist upon in Dear Writer, almost all of a writer’s tools are portable; we can pack them up and carry them from genre to genre, project to project.

Read more

I’m so jet lagged I should have a lock on my laptop right now. Writing exhausted and with my internal clock set to no discernible time zone at all is probably not advisable. And yet, here we are! Bear with me.

I spent the last week in Greece at Rosemary’s House, mentoring a cohort of writers—poets, memoirists, essayists, and fiction writers—and eating more feta than one human should ingest in an eight-day period. I highly recommend both. Working with writers across genres is a joy and a privilege no matter where I am, but doing that work in such a beautiful place, with such a supportive group? I kept turning to my friend Megan Stielstra and saying, “This is work,” to remind myself.

It was work, and it was pleasure, and I hope to be back.

After a harrowing journey home, more than 24 hours of flights and layovers and missed connections, I turned the key in my front door at 2:00 am Monday morning. I’d been up and traveling since 11:00 pm Saturday night, from Thessaloniki to Munich to Chicago to Columbus. My Monday was a blur, and last night I was so jet lagged that I went to bed around 8:00 pm (that’s 3:00 am Greece time). I couldn’t keep my eyes open.

Before bed I hugged both kids, and my son Rhett said he was going to take a shower, then maybe pack his lunch for school today. The thing is, I pack Rhett’s lunch every day. Every morning, I wake him up by knocking softly on his door and calling his name in a little, sing-song morning voice. I read him the forecast from my phone through his closed bedroom door, so he knows what to wear, and then I go downstairs to take care of the dog, make my coffee, and pack his lunch. (Violet has been packing her own lunch since her first year of high school.)

Each morning, Rhett comes downstairs dressed, gets his breakfast, and eats it snuggled up on the couch with the dog (yes, we’re a family that eats on the couch a lot). I stay in the kitchen to pack his lunch before joining him. At some point, Violet comes down and we all sit together in the living room for a little while before they walk to school. So last night I said, “I’ll pack your lunch, honey! You don’t need to do that tonight.” And he said, “Yeah, but if I pack it tonight, you can come sit with me for longer.”

More snuggles. He wanted to take on the task last night so he could have more time with me this morning before school. Just a few minutes more.

I was so tired and discombobulated last night, that what he said didn’t strike me until this morning. I woke up and thought about how he’s turning thirteen next week. We might think of our teenagers as growing up and away from us, but I’m seeing something else. Growing up and leaning in. My daughter texted me every morning when I was in Greece, often with “Good morning Mommy.” My son called. They sent a selfie of them having iced lattes together. (As I’ve written about before, I love and support the idea of sibling dates.)

They even walked to the grocery store, bought a pumpkin together, then carved it on our back patio. Seeing the photos they sent made me miss them even more. That jack-o’-lantern was smiling at me when I lugged my carryon up the front porch steps early Monday morning.

Parenting teens can be tricky. They’re more mature than they were even a couple of years ago: They can go places alone, make themselves something to eat, do their homework without supervision. They can go on coffee dates! They can buy and carve pumpkins! But they still want what we all want: To be held. Literally and figuratively.

I got up a little earlier than usual this morning. My body clock is so confused, but my mind feels very clear. I know what my job is. I was ready for couch snuggles the moment Rhett came downstairs.

May we listen more and notice more. May we understand how much we’re needed.

Big day ahead, jet lag be damned! I hope you have a good one.

Take care,
Maggie

Hi, Friend.

August has been a month of firsts. First memoir event with my children in the audience (at Chautauqua in New York). First driving lesson with my daughter. First time cheering on my son at a cross country meet. First time riding on the back of a motorcycle. I love that midlife is still full of firsts.

Another one: my first anthology, co-curated with my dear friend Saeed Jones, is here! Early finished hardcovers of The People’s Project arrived at my house, and they are beautiful. The book is officially out on Tuesday, September 9, so you still have time to preorder copies for yourself and the people in your life who could use some community in book form right now. (That’s all of us. Get copies for all of us.)

Book tour for The People’s Project starts a week from Monday, and Saeed and I would so love to see you out on the road. All of the info and registration links are here. We aren’t in this alone, and let’s not forget it.

Also in wonderful book mail news, my friend Kelly Sundberg’s memoir in essays, The Answer Is in the Wound, is out now from Roxane Gay Books. And Stanley Plumly’s posthumously published Collected Poems is out now, too. I highly recommend both. I also received copies of the Dutch edition of You Could Make This Place Beautiful. It’s sitting on my shelf now alongside the English, Spanish, and Croatian editions. Aren’t they gorgeous?

What else is bringing me joy these days? I’m working on a new poem, which always surprises me and lifts my spirits. I’ve been enjoying the new Superchunk record; new songs from Neko Case, Saintseneca, and Great Grandpa; and some old favorites, too, of course. I listen to a lot of Neil Young this time of year. (It’s fall music. I don’t make the rules.) If you’re listening to something you love, please post some recs in the comments!

It’s been a busy time, but good busy! I’ve really been enjoying working on The Slowdown: choosing poems to feature, writing the scripts, and recording the episodes. I hope you’re listening along, finding new poems and poets via the podcast. And please do subscribe to the newsletter so that the poems show up in your inbox every day.

Another podcast I really enjoy is Otherppl with Brad Listi, and I was happy to be a guest back in the spring, talking about writing and creativity. Brad recently launched DeepDive, and he’s offering For Dear Life subscribers 10% off its debut course, How to Write a Novel, with the code DEARWRITER10 through October 2. The DeepDive launch sale—25% off—runs through September 12th, so if you use DEARWRITER10 before then, you’ll get a total of 35% off the course. (Thanks, Brad!)

I’m curious: What podcasts are part of your week? Which ones keep you informed, or give you new perspectives, or provide some much-needed serenity or humor? Please share your favorites; I’d love to have them on my radar.

On the “stuff” front, I’m a new fan of these progressive readers and progressive reader sunglasses (game changers, both), this Matrix hair serum and hair mask, and this little Yepoda double cleansing set for travel. I like having mini sizes of things to take on the road.

Until I have to pack my carryon again in another week, I’m doing a lot of nesting. My kids and I have again started our annual back-to-school rewatch of Gilmore Girls. (Nothing says fall like Stars Hollow. Copious amounts of coffee at Luke’s! Grant Lee Phillips as Town Troubadour!) Truth be told, I can be lured into any television show with the promise of couch snuggles. Hence, I’m also watching The Summer I Turned Pretty with my kids. Both shows have given us a chance to talk about friendship, dating, marriage, and relationship red flags, so there’s that. That plus snuggles!

I’ll leave you with my favorite novel recently: Lion by Sonya Walger. I won’t shut up about this book—ask my friends!—but I can’t talk too much about it without giving away spoilers. ARGH. Anyway, I loved it.

What are you reading and watching (or rereading and rewatching) as we head into fall?

Hope you are finding some good stuff in these challenging times. We all need it. Take care.

Love,
Maggie

Hi, Friend.

I’m happy to announce that Saeed Jones and I will be hitting the road with The People’s Project this fall, and we’re especially excited to be joined by Ari Shapiro in DC and many anthology contributors in other cities. Registration links are below.

Monday, September 8 at 7PM | Washington, DC
with Politics & Prose at the Dorothy Betts Marvin Theater
in conversation with Ari Shapiro
DC registration link here

Tuesday, September 9 at 6PM | Columbus, OH
with Prologue Bookshop at the Columbus Metropolitan Library
Columbus registration link here

Wednesday, September 10 at 7:30PM | Brooklyn, NY
with Greenlight Bookstore at St. Joseph’s University
reading & discussion with Hala Alyan, Aubrey Hirsch, Mira Jacob,
and ACLU’s LGBTQ Rights Project Co-Director Chase Strangio
Brooklyn registration link here

Thursday, September 11 at 7PM | Cambridge, MA
with Porter Square Books at Marran Theatre
reading & discussion with Tiana Clark, Koritha Mitchell,
Imani Perry, and Jason Silverstein
Cambridge registration link here

Saturday, September 13 at 7PM | Burlington, VT
with Phoenix Books at First Unitarian Universalist Society
in conversation with Alexander Chee
Burlington registration link here

If we’re coming to your neck of the woods, I hope you’ll join us!

See you soon,
Maggie

If you’re not already subscribed to The Slowdown, now is the perfect time. My episodes as the new host begin today! Big thanks to our lead producer Myka Kielbon and associate producer Maria Württele.

From the Poetry Foundation press release:

St. Paul, Minnesota, August 5, 2025 – American Public Media and the Poetry Foundation today announce award-winning poet and writer Maggie Smith has been selected as the new host of the celebrated poetry podcast, The Slowdown. Starting August 18, 2025, Smith will carry on the tradition of sharing a selected poem and thoughtful reflection every weekday, offering listeners a daily opportunity to find connection and calm through poetry. Smith succeeds award-winning poet Major Jackson and former United States Poets Laureate, Ada Limón and Tracy K. Smith.

“I’m a listener and a fan of The Slowdown first and foremost, so I’m thrilled to be a part of its legacy. It's an honor to be welcomed into listeners’ lives, bringing them a poem as they make their morning coffee, or walk their dogs, or commute to work. I think we can all use time away from our to-do lists, and time away from the dismal, endless scroll, to share five minutes of perspective through the lens of poetry,” Smith said.

The Slowdown was most recently hosted by Major Jackson, who said, “Maggie Smith possesses an astonishing ability to read the undercurrents of our lives. An accomplished poet and prose writer, her impact and fine thinking have already enriched our conversations. I look forward to hearing her voice each morning.”

New episodes of The Slowdown are available every weekday on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and all other podcast platforms. Listeners can subscribe to the show’s newsletter and follow along for updates at SlowdownShow.org and at @SlowdownShow on Facebook and Instagram.

Major’s words really touched me, because I admire him so much as a poet and teacher. I’ve loved listening to him on The Slowdown—and I loved listening to Ada and Tracy before him. What an honor to be hosting now! I hope you’ll subscribe and join me each weekday. We have some extraordinary poems coming your way.

Love,
Maggie

I’m here with a pep talk. Or is it a craft talk? I think it’s both.

I’ve been in Chicago since last Sunday, teaching a poetry workshop for StoryStudio during the week, and participating in the StoryBoard festival this weekend. It’s a been a warm, engaging, immersive experience. What a luxury, to be gathered with writers for a solid week, talking about writing, learning from one another, and having some fun (and eating arepas and pizza) along the way.

For StoryBoard I gave a talk about embracing error. Why error? Because it’s human. Let me explain. Over the past few months, I’ve found myself answering a lot of questions about AI. Since Dear Writer is a craft book about creativity in general and writing specifically, on tour I expected questions about the rise of artificial intelligence. As a writer and a teacher, I’m deeply concerned about the increasing use of AI. Writing is thinking on the page. If we use artificial intelligence to write essays, poems, and stories, we’re outsourcing our thinking.

If we’re going to withstand the rise of AI, I think we need to double down on our humanity. We can do things that generative AI can’t do, because we have experiences that AI can’t have. We can dream and imagine. We can second-guess ourselves, doubt, regret. We can hope and grieve. Humans have a point of view because of what we’ve been through, and because of our relationships with others. I want to read writing from that place. I want a different kind of AI: authentic intelligence.

The poems I admire most and hold dear are the poems behind which I can sense a real human being. I trust in the singularity of their point of view even if I don’t always understand or agree with that point of view. I think writing and reading build empathy for this reason: we are invited, even encouraged, to consider the experiences and perspectives of others. We’re sharing in someone else’s humanity when we spend time with their writing, because we’re spending time with their mind.

One of the best ways to make our poems more human, I think, is to let the reader see the mind—meaning the grappling and even the imperfection. The metaphor I keep coming back to is kintsugi, which translates as “golden joinery.” It’s the centuries-old Japanese art of mending broken ceramics with gold. The artist doesn’t hide the cracks, but fills them with lacquer dusted with powdered gold, silver, or platinum, so that the piece gleams where it was pieced back together. Importantly, the object is made more beautiful and more valuable because of this process.

Maybe kintsugi in poetry is when the poet makes a mistake but decides to keep it, and in fact calls attention to it. I think of poems like “How Killer Blue Irises Spread” by Kelli Russell Agodon; “The Kudzu, Everywhere” by Amorak Huey; “Melancholia” by Paul Guest; and “The Direction of Light” by Linda Hogan—poems that embrace mishearings, misreadings, misunderstandings, or even typos. My poem “Written Deer” from Goldenrod is an example as well. In each of these poems, an error leads to new insights, layers of meaning, or exciting associative leaps. Amorak Huey’s family/kudzu metaphor was a result of mistyping! The mistake, in fact, was a gift. It was the place where the poet discovered new territory, and the part where the poem introduced the poet to its subject.

I think a lot about how the words author and authority are related. What does it do to the authority of the poet—and the speaker—when errors are allowed to remain and play an important role in a poem? I’d argue that it’s worth the risk, and that there is value in that transparency. I’d argue that it doesn’t undermine the authority of the poet or speaker as much as it prioritizes authenticity.

By allowing imperfection into our poems—by letting some of the breaks and repairs show—we’re allowing for a different kind of intimacy between the reader and writer. I read poems to witness someone else’s mind at work, and these moments of error or brokenness, those switchbacks and wait-on-second-thoughts, help me see that work.

I don’t go to poetry for comfort, as a writer or as a reader. I go to poetry to be changed, to revise my own thinking. I’m much more likely to be changed by the original thinking of another human being, a voice I trust because it's honest with me, and because I can see myself mirrored in the utterance: the occasional faltering, or disorientation, or struggle to find a new foothold.

We’re imperfect. We slip up. We change our minds. We lose our train of thought. We misspeak or mishear or misunderstand. We do this, all of us, in our lives, but can we also sometimes do that in our work? I want to leave you with a prompt: Let some of the seams show in your next poem or essay. Accept the gifts that arrive packaged as missteps. Try not to buff out every scratch, or sand down every splinter. Give yourself permission to be more human.

Writing that shows its authentic intelligence—its thinking, however flawed or complicated that thinking may be—is writing that tells the truth.

Let’s tell the truth.

Happy writing—
Maggie

We have a cover! My next poetry collection, A Suit or a Suitcase, will be out in March of next year. Here she is.

The gorgeous art is by Aykut Aydogdu, and the design is by the brilliant Jimmy Iacobelli, who also designed the covers for Keep Moving, Goldenrod, You Could Make This Place Beautiful, and Dear Writer. He’s the best!

A Suit or a Suitcase is my fifth full-length book of poetry; the last was Goldenrod, published in 2021. It’s always challenging to try to encapsulate something as wide-ranging as a book of poems, because collections come together one poem at a time over several years. I’ll share the publisher’s copy below to give you a sense of the book.

Instant New York Times bestselling author and poet Maggie Smith returns with a new collection of poems on the sometimes-blurry distinction between mind and body, and how the self shifts and moves through time and space.

The title of Maggie Smith’s new collection comes from the eponymous poem, which begins:

You ask what I’ll miss about this life.
Everything but cruelty, I think.

But you want one specific thing,
so here—I’ll miss my body. I’ll miss

its companionship, how it’s traveled
with me, never leaving me—& by me,

I mean my mind. My soul? My self?
I don’t know what to call it, and besides,

my body hasn’t traveled with me.
I’ve traveled inside it. Do I wear it

or does it carry me? Is the body a suit
or a suitcase?

Within, poems turn over the strange relationships between the body and the mind, the self and the world. With her signature tenderness and clarity of observation, and with stunning swoops of imagination, Smith considers—and reconsiders—what it is to be human: Does one life matter in the grand scheme of space and time? How can it be that we are the same people we were ten, twenty, or thirty years ago, but also different people? And could there be more to life, just beyond the borders of we can experience?

Each poem is an ode to the power of our minds, and proof that both a life and a self, whether within a suit or a suitcase, is infinitely expandable.

If they’re lucky, before poems have a home together in a book, they’re offered shelter in magazines and anthologies. Poems from this collection have been published in The Nation, Poetry, The Southern Review, APR, The Best American Poetry, and elsewhere. Enormous thanks to those editors.

I’ve been preaching the gospel of preorders for years, so you’ve likely heard me talk about their importance before. I’ll just say this: Preordering a book is one of the best ways to support an author and a forthcoming book. You can preorder from your local indie bookstore or from your favorite online retailer. (Yes, you absolutely get literary karma bucks when you buy indie!)

My neighborhood indie bookstore, Gramercy Books, offers signed and personalized copies of my books, including preorders of A Suit or a Suitcase. You can place an order online, tell them in the notes if you want the book simply signed or inscribed to someone special, and then they’ll ship it right to your door anywhere in the continental US. Easy!

I’m so excited to share this book with you. Next spring will be here before we know it!

Now, back to writing…

Love,
Maggie

PS: If you’re curious about the title poem, you can find a behind-the-scenes look at it, with a handwritten annotation and author’s note, here.

This isn’t much of a pep talk, unless you find commiseration uplifting. I do.

I’m writing to you as a person without words. Or, rather, as a person without the right words—the ones that might somehow say the thing. Maybe, like me, you don’t know how to wrap your head around the world right now, let alone find the language. Maybe, like me, you feel more than a little scrambled.

“The world is fifty percent terrible” feels like a very conservative estimate today. With so much cruelty and greed on display, I can hardly believe we’re still checking email, going grocery shopping, and watering our plants—business as usual. And yet, as soon as I’m ready to scream into a pillow, my son gives me a hug out of nowhere, or I look up in awe at the clouds, or I read a message from someone I love.

How not to feel scrambled? There is so much to marvel at and be grateful for, and so much to grieve and rage against. I keep coming back to Rilke’s “beauty and terror.” It’s not beauty or terror, it’s and. We get both, and I don’t know what to do except acknowledge both—call them out, loud and clear, when I see them.

I have seen plenty of terrible this week. So have you. I have seen cruelty and greed beyond comprehension. I have also seen and felt love, gratitude, generosity—and I hope you have, too. We need the beauty if we’re going to keep fighting the terror, and we have to keep fighting. What choice do we have?

I don’t have the right words, but I’ve been turning to poems to find them. That’s where I always turn. I’ve been reading this W.S. Merwin poem daily, a kind of secular prayer. Maybe you could use it, too.

Tomorrow there will be a parade in my town, with marching bands and floats, and all the neighborhood kids will run into the streets for candy. At night there will be fireworks set to music—“God Bless America,” and “America the Beautiful,” and that awful Lee Greenwood song. You know the one. And I’ll be torn—because on one hand, what do we have to be patting ourselves on the back for? But on the other hand, the kids scrambling for candy, and the musicians playing, and the families ooh-ing and aah-ing at the fireworks are enough to make me well up.

It’s both. It’s always both. And, not or.

And there is beauty to see, “dark though it is.”

Love,
Maggie