Poetry goes viral! Check out YouTube for poetry. Search Taylor Mali, Speak with Conviction, or What a Teacher Makes. Search the Dodge Poetry Festival to find clips of Sharon Olds, Coleman Banks, or Lucille Clifton reading poetry. Celebrate poetry in cyberspace!
Two more poems from our writers…
In The Name Of
written by Barbara Straus Lodge
A story of mine came out in a book.
I couldn’t believe it, wanted to hide in a nook.
I used a fake name, protecting from shame
But then I wondered, at what cost comes fame?
Opportunities presented and even more as well.
My work was recognized and I felt swell.
Some readings, a radio show, even a New York literary award,
Suffice it to say, my inner critic was floored.
***
Pieces of me float everywhere “out there” and beyond.
But wait. Who am I? Am I lost, or am I found?
Is my pen name really me, or different as syllable and sound?
My words upset, shake down, maybe even more.
But still they’re my truth, born straight from my core.
As a writer, I think, my story should be pure
I must present the truth and not be demure.
The time has come to reclaim my name.
Leigh Stuart will retire; she will suffer no pain.
Barbara Straus Lodge is here to stay.
She’ll say goodbye to her pen name,
come whatever, what may.
Radiant 100
written by Laura L Mays Hoopes
Radio, radium, rays, radioactivity. Quaint, quiet, quick, quashed. Roseate, russet, radiant, rusted. Energy, enlightenment, evasiveness, entombment. Plutonium, Pluto, plumb-line, poison. Iodine-laden, invisible, inaudible, invidious. Wind, water, wildness, winter. Icy, inclement, iridescent, indecent. Human, hubris, hint, hollowness. Promising, pellucid, pallid, porous. Trembling, towering, trumpeting, trampling. Dubious, doom-laden, disastrous, dismal. Murmuring, muttering, mastering, moaning. Mutation, misery, mystery, mockery. Authority, augury, agony, anger. Politeness, pragmatism, pontification, procrastination. Tradition, trust, tsunami, tragedy. Handful, hope, heaviness, horror. Rushing, running, rowing, raving. Dim, darkness, drama, downfall. Trees, trucks, trains, tables. Cars, cables, clothes, children. Traveling, traipsing, trailing, tumbling. Regular, rocking, roiling, rickety. Walking, wandering, wasted, wailing.
TLS Writers 
Barbara…I’m so glad that your pen name is taking a back seat and that you wrote her away in such a rhythmic way! Laura, you remind me that poetry has many forms and your words are so powerful!
Brava~~
Barbara, I love the migration towards self-acceptance your poem chronicles! It is honest and quite lovely.
FYI, mine is before/during/after the earthquake, tsunami, and Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant disaster in Japan, in fours. In China, four is a number that symbolizes death.
best,
Laura H
Laura, I’m so impressed! I read it aloud to hear the words. Barbara, your truth and honesty are a great example for us all.
Laura H, you are brilliant!
Wow! Barbara, so powerful and full of truth. You inspire me and set a lovely example for us all.
Erica, the poems do work well together. Both are clever and transformative. I love reading our poetry. I can’t wait to read more!
I think these two poems work well together, don’t you! How difficult it is to be (to find ourselves) and stay true. Radiant but yet sometimes radioactive, energy evasive and yet at times we wail! Both beautiful poems! And our celebration continues!!!!