*Poetry for Strangers is on hiatus, as virustime makes it difficult to meet strangers* Dear readers: last week, when school was closed, we had a day of failing to launch—nobody could agree on what to do, and so by 5 pm, we had done pretty much nothing … EXCEPT read a bit of a book…
Poetry for Strangers
The word: Truth
My son has been fascinated with the idea that humans are all made up of atoms. At the Foothills Learning Center on a day with heavy snow, Aimee taught us the difference between an atom, a molecule, and a compound. The Stranger: Aimee The Word: Truth The poem I wrote: I tell the boy the spider…
The word: Odd
There is a speakeasy in town on a high floor in an office building. “I wish we had a living room like this,” my husband said as we walked in. Inside the speakeasy there is a kind bartender named Mark (my husband whispered: “I wish I had a haircut like that.”) Mark good-naturedly allowed my…
The word: Esssse
Maddox is a writer, teacher, and creative force; she writes poems and is also completing a novel that she started as a seventh grader…and only as an adult knows how to finish. I love this idea of finishing the younger self’s work. She offered a word I had never heard (and one with more s’s…
The word: Flippant
Happy New Year, writers and readers! I hope your holidays were festive and that the year is off to a good start. Poetry for Strangers will come out every even Friday in 2020 to make way for other projects, including a film based on Fear of the Beast and a tiny house memoir. Onto this…
The word: Jolly
Every Christmas I love to ask for a word from Santa. Sometimes I have to go scouting, but this time I found him with ease at our bank, where he was ringing the bell of an old-fashioned fire truck—specifically, an American Legion Orville Jackson Post 127. My children both asked him for a teacup chihuahua.…
The word: Grapefruit
Kids and I went book shopping late one evening. The rule in a bookstore is that the kids can always buy one book (not so in a toy or a candy store.) The kids took their time selecting, and we ended up getting a few early gifts for their cousins, too. It was quite late…
The word: Lineage
The hosts of the holiday party had a beautiful idea: everyone would tell a story to others they met, and you would give a small card to the person whose story you liked best. Whoever had the most cards by night’s end would tell their story to the whole party. The first conversation I had…
The word: Shot
Just as the leaves were turning crispy and red, I found myself in a parking lot with a dead gray car. I met Terry because he was the kind person who volunteered to give it a jump start. He gave me a surprising word that was really fun to play with. The Stranger: Terry The Word:…
The word: Innovator
At YMCA family camp this fall, I woke up early with the girls, who were wild awake from bunkbed sleep and campfire marshmallows. In the morning, you can talk with the chef. Chef Steve spends half his year cooking in one state, half cooking in another—a seasonality I admired. That weekend, we ate Chef Steve’s…