Poetry Lunch

Poetry Lunch reading series

Informal poetry reading series with Myrna Keliher, live on Instagram @expeditionpress and archived here. Also! We listed all the books on bookshop.org so you can buy them and read them.

Everything
Season 1
Season 2
Season 3
Season 4
Season 5
Season 6

Reciting “This Be The Verse” by Philip Larkin

I love this poem for how abrupt and hilariously spot on it calls the painful reality of family legacy. No matter how hard any of us try, above and below we carry and pass on really hard stuff.

Reading “Time for Rivets” by Denise Levertov

I love the staunch stoicism in this poem that’s able to accept another crack even though it was sure it wouldn’t come. There’s an honoring of life long lived and the knowing perspective that comes with it while allowing sudden big new feeling.

Reading “I Love You” by Jenny George

I really appreciate how this poem hones in to such a specific moment and then breaks open, leaping back through time to the smallness of all of our selves.

Reading “Elegy Against Elegy” by Kenzie Allen

A beautiful poem that speaks of what’s past as also being ahead of us — from the edges of the sky to the pulling of the tide, what’s gone gives back and we’re asked, “What will you give back?”

Reading “When it Really is Just the Wind, and Not a Furious Vexation” by Kyle Tran Myhre

Here we are, still. For now. Here we are! Even with people to love and things to hold and sweet moments to share. It’s a constantly confusing time to be alive and there’s so much easy guilt and grief to sop up and soak in daily.

Reading from “The Testing-Tree” by Stanley Kunitz & Two Poems by Me

There’s a thread of brokenness and bearing witness through these three pieces that’s resonating strongly with me this week. I don’t know what else to do but stay with. And hold everything I can. And let myself be held.

Reading “At Some Moment the Confidence Snaps” by June Jordan

A poem about time and not taking it for granted; about uncertainty and living with it; about being in the present moment.

Reading “Diaspora Sonnet with Swifts Insisting on Their Accomodations” by Oliver de la Paz

There’s a sweeping feeling here that I know well of watching a mass of birds move together with swift precision that you know is utterly unplanned yet is perfectly synchronized. It makes me feel like anything is possible, watching birds like that.

Reading “Things” by Jane Kenyon

We go from eternity to failing, from lasting to not, from small specifics to the wider human condition. I love how a poem can stretch so far over so few words.

Reading “The Chance” by Arthur Sze

There’s a shift I notice lately, maybe because l’ve felt chance come more than once — that the striving is less necessary than the being.

Reading “Any Common Desolation” by Ellen Bass

This poem reminds me to look up, and to pause. To take note of the world around me when my insides are tore up or even just grating.

Reading “Why” by Jorie Graham

I like the simple language in this poem, and the way it speeds up but stays anchored outdoors, and that it doesn’t attempt to answer any of the whys.

Poetry Lunch reading series

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