I Brake for Butterflies + Giveaway!

 Hello and Happy Poetry Friday! Be sure to visit Jone Rush MacCulloch for Roundup.

SO MUCH GOODNESS in our community this National Poetry Month. Hooray!

You're invited to view Tuesday 2-Minute Writing Tip 34, "What is Poetry?" It features one of my favorite poetry writing tools. Thanks for your support!

Today I'm away from my desk, en route to Maynard, Massachusetts, where Charles Waters and I will be sharing about our poetry anthologies at Maynard Book Festival. We're excited to re-connect with children's poet and librarian Mark Malcolm, whom we first met at Boyds Mills, the retreat center formerly known as Highlights. We're also super-excited to be meeting up with other Boyds Mills poets, Cindy Greene and Cathy Steinquist. You never know what will happen when poets get together! :)

My first novel for adults Some Starry Night releases next Tuesday! To celebrate, you're invited to enter a Goodreads giveaway—we're offering 3 signed copies of the book! Please share with others you think may be interested in reading about Vincent van Gogh & Emily Dickinson meeting in 1886 Paris. Good luck!

Goodreads Book Giveaway

Some Starry Night

by Irene Latham

Giveaway ends April 30, 2026.

See the giveaway details at Goodreads.

Enter Giveaway

Today's ArtSpeak: WOMEN features a piece by Helen Frankenthaler. She was influenced by Abstract Impressionism, but she did her own thing: a soak-stain technique that created a luminosity to her work. I love it! I found quite a few I'd like to write after. Again, titles matter. Here, I've selected an "untitled" piece so I could focus on my own emotional reaction to the piece. No doubt this poem was also influenced by this article about monarch butterflies being on the edge of extinction. ...and the reality of my driving experience. Thanks so much for reading!

I brake for butterflies

too often not fast

enough—

wings crash / against glass

I break

for butterflies

- Irene Latham