Hello and Happy Poetry Friday! Be sure to visit Margaret at Reflections on the Teche for Roundup.
This week's Tuesday 2-Minute Writing Tip 28 "Contracts, Not Handshakes" touches upon the business side of writing and includes a real-life cautionary tale.
Next Tuesday (March 3, 2026) is the release date for For the Win: Poems Celebrating Phenomenal Athletes, poems selected by Irene Latham and Charles Waters, brought to us by the good folks at Carolrhoda/Lerner Publishing Group.
Y'all, I am not a sports person. (POETRY is my sport!) This anthology was Charles' idea, and I, pretty much always being up for a challenge, said yes!
I do love sports stories and athlete stories (and the Olympics!), which are so like creator-stories, all full of dreams and training and setbacks and inspiration and achievement...and I love how this book showcases moments from ALL of it, not just the glory days.
So much gratitude to the following poets—and the athletes!—who were a dream to work with:
Jaime Adoff - Mookie BettsLacresha Berry - A’ja Wilson
Jay Brazeau - Connor McDavid
JaNay Brown-Wood - LeBron James
Tanita S. Davis - Simone Biles
Mariana Dominé - Lionel Messi
Naaz Khan - Aprar Hassan
Irene Latham - Nelly Korda
Nancy Tupper Ling - Eileen Gu
Guadalupe García McCall - Juan Soto
Edna Cabcabin Moran - Roman Reigns
Darius Phelps - Patrick Mahomes
Glenis Redmond- Coco Gauff
Kim Rogers - Keenan Allen (Lumbee)
René Saldaña - Ronald Acuña, Jr.
Laura Shovan and Leah Henderson - Sophia Smith
Sarah Grace Tuttle - Jessica Long
Charles Waters - Jalen Hurts
Kao Kalia Yang - Suni Lee
Today my friend Louise placed me
No more shadows for you, she said, and stroked my head
with her sculptor-fingers. Show them your tenderness,
your mender-heart perched on dancer-legs.
Fear set my toes a-tremble. You want me to stitch for them,
to spin? Louise's smile came soft-sudden as sunshine
Let them look at you until they can no longer look away.
Oh, I love how the sculptor's love for her spider subject comes though in your poem so tenderly and those last two lines are so resonant: "Let them look at you..." This is so cinematic and wonderful, Irene!
ReplyDeleteSpiders are one of my favorite animals, and I enjoy watching them when I'm able to do so. They do, as you say, tend to stay in the shadows (and for good reason), so it's a treat when I find them. Thank you for a wonderful poem (love the last two lines)!
ReplyDelete"mender heart" is PERFECT...
ReplyDeletealso, love that the athlete collection is coming to fill the gap the Olympics leaves!!
Irene, your imagery made your poem pop- her sculptor-fingers, your mender-heart perched on dancer-legs, smile came soft-sudden as sunshine after snow. Congratulations on your new anthology.
ReplyDeleteThat is one big spider! (I had to look it up -- 30 ft. high and 33 ft. wide!!!) Maybe making it so much larger than life makes it easier for scaredy cat humans to look and look "until they can no longer look away."
ReplyDeleteFirst of all, I hear it's your birthday! Hope it was/is a happy one and that the year ahead is filled with wonder. Congratulations to you and Charles on the book! I'm looking forward to reading it. Your poem brings out so much emotion, I love "Show them your tenderness, your mender-heart perched on dancer-legs."
ReplyDeleteI imagine the artist sculpting the head of this humongous spider. You’ve captured an intriguing voice in this poem. I also love your words mender-heart and dancer-legs.
ReplyDeleteLove! The picture book biography of Louise Bourgeois, Cloth Lullaby, gave me new respect for her (even though I'm still not sure I'd want a giant spider sculpture anywhere near where I'd see it daily! And I just came from Mona's blog, and y'all have both shared that idea of standing tall. I love it!
ReplyDeleteSuch intimacy in this little conversation between creator and created! Congratulations to you and Charles on the newest anthology!
ReplyDeleteCongrats on the new book and congrats to all those fabulous contributors! I'm not a sports person either, but sports-y poetry (or poetic sportsiness) could certainly win me over. :)
ReplyDeleteI love the spider sculpture! Your words "mender-heart perched on dancer-legs" show us how beauty is both hidden and apparent in unexpected places. Love!
Congrats to you and Charles on the new anthology!! Love the spider poem, a touching conversation. Love "show them your tenderness" and "Louise's smile came soft-sudden as sunshine after snow."
ReplyDeleteHello Birthday Time Woman!
ReplyDeleteAppreciations for your support of artistry about spiders. Spiders in the roof corner of a front or back step stoop or porch were special to my Momma.
And special also, is FOR THE WIN, which brought me great admiration for young superschieving athletes I didn't know. It is fun to feature it on my blog at Bookseedstudio.
https://bookseedstudio.wordpress.com/2026/02/22/good-sports/
Great too, that creative Charles Waters nudged you...
Oh, Irene, this precious spider. What a poem. I love her dialogue with the artist. She is precious, this spidery dancer. And congratulations on the athlete book coming so so soon. I had seen Jan's post mentioning it a couple weeks ago. It does sound like a great collection.
ReplyDeleteI had seen this spider on line but never knew about the artist. I found this quote fascinating:
ReplyDelete"Bourgeois uses the spider, both predator (a sinister threat) and protector (an industrious repairer), to symbolise the mother figure. The spinning and weaving of the spider’s web links to Bourgeois’s own mother, who worked in the family’s tapestry restoration business, and who encouraged Louise to participate."
It makes me look at spiders (not my favorite) in a new way. I really enjoyed your poem. That last line is gripping. Bravo