What's my favorite section of the Sunday paper?
Not the front page, for sure. Likewise, sports and business don't do it for me.
On Sunday mornings, the first thing I want to read is the New York Times wedding section.
This is not because I'm wedding-crazy. My own was lovely, but to be honest, I didn't have strong opinions about its planning. While it's true that as a kid I liked dressing my favorite Barbie in a full white gown, it's not the trappings of a ceremony and reception -- the clothes, the flowers, the cake -- that's so appealing.
It's the love stories that interest me. The way a couple met. How they were just friends at first or didn't even like each other much. Or how they knew each other in high school, but didn't connect until two decades and divorces later.
Yes, the atrocities on the front page are happening. Yes, we need to know what's going on.
But love is happening, too. It's real. Married love. Same-sex love. Parent-child love. Neighborly love. Love of plants and pets and painting, of doing good work for society. Love that transcends the fences of faith and race. Love is as real as fire and bullets and shady campaign contributions. Love is a fact, part of the truth equation that's often regarded as frivolity, not real news.
That's why so many of my stories and poems are about love. That's why when I first saw the Poetry Box's submission call for poems from the news, I was sure I would spin the theme on its head and write a quirky, inspiring piece about the Sunday wedding section. I knew for certain I didn't want to write about the misery that's all around us. And there was no way I was going to write about guns.
And then I did.
I have columbine flowers growing in my front yard, and every spring when their slender stalks start to rise, I'm reminded of the shootings at Columbine High School in 1999, when my own children were young and just beginning their lives. As horrific as the topic of mass shootings is, I had to write about it.
I'm honored that my poem "Columbine," as well as a new piece on homelessness, will be included in the Poetry Box's In the News anthology, which will be published in September 2018.
This volume is packed with stellar work by Carolyn Martin, Tricia Knoll, Sharon Wood Wortman and many, many others, including my beloved friend Lindy Low Le Coq -- all poets trying to make sense of today's world, all poets who remind me what it means to stay alive and loving and connected.
To order a copy of In the News, click http://thepoetrybox.com/bookstore/the-poeming-pigeon-in-the-news.
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