Happy World Poetry Day!

To the drunks, the saints, the rebels, and the dreamers!

A toast to the poets who’ve broken my heart, lifted my spirits, and taught me how to hold a pen. To the drunks, the saints, the rebels, and the dreamers!

1. To Sylvia Plath, for teaching me to accept my own bell jar.

2. To Baudelaire, because one should always be drunk — with wine or poetry!

3. To Rainer Maria Rilke, my Teutonic teenage idol.

4. To Oscar Wilde, because I cannot resist temptation.

5. To Bukowski, you charming old lush.

6. To Edna St. Vincent Millay, because my candle still burns at both ends.

7. To Anne Sexton, for showing that loneliness can be unspeakably beautiful.

8. To Dorothea Lasky; sorry it took me this long to find you.

9. To Emily Dickinson: endlessly brilliant.

10. To Mary Oliver, for reminding me of my one and precious life.

11. To Arthur Rimbaud: And again: No more gods! No more gods!

12. To Maggie Nelson, because I want to remember, or to learn, how to live as if it matters.

PS: Sorry to be so spammy today. I’m procrastinating.