Reading Update

Book #26 of 2026 was The Lost: A Search for Six of Six Million, by Daniel Mendelsohn. This brilliant book is by the author of An Odyssey, which I read in 2019 and wrote about at that link. This book is about Mendelsohn's search for family members who died during the Holocaust in Ukraine. What happened to them exactly? Who were they exactly? What does it mean to remember someone or to remember an event? The book explores all these questions and more. While what happened in Ukraine during World War II is extremely difficult to read about, this book was a rewarding and fascinating read.

 

Book #27 was What We Can Know, by Ian McEwan, another remarkable book. It's set in 2014 and 2119, and both time frames are completely absorbing. In the future, in a world decimated by disasters and climate change, scholars try to figure out what happened in authors' lives in the past. And while they are good at researching, there are some things we just can't know. The ideas about how life could go on in a post-apocalyptic world were mind-blowing, as was the portrayal of the search for knowledge that still could go on in a world like that. I couldn't put this book down.

 

Book #28 was The Teacher of Nomad Land, by Daniel Nayeri. This book is set in Iran during World War II and it won the National Book Award last year. It was very much worth reading.

 

Book #29 was a re-read, The Quotidian Mysteries: Laundry, Liturgy, and "Women's Work", by Kathleen Norris. Short but profound.

 

Books #30 and 35 were also re-reads, this time not profound. They were The Summer I Turned Pretty and It's Not Summer Without You, by Jenny Han. I have the third book in this trilogy on hold at the library. I read these ten years ago when I was teaching middle schoolers who were devouring them.

 

Book #31 was Foster, by Claire Keegan. More of a novella, or even a long short story, than a novel, this was a beautiful book.

 

Book #32 was Birding With Benefits, by Sarah T. Dubb. Of course I had to read this romance because it was about birding. But I would have liked more details of the birding and fewer of the extremely open door sex scenes. I'm sure that opinion does not make me the typical reader of a romance novel. Sometimes the birds the characters were after didn't even get named beyond "a bird," whereas every one of their body parts definitely did get named and described. The characters were participating in a birding contest based on the Tucson Bird Alliance Birdathon. 

 

Book #33 was a new release, Counterweights, by Shannan Martin. Not only did the library acquire it after I requested it, but I got to check it out first! Martin has written beautiful essays about how to live in a challenging time without losing sight of the small things that give us joy. I loved her awareness of how many people struggle with addiction, poverty, and the justice system, even in the privileged United States. 

 

Book #34 was The Forgotten Garden, by Kate Morton. This was a book club pick, and honestly, I probably wouldn't have finished it otherwise. 

 

Book #36 was Lady Tremaine, by Rachel Hochhauser, a retelling of Cinderella from the point of view of the stepmother. While I can't say it's my favorite version of the story, it did keep me reading.

 

Book #37 was The War that Saved My Life, by Kimberly Brubaker Bradley. Although this was a Newbery Honor book in 2015, I hadn't even heard of it until recently. Ada and her brother Jamie are evacuated out of London to be safe from bombing during World War II, and their lives are completely changed. Ada and Jamie are abused children in their London lives, and the author realistically presents their reactions due to the trauma they have experienced. So it can be a pretty upsetting read. 

 

Book #38 was Nancy French's memoir Ghosted. I really enjoyed (and was horrified by) this story of a conservative writer in the age of Trump. 

Line 7 of the 2026 Progressive Poem is Here!

April 1 Tabatha Yeatts at The Opposite of Indifference
April 2 Cathy Stenquist at A Little Bit of This and That
April 3 Patricia Franz at Reverie
April 4 Donna Smith at Mainely Write
April 5 Janice Scully at Salt City Verse
April 6 Denise Krebs at Dare to Care
April 7 Ruth Hersey at There is no such thing as a God-forsaken town
April 8 Rose Cappelli at Imagine the Possibilities
April 9 Margaret Simon at Reflections on the Teche
April 10 Janet Clare Fagel at Reflections on the Teche
April 11 Diane Davis at Starting Again in Poetry
April 12 Linda Baie at Teacher Dance
April 13 Linda Mitchell at Another Word Edgewise
April 14 Jone MacCulloch at
April 15 Joyce Uglow at Storied Ink
April 16 Carol Varsalona at Beyond Literacy Link
April 17 Robyn Hood Black at Life on the Deckle Edge
April 18 Michele Kogan at More Art for All
April 19 Kim Johnson at Common Threads
April 20 Buffy Silverman
April 21 Irene Latham at Live Your Poem
April 22 Karen Edmisten
April 23 Heidi Mordhorst at my juicy little universe
April 24 Mary Lee Hahn at A(nother) Year of Reading
April 25 Tanita Davis at Fiction, instead of Lies
April 26 Sharon Roy at Pedaling Poet
April 27 Tracey Kiff-Judson at Tangles and Tails
April 28
April 29
April 30

 

I've been following the poem eagerly so far. I love the piles of books (reminds me of my bedside table) and of course I'm happy any time birds fly into a poem. But I'm a little worried about where the birds are actually going, where they live, and how they interact with the building-high anthologies. I got distracted by many side quests like looking up different parakeets (rhyming with streets) and sadly discovering that lots of them are extinct, researching bird-friendly buildings (the horizontal lines of the books are good because the birds won't collide with buildings like that as easily, since they can see that they are solid, unlike huge sheets of glass often used on skyscrapers) and exploring what kinds of birds live in cities (hint: not just sparrows and pigeons). Most people don't notice urban birds, but I'm sure that's not the case in the Land of Poetry, right? I wanted to put in some gorgeous Ugandan city birds, but I decided to keep the birds generic and maybe even just metaphors. We'll let future poets decide. Denise, I hope it's OK that I changed your period to a comma. Rose, the poem is all yours! 

 

 

 

On my first trip to the Land of Poetry,
I saw anthologies of every color, tall as buildings.
A world of words, wonder on wings, waiting just for me!
Birding for words shimmering, flecked in golden gilding.

binoculars ready, I toured boulevards and side streets
exploring vibrant verses, verses so honest and tender,
feathery lyrics, bright flitting avian athletes  

 

 

 Photo from this article

 

 

Spiritual Journey Thursday: Service

 

Welcome to our April SJT. Because it's taking place on Maundy Thursday, the day of Holy Week when Jesus washed His disciples' feet, I, as this month's host, suggested that we could write about service. (As always, the prompt is just a suggestion; feel free to write about something completely different!) SJT friends, please leave a comment with your link. (By the way, if you want to read more about Maundy Thursday, I posted some about it when I hosted SJT in 2023 here.) 

 

It was an uncomfortable moment. The disciples were gathered to share their Passover meal, and instead of waiting for the lowest servant to come in to wash everyone's feet, a traditional way to welcome a guest who had been walking on dusty streets, Jesus knelt down before His followers and did that job Himself. It definitely wasn't His job, as the leader, the most important person in the room. But He not only did it, He told them that now they needed to do that for each other. That, the most dirty, low-down, embarrassing kind of service. They shouldn't consider themselves too good to serve others. They shouldn't sit and wait for others to come serve them. They should do what needed to be done. 

 

It's hard to serve others sometimes, and it's also sometimes hard and embarrassing to let others serve you. Both sides of the equation involve being able to forget yourself and your own dignity and importance. Washing other people's feet can be smelly and unpleasant, but letting others wash yours can make you feel self-conscious and uneasy. 

 

The most secure people are the ones who have nothing to prove, and as I read the gospels, I see that Jesus was like that. He was so sure of who He was and what His purpose on earth was that He had no need to impress others or meet their expectations. He didn't concern Himself with people's criticisms or accolades. The only one He cared about pleasing was His Father. I think the more we can be like that, the less trouble we will have with both serving others and being served by them. 

 

Go here to read a beautiful poem about Jesus washing Judas' feet.

 

Margaret shares a song she's singing at the Maundy Thursday service, plus a golden shovel about service.

 

Ramona wrote an acrostic called Holy Ground, inspired by another poet, in honor of National Poetry Month. 

 

Bob's thinking about the heart attitude behind service, and also shares some ways we can serve others. 

 

Diane has written a poem about being ready to serve.

 

Denise created a black out poem from an article about Maundy Thursday. And she challenges us to serve people we might consider our enemies, too. (Plus she shares a message from Benjamin R. Cremer.) 

 

Patricia has a reflection on service, and how serving has played out in her own life. Inspiring stuff! But she's not trying to be inspiring, just to do the next right thing. 

 

Carol shares a nonet about Jesus' service and details about a Maundy Thursday Mass she attended. We're praying for you as you grieve the anniversary of your husband's passing, Carol! 

 

2026 Progressive Poem

Happy National Poetry Month! The 2026 Progressive Poem has begun. You can follow along at these links as the month goes on.

 

April 1 Tabatha Yeatts at The Opposite of Indifference
April 2 Cathy Stenquist at A Little Bit of This and That
April 3 Patricia Franz at Reverie
April 4 Donna Smith at Mainely Write
April 5 Janice Scully at Salt City Verse
April 6 Denise Krebs at Dare to Care
April 7 Ruth Hersey at There is no such thing as a God-forsaken town
April 8 Rose Cappelli at Imagine the Possibilities
April 9 Margaret Simon at Reflections on the Teche
April 10 Janet Clare Fagel at Reflections on the Teche
April 11 Diane Davis at Starting Again in Poetry
April 12 Linda Baie at Teacher Dance
April 13 Linda Mitchell at Another Word Edgewise
April 14 Jone MacCulloch at
April 15 Joyce Uglow at Storied Ink
April 16 Carol Varsalona at Beyond Literacy Link
April 17 Robyn Hood Black at Life on the Deckle Edge
April 18 Michele Kogan at More Art for All
April 19 Kim Johnson at Common Threads
April 20 Buffy Silverman
April 21 Irene Latham at Live Your Poem
April 22 Karen Edmisten
April 23 Heidi Mordhorst at my juicy little universe
April 24 Mary Lee Hahn at A(nother) Year of Reading
April 25 Tanita Davis at Fiction, instead of Lies
April 26 Sharon Roy at Pedaling Poet
April 27 Tracey Kiff-Judson at Tangles and Tails
April 28
April 29
April 30

 

 

Reading Update

Book #21 of 2026 was Summer Island, by Kristin Hannah. This was a sad story of family dysfunction but there was some reconciliation in the end.

 

Book #22 was Punching the Air, by Ibi Zoboi and Yusef Salaam. This verse novel interested me for a couple of reasons. One was that a Facebook friend had her high school students reading it in a book club. Another was that Ibi Zoboi is of Haitian origin. And having just read The River is Waiting, I was especially sensitive to the subject of prison. After reading it, I learned that Yusef Salaam is an activist around the topic of incarceration, being one of the Exonerated Five. I enjoyed this and could imagine discussing it with students.

 

Book #23 was So Far Gone by Jess Walter and book #24 was A Guardian and a Thief, by Megha Majumdar. I'm putting them together not because of similar settings, since the former is set in the Northwest of the US in the present and the latter in Kolkata, India in the near future. But both books seemed at first to be fast-paced, fun adventures that would all work out in the end, only to turn much darker than I had anticipated. Both were brilliantly structured and I was glad I had read them, but neither had much in the way of hope or redemption. A Guardian and a Thief is climate fiction, a genre I have been meeting more and more in my reading. 

 

Book #25 was the non-fiction A Marriage at Sea: A True Story of Love, Obsession and Shipwreck, by Sophie Elmhirst. It would have been easy to romanticize this event which took place in the early seventies, but I appreciated Elmhirst's very matter-of-fact style. I felt as though I got to know both members of this couple that decided to leave everything and take to sea. It was a gripping read. 

Reading Update

Book #15 of the year was The Compound, by Aisling Rawle. This is about a reality show in a world that's maybe just a bit more messed up than our current situation, but not by all that much. On camera constantly, housemates compete for relationships and possessions by doing increasingly brutal things. I expected some kind of realization or redemption but there wasn't any. But it was gripping and hard to put down.

 

Book #16 was The Hunter, by Tana French. This was the second in a trilogy; the third one is coming out next month. Cal Hooper was a police officer in Chicago and he retired to quiet, peaceful rural Ireland. Of course it isn't quite as quiet and peaceful as anticipated. 

 

Book #17 was The River is Waiting, by Wally Lamb. This book was heart-wrecking. It was a book club read, and we were all plunged into despair by it. There's a horrible event in the first chapter and then the whole rest of the book shows the consequences of that event. There's a lot in the book about the prison system in the United States. 

 

Book #18 was Amy Tan's The Backyard Bird Chronicles, which consists of journal entries and drawings of what she witnesses in her back yard during the pandemic. I enjoyed this one enormously.

 

Book #19 was Spectacular Things, by Beck Dorey-Stein, a story of two sisters and how they manage to go on living when they lose their mom. It was an interesting peek into the world of professional soccer, too.

 

Book #20 also gave a glimpse into a world that was unfamiliar to me, that of internet influencers. It was Everyone is Lying to You, by Jo Piazza, mostly set at a conference for said influencers called MomBomb. It's a pretty gory and awful story, and then some of the stuff tacked on at the end made me a little confused and perhaps in need of the inevitable sequel? 

 

In my last reading update I said we'd be teaching online for a bit; it turned out to be only two days and then we were able to reopen. I am very thankful to be teaching in person, whether or not there's more time for reading, but I've also been struggling to catch up on the work the kids did/were supposed to do during the days off and the online teaching. And as you can see from these reviews, I've been reading a lot of dark stuff. I need something a little more cheerful next... 

Reading Update

We just had an election here in Uganda, and we had two days off for it. Thursday for the voting and Friday for the counting, then the weekend for the announcing of the results and the -- we hoped not -- unrest. The government also turned off the internet. The combination of time off and no internet led to completion of many books. As it turned out, there was/is some unrest, and we are now going to be teaching online for a little while. This may lead to more reading? We'll see. I'm not thrilled about teaching online again, but more reading time is always a good thing.

 

Book #5 of the year was The Searcher, by Tana French. This is the beginning of a different series from the French series I read last year. I enjoyed it and look forward to the next one being available.

 

Book #6 was The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny, by Kiran Desai. I expected to love this book. So many people had it on their favorites list for last year. I love many Indian novelists. Plus I had already read two Kiran Desai books and liked them both. I absolutely loved The Inheritance of Loss. And yet I found this book only OK. I actually had to force myself to finish it. I think a big reason for this was that I hated the Ilan plot and that took up soooo much of the book. I was glad I finished it because I liked the ending, but it was a big disappointment after her previous books. 

 

Book #7 was What Kind of Paradise, by Janelle Brown. I enjoyed this study of the good and bad sides of technology. It moved fast and that was kind of what was called for after Sonia and Sunny.

 

Book #8 was The Priory of the Orange Tree, by Samantha Shannon. This is the kind of fantasy novel I rarely read, but the occasional dragon-riding story has to be a good thing, right? Even at more than 800 pages, it kept me reading. At first I thought I'd never keep all the characters (all with strange names) straight, but I had no trouble.

 

Book #9 was The Ministry of Utmost Happiness, by Arundhati Roy. I had to take several runs at this one, and I also had to make myself finish it. It has brilliance in it, though. 

 

Book #10 was Philip Yancey's memoir Where the Light Fell. Yes, the Philip Yancey that's been in the news lately. It was still a good book.

 

Book #11 was what I listened to when I couldn't listen to podcasts (while washing dishes and doing laundry, mostly). It was Charlotte's Web, by E.B. White (and read by the author). This book is so good. If you haven't read it since you were a kid, you've probably forgotten how good.

 

Book #12 was Home Remedies, a book of short stories by Angela Pneuman. I went to college with her, and I had already read her novel, Lay It On My Heart. The stories are in the same physical and emotional universe. They are kind of like if Flannery O'Connor were writing about Kentucky in the 80s.

 

Book #13 was Halcyon Journey: In Search of the Belted Kingfisher, by Marina Richie. I love books that are part nature writing, part folklore, part memoir, and this falls squarely in that category. 

 

Book #14 was Theo of Golden, by Allen Levi. This was a book club pick. We couldn't meet last week because of the election, but when we last talked, we were all enjoying it! 

Poetry Friday is Here Today!

Welcome to Poetry Friday! Leave your links in the comments and I will round them up. I have comment moderation enabled so don't panic if your comment doesn't show up immediately. I'm on East African Time, which is currently 8 hours ahead of the east coast of the US. 

 

I've been rereading J. Drew Lanham's book Sparrow Envy: Field Guide to Birds and Lesser Beasts. I really recommend it; it's about birds, yes, but also about being Black in the United States. You in the northern hemisphere are past the solstice now, and moving into longer days, but this still seems appropriate for January. I live on the equator, but still as I'm writing this, it's a dark and overcast day at the end of winter break. The poem works for me today.

 

 

 

Soulful Warming

by J. Drew Lanham

 

cold creeps in

a gray chill settles

darkness fills

where sunlight falls

cardinal chants

in tangled bramble

towhee kick-scatters leaves

and care

take heart

grasp hope

feathers lighten

solstice's darkening burden

brightening briefest day

 

 

Tracey is in with her OLW for 2026, plus a Jorie Graham poem.

 

Good morning! I'm waking up to an inbox full of comments! Just published them all and now I'll round up for a while.

 

Jane hopes (rather than resolves) to share poetry all year. Looking forward to it, Jane!

 

Matt has posted about his 2023 book, The Thing to Remember about Stargazing, which has just won an award. He shares with us how this book came to be. Sometimes it's a circuitous journey! 

 

Jone is sharing her OLW for the new year! (Yes, Jone, I can read your comment, but sadly I once again can't access the post itself from my network. Wish we knew why!)

 

Robyn has written a sad, beautiful poem about Renée Nicole Good.

 

Michelle is thinking about Renée Nicole Good as well, and has written a haiku and a zeno.

 

Marcie has a photo and a haiku, and also shares her OLW for this new year. 

 

Jan is also sharing a poem about Renée Nicole Good; this tragic death on Wednesday of a young mom and fellow poet has touched many of us!

 

Tabatha is thinking of this same topic, and shares two poems, one about Eric Garner, and one about how we can respond in these times.

 

Karen is also grieving this loss, and has a Mary Oliver poem for us.

 

Carmela's post isn't live yet, it appears, so I'll come back later and link it. (That link is to the main blog, Teaching Authors.) She's written about a poetry workshop and a Chris Harris poem. 

 

Linda has made the switch to Substack! Congratulations, Linda! As always, she's picked a creative OLW and she shares a poem with us on her new theme. 

 

Rose is thinking about stargazing, teaching, and waiting. Beautiful, Rose! 

 

Linda's in with watching stars and grieving Renée Nicole Macklin Good. (Two of today's emerging themes together!) 

 

My ninth graders just left after the last class of the day, and I can see that people in the US are waking up because I started getting more comments! Good morning to you!

 

Irene has a poem for the girl in the mirror, plus she's started posting videos again with writing tips. Looking forward to watching! 

 

Margaret is introducing her OLW - or will she have a different word every month? She's got a poem about simplicity. 

 

Mary Lee is sharing Renée Good's award-winning poem, "On Learning to Dissect Fetal Pigs." 

 

Patricia is sharing an original poem, "The Year as a Letter."

 

Carol is looking forward to spring, and sharing some A. A. Milne. (One of my favorite poets from childhood - I can still recite some of the poems from the books Carol mentions!)

 

And the other Carol has written a poem about her OLW for 2026. Great choice, Carol, and best wishes in the weeks and months ahead!