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Celebrating Living Poets: Joy Sullivan

It’s Day 14 of the Slice of Life Challenge, and I am celebrating a different living poet each day throughout the month of March. As I curated the list of poets whose collections I wanted to use to inspire my writing, I selected a diverse range of writers – young/old, men/women of differing faiths, lifestyles, and races. Today, I’m celebrating Joy Sullivan, whose collection was like eating a carton of ice cream. I couldn’t stop at a serving size – – I devoured the whole decadent bowl of poetry in one sitting – ice cream, whipped cream, caramel and chocolate drizzle, nuts and a cherry – and I see myself rereading this one frequently in carton-sized servings.

You can read more about Joy Sullivan here and here. She also has a Substack, Necessary Salt. Since Amanda Gorman’s reading at Biden’s inauguration where she wore the yellow coat and made poetry ring in ears across this nation and the rise of a generation of viral social media poets like Joy Sullivan, Lyndsay Rush, and others, including spoken word poets like Clint Smith and Sarah Kay, and event writers such as Chris Vitiello who appears as The Poetry Fox in a fox suit with an old typewriter and clicks out poems on the spot for folks who give him a word, we have seen a resurgence of poetry that makes it no longer a dead man’s indulgence. These younger writers are breathing life back into something that, for a few generations now, has met with fear and intimidation on the ears of high school and college students who were forever being required to analyze it as if it were a frog being dissected.

But poetry isn’t some ill-fated lab frog destined to be gutted and pinned flap by flap to the black tarry pan and exposed as parts and pieces by hands wearing vinyl gloves and gagging the whole way through it. No, poetry is ice cream and decadent cake, old dogs and puppies, blankets and candles and mostly arms that reach out, take your hand, meet you wherever you are when you think you’re alone in your feelings, and draw you in for an embrace. It coaxes out emotions you didn’t know you could feel. Step into this book and some of the other living poets and discover a pulse you never even knew you had running through your blood. Start at your local library and arrange inter-library loans. Keep a ranking of those you like, and then, out of the blue, there will be that one poet whose lines are a fish net, and you’re the fish. You will be forever hooked. There’s a word for it……

There’s A Word for It

What do you call nostalgia for all the places

beneath this wing

of swallowtails, sow thistle

wild as grass, so cool and soft

it softens something?

Taken from: Ghost Heart; The Cashier at the Gas Station Asks Where I’m From; Of Wildflowers; Tiger Farm; Sockeye

A sneak peek of the poets I’m celebrating Days 10-20
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Celebrating Living Poets: Glenis Redmond

As I prepared for a celebration of living poets for each day of the month of March, I was looking for a short collection of poems about place and nature. I found one on state parks in South Carolina in this ultra-compact book that looks like an appetizer but satisfies like a meal. This collection, The Song of Everything, is special because of the way it was written. Meet Glenis Redmond, the living poet I’m celebrating today.

You can read about Glenis Redmond here. This is a short collection of poems she wrote as she took her grandson on a tour of South Carolina’s State Parks as she battled cancer. Together, they visited these parks as she wrote poems to document their journey and time together. She is a cancer survivor. I’m using the lines of poems throughout her collection to create a cento poem.

Paint the Town Green

I want to paint the town green.

I never turn down an invitation.

Glazed eyes, I go into a poem

in sync with the song of everything.

Lines for this Cento were taken from these poems, in this order: Greener; Head in the Clouds; How Nature Calls Me; This is How We Do It

A sneak peek of Living Poets Days 10-20

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Celebrating Living Poets: Lyndsay Rush

She calls herself Mary Oliver’s Drunk Cousin. Lyndsay Rush is the living poet I’m celebrating today during the 2026 Slice of Life Challenge. You can read all the posts each day at www.twowritingteachers.org as writers blog throughout March and post their links on the community site. If I had a colleague at the water cooler flattening her hand to admire her nail polish and declaring that she was so damn sure she would never read a poem she liked, this is the book I’d hand her before retreating around the corner and peering over the top of the cubicle at her in her chair devouring these poems and proving herself wrong.

Lyndsay Rush, author of A Bit Much, got her start as an Instagram poet. Click her name to read the interview that gives more information about Lyndsay. I’ve used her collection to create a Cento poem by writing several of her existing lines into a new arrangement.

The Dark Doorway

You heard it here first:

Otters hold hands while they sleep

If you’re feeling weird lately

stand in the dark doorway of

The Gospel I was raised on

for the nonbelievers

and drive off into the sunset

Lines in this Cento are taken from these poems, in this order: Maybe Crocs are Okay; Loving Each Otter; Help; Someone to Eat Chips With; His Body is Bread and So is Mine; Beware of Lost Boys; A Spell for Success

A sneak peek of poets days 11-20
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Celebrating Living Poets: David Elliott

I love books in verse – especially biographies, particularly this one: Voices: The Final Hours of Joan of Arc, by David Elliott. One of my favorite things about this particular book is that it tells the format of each poem in the back of the book. Elliott writes in several signature forms, including shape poetry. Another great thing: this book is part of a series – so when its final page is turned, there will be another one waiting.

You can read more about David Elliott here and here.

I Am

The harp and that halo, all those things

from that bright morning to this ~

I am a fortress.

I am a helmet on a strange head.

Taken from: Saint Michael; Joan; Virginity; Her Hair.

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Celebrating Living Poets: Clint Smith

This is the tenth day of the 2026 Slice of Life Challenge, and we are 1/3 of the way through the month of March’s daily blogging challenge. I’m celebrating some of my favorite living poets this month by sharing a Cento poem I’ve created from one of their poetry collections. I was introduced to Clint Smith through a Book Love Summer Reading Club I participated in through Penny Kittle’s group several years ago when we all read Counting Descent. I hung on every.single.line and marveled in the raw truths of exposed feelings. With poetry this rich and moving, the way it made my soul quiver with such ability to see things more clearly, I could not understand why everyone wasn’t rushing to devour more poetry and make it a main course of their reading diets. I understood why all the holiest books of this world are all in verse. I love the way Clint Smith uses lower case letters in titles and lines, and how he takes a perspective of what was said by many voices to a black boy. He writes prose poetry beautifully, too. Here is a poet who will take a reader of other genres and make them a reader who craves more poetry.

You can read about Clint Smith here. He won the 2014 National Slam Championship, and if I were picking a poet to have lunch with, I’d want my table with Clint Smith.

Invisible

You are invisible until

long after the song has stopped

until there’s nothing left inside

those stained glass shadows

maybe the poem is a cry for help

Taken from: Ode to the only black kid in the class; When Maze and Franie Beverly Come on in my House; what the fire hydrant said to the black boy; what the cathedral said to the black boy; Queries of Unrest.

The first ten poets, in order from bottom to top
A sneak peek of the poets I’m reading the next ten days

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Celebrating Living Poets: Maggie Smith

Welcome to Day 9 of the Slice of Life Challenge! I’m spending my month slicing about the living poets whose collections I enjoy reading – and using one of their collections to write Cento poetry, composed of existing lines reworked to form a new poem. Today, I’m sharing a Cento taken from the lines of poems in Maggie Smith’s collection entitled Goldenrod.

Maggie Smith appears in an interview here as a graduate of OSU.

Becoming

I am becoming my mother here

crossing a field, wading.

If you feel yourself receding, receding,

whatever your name is, you are with your own kind.

When are we most ourselves, and when the least?


My Cento poem features lines taken from these poems, in this order: Slipper, Threshold, Poem Beginning with a Retweet; Goldenrod; Ohio Cento.

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Celebrating Living Poet Miranda Cowley Heller

This month during the Slice of Life Challenge, I’m featuring some of my favorite poetry books by living poets and writing Cento poetry each day using the existing lines from poems in each collection to form a new poem. Miranda Cowley Heller rose to writing fame as author of The Paper Palace, a novel selected by Reese Witherspoon for her book club. Turns out, she’s an amazing poet as well!

You can read more about Miranda Cowley Heller here and here .

Family Secrets

Inside the case were all the photos

Alone at the kitchen table, I still

dig myself out of the sink

and my children cry blood tears for me.

From poems in this order: Salvage; The Taste of Pennies; Half-Life; and The Earth is Flat

A sneak peek of the first ten days of living poets I’m celebrating this month
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Celebrating Living Poets: Marcela Sulak

We are at Day 6 – – almost a week into the Slice of Life Challenge for 2026, which runs all of March. This month, I’m celebrating a different living poet each day by using their collections to create a Cento poem; I take existing lines and weave them into a new “original” poem by mixing them in new ways. I first learned of Marcela Sulak through The Stafford Challenge last year, and today I’m using The Fault to create a Cento poem.

You can read about Marcela Sulak here and here.

O’er the Mill, a Rampart in Bloom

This morning on the bridge across the ancient mills

a tiny rampart is born

an orchestra of spontaneity. Please

allow that it’s supposed to be in bloom.

Lines from the Cento were taken from (in this order): To Listen One Must Love Seeds; Rampart; The Nest; Brazen

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Celebrating Living Poets: Natasha Trethewey

During the month of March, as part of the Slice of Life Challenge and the Stafford Challenge, I’m writing Cento poems all month by taking the lines of poetry from living poets and weaving them into a new poem. Today, I’m celebrating Natasha Trethewey, a Pulitzer-Prize winning poet who served as our 19th US Poet Laureate and Mississippi Poet Laureate.

You can read more about Natasha Trethewey at her website and in an interview here and here.

What Happened Next

In 1959, my mother is boarding a train

From every corner of the photograph, flags wave down

The lines of my young father’s face deepen

what’s left is footage: the hours before

Behind us, the skyline of Atlanta

Taken from: The Southern Crescent; Scenes from a Documentary History of Mississippi; Southern Gothic; Providence; Pastoral.

I’ve also used her poetry in the past to inspire other forms, such as Golden Shovels, which use a line vertically to become the beginning or ending words of the lines in the poem. You can see an example of a Golden Shovel here. One of the things I love most about the version of Native Guard that I have is that it came with a CD of Natasha Trethewey reading the poems. And yes, my RAV4 is a 2018, old enough to still have ………..(drumroll please)………a CD player!

A Sneak Peek of the first ten days of the living poets I’m celebrating this month

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Celebrating Living Poets: Nicole Stellon O’Donnell

It’s Day 5 of the Slice of Life Challenge at Twowritingteachers.org, and as I move through the month of March celebrating living poets, I think back to the summer that Penny Kittle invited readers to engage with You are No Longer in Trouble during the Book Love Summer Reading Club. I was mesmerized by the prose poems that Nicole Stellon O’Donnell wrote as she told of her life growing up a Principal’s kid and later becoming a teacher herself. This book is a treasure, and one in which I believe we can all see ourselves at some point of our lives. For me, it’s the poem Marriage, about second graders getting married in “a rash of weddings” at recess with flowers pressed into aluminum foil bouquets. Sheer treasure!

Nicole Stellon O’Donnell of Alaska is a master of prose poems! You can read more about her at this link.

I’ve used this collection to write a Cento by taking lines of her existing poetry and rearranging them into a new poem.

Tips for Not Sagging

Even the waitress at the post-funeral reception noticed

nothing about me sags.

Bag sagging between her hands,

it’s in the steps, in the motion of go, in the bent knees, the swing of an arm.

Never forget that.

Taken from these poems, in this order: Excuses for the Pilgrimage; A Teacher Playing a Movie Star Playing a Teacher; At Least Name What it Is; No One Takes Attendance at Commencement; What Not to Say to Your Students at the Juvenile Detention Center.

This month’s first ten days of Living Poets: A Sneak Peek of what is to come