Poetry Talk

The author of the book Beyond Happiness thinks that everyone should read the poetry book Inward, particularly if they are just starting out in their careers. As a workplace happiness expert, she says the book is really straightfoward and offers advice on everything from letting go to self-love. 

At first I was skeptical of Jenn Lim's advice, but I love how the author speaks about living in the "reset of humanity," and how to understand "what it means to be scientifically happy through the lens of grief and loss." This book is going on my TBR pile for sure and I hope it resonates like she says because boy are we all in pain. We could use more helpful guides like this.

What poems or books of poetry would you suggest to anyone and why? Share your favorites in the chat. 

It's no secret that we love a good poetry challenge around here, so when I heard that this year's GISH Halloween challenge, also known as Halloweird, was featuring a poetry prompt on the first day, I thought I'd share it with y'all. GISH is doing a free 13 Days of Halloween challenge and day one, yesterday, involved a poem that Misha Collins wrote.

The prompt was to illustrate a poem from Collins' new book, which some GISHers found a little commercial-y. But Misha does so much every year for so many people that most of us are at least a little okay with his self-promotion. The poem involves a black cat or three (you can buy the book or just search for the poem and find lots of posts featuring it on social media) and is great for Halloween.

What other fun Halloween poetry prompts have you run across recently? Share them in the chat.

Some poetry lovers read it, some write it and many do both, but how many of us have written bad poetry over the years? And if you've written bad poetry, how do you feel about writing it now?

Anything worth doing is worth doing badly, right? I know I've witten a lot of bad poetry over the years, from two pages of jarring couplets about female circumcision (which was chosen for a lit magazine, so maybe it wasn't too bad--or maybe it was chosen because it was!) to sonnets attempted in old English (yikes), but they all somehow still have a special place in my heart. Honestly sometimes I think I wrote better then just because it was easier to write and I had more time and passion. These days feeling is harder than it used to be.

Do you have any poetry in your past that you wish you could forget? Or do you still enjoy reading it? Tell us about some of your old poems in the chat. 

Named after poet and teacher Nicole Sealey, The Sealey Challenge is a call to really expand your mind and your breadth of reading material with a simple yet possibly big task: reading a book of poetry every day during the month of August. The challenge is to read a completely different, full book daily, not just a single book throughout the entire month! This may be an enormous challenge for many but certainly a rewarding experience for any!

While August is over, the Sealey Challenge could be done just about any month as long as the reader has time--and the reader could even make it more challenging by using themes each month. The perfect opportunity for spooky collections of poetry is upon us! Aside from that, it's also a good time to create a list of collections to read through next August, if that is the goal.

Have you ever completed the Sealey Challenge? What collections did you enjoy the most? What did you learn? Share your insights and tips in the chat.