The last poetry project I started was to create poems from newspaper headlines, and after a couple of months, I just couldn’t stand it any more. What’s the Kenny Rogers line? Know when to fold ’em…know when to run? I ran.
Poetry and I did not keep steady company over the spring and summer, for no good reason other than that I was burying my head in the sand, but I did read and loved Elaine Equi’s collection Out of the Blank (Coffee House Press, 2025). Ben Shields writes in Artforum that Equi, “a staple of the New York downtown scene,” uses “language, casual enough for a napkin, [and] leaves you with the impression that you’ve just been told a delicious, unshackling secret.” What a lovely description!
For a sample of Equi’s style, I recommend “Muffin of Sunsets” and other poems at the Academy of American Poets. I’m looking forward to reading more of her books, too, now that I have summoned up a modicum of personal organization.
This is the first new post on WordPress, where I moved the blog after Typepad announced its denouement. Welcome to the new home of Chicken Spaghetti! You’ll find more Poetry Friday posts at The Poem Farm today. It’s good to be back.
Photo by ST. Madrid, 2025.
Chicken Spaghetti 
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