Big congratulations to each poet in our anthology The Nature of Our Times: Poems on America's Lands, Waters, Wildlife, and Other Natural Wonders, on its selection for a 2026 American Legacy Book Award in the Poetry Anthology category; and congratulations to my brilliant co-editors Aileen Cassinetto and David Hassler - a dream of an editorial team!

Happy spring, I hope things are blooming where you are.!

As I do every year, I post a whole month of writing prompts for April NaPoMo.

I may have been a bit behind on other posts, but I'll never forget to post prompts for your enjoyment and inspiration. 
HAPPY WRITING, everyone!

I will post a week's worth at a time, so please check back often.

01 - 07 APRIL

*  Think of some kind of opening or turn (in the weather, in the season, in circumstance, in a story you've heard), and write of the moment of transition that signalled the turn. You don't have to explain what came before, but you can say what you're looking forward to.

* What type of hibernating animal are you? Write a poem in which you identify with one and show how or in what way you vibe with it. 

* Write a love poem in which you don't ever use the word love, but instead rely on imagery and description to show it.

* Write a letter-poem to someone or something, even if you know there might not be any hope of a response.

* Think of a material or object that has "you" written all over it. Write a poem titled "Self Portrait as ___ (this thing)."

* We often/tend to think in binaries, in either-or relationships: yes, no; early, late; up, down; now, never. Write a poem in which you praise the in-between and show its embodiment in some experience.

* What are some seeds that you would keep today, for a future use? Be specific. Write more extensively into one/some of these. 

08 - 14 April

​- This past week, the students in my Honors Intro to Literature class read Italo Calvino's "The Distance of the Moon"— a story which has mesmerized me since I myself first encountered it in college. The world in it is almost as familiar as our own, but for the fact that it behaves in certain magical ways...  You say the moon is made of cheese? you see a bunny or a man in the moon? Whether or not you read Calvino's story, write/draft a poem in which you reimagine an object or aspect of the "real" and "science-backed" experience of the world. What does thinking of it in this curious, whimsical, and imaginative way, do to change anything in the way you think of it or of the world?

- Have you recently overheard an interesting line or sentence, a bit of conversation, in a public space? Use that to jump-start a poem.

- I had a follow-up visit recently with my primary care doctor, to report that I finally got to see a hand doctor for a trigger thumb problem that's been plaguing me for nearly 2 months. Did you get a shot? asked the PA. Yes, I replied. Did you watch? he asked. As a matter of fact I did. Write/draft a poem about "watching" or looking at something that might be considered hard to do. Write about why you don't turn away.

- The Artemis II mission to the moon has been all over the news in the last few days. Have you ever had the desire to name something you own or use after a figure from mythology? My husband jokes that he once wanted to name a work computer license server "Poetic," so then it would become a Poetic License server, haha. Do you give names to your laptop, your iPad, your vacuum cleaner? (Ours has been christened "Spock.") Write a poem about this, and about your choice of name.

- Use juxtaposition—placing two unlike things side by side—to discover something new about a familiar, ordinary, or seemingly commonplace subject or experience.  For instance - a movie date, going to church (or not going to church), forgetting where you parked, your childhood room, your name, sweating in summer, taking pictures on vacation (Wendell Berry has a wonderful poem about the latter, called  "The Vacation"). 

Pair the ordinary or more familiar thing with something that isn't "naturally" associated with it. This is the stuff that makes for powerful metaphors.
​
Some example pairs:
 
your hallway light switch + the darkness before creation
your dining room + a battlefield
a family recipe + a map of migration
your lungs + a forest
a paper cut + a guillotine
childrens' toys + landmines
one afternoon + an era
family gatherings + the signing of treaties

-  How many times a day are you asked to verify your identity by clicking on all the squares with a bicycle, traffic lights, fire hydrants or cars through CAPTCHA squares? (Did you know the acronym stands for Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart?)  Write a poem about something a bot could never replicate of you.

- Divination comes from the Latin divinatio, meaning to predict what is hidden or obscure (including the future) by magical means. Pick a card from a Tarot or oracle deck if you have one, or pick one from an online source like this. But rather than trying to foresee the future or some outcome, use the figures and the arrangement portrayed on the card as a visual prompt. What does it remind you of? Write it out as a poem.

15 - 21 April

- Think of a word whose meaning changes with the addition or deletion of just one letter.
For instance, laughter and slaughter; grain and rain; mother and other; mother and smother. Write a poem in which you get to use both of these words, and show how you get from one to the other.

- What myth or fairy tale has stuck with you through the years? Think of why you identify with it, or with a figure or an object in that narrative. Write from the point of view of that figure or object, but in a poem that is set in the present moment.

- Like John Yau in "Ill-Advised Love Poem," riff off of a familiar line from traditional romantic poetry (he uses “Come live with me and be my love” from Christopher Marlowe’s “The Passionate Shepherd to His Love”)

- Like Carrie Fountain in "Will You?", use a line often encountered in a pop culture context (in her poem, it’s “Will You Be My Valentine?” and the practice of [ even very young, pre-pubescent! ] children exchanging valentines in school)

-  Like Louise Gluck in "Anniversary," play with the idea of the many kinds of things that become part of our archive of knowledge about another person, from being in intimate relationship with them

- Like Matthew Olzmann in "Kummerspeck," look for an interesting compound word either in English or a different language. He uses “kummerspeck” (Ger.), whose literal meaning is “grief bacon.” Use it,  and any other word associations that radiate from the word, to write a poem about the difficulty of communicating something to someone who means much to you but with whom you have a complicated relationship

- Start a poem from a memory or a moment/mood of talking to yourself (or even talking aloud to yourself). Let the poem "happen" without too consciously directing its flow (in the generation of it). See what kinds of lines you wind up with, and see what they look like during ongoing revision.

Friends, join us at the ODU Gordon Galleries on Friday, 03 April 2026 for some fun Poetry events and shenanigans, and Readings by students and faculty, as well as 2 featured readers— Luz Schweig and Dinah Roma.

We hope to see you there!

We are so excited to share this cover reveal of

THE NATURE OF OUR TIMES:
Poems on America's Lands, Waters,
Wildlife, and other Natural Wonders

Edited by Luisa A. Igloria, Aileen Cassinetto, and David Hassler;
with a Foreword by Phil Levin

Originally envisioned as a companion to the first National Nature Assessment (NNA1) and now
to the work of United By Nature, The Nature of Our Times gathers 210 poets from North America
giving witness to how nature shapes our lives and how we can shape the future.

Forthcoming from Paloma Press on 18 September 2025 
in collaboration with Wick Poetry Center at Kent State University, United By Nature, and Poets for Science

Friends — I hope to see some of you at these 2 poetry events as part of the
Chicago Reading and Launch of CAULBEARER (Black Lawrence Press / Immigrant Writing Prize) 

Friday 11 APR, 7:00 PM 
Women & Children First Bookstore
(Free in-person event, but please register. Masks required.)

Saturday 12 APR, 11:00 AM 
Chicago Authors Room, Harold Washington Library Center
Co-sponsored by the Philippine Consulate General in Chicago

Booksigning to follow each event.

My excellent discussant at these programs is M.G. Bertulfo, who lives and writes at the intersection of nature, culture, and spirituality. She has written professionally for television and children’s education in such venues as CBS, Pearson Education Asia, and Schlessinger and for conservation magazines such as Sierra and Chicago Wilderness. Her award-winning fiction has appeared in Growing Up Filipino II, Our Own Voice, and The Oak Parker and her essays have appeared in various anthologies. She is a co-owner of Calypso Moon Studio, a working arts studio, in the Oak Park Arts District. Mary Grace is a member of the international N.V.M. and Narita Gonzalez Writers Group, the Historical Novel Society, New Moon Mondays, and the Acorn novelist workshop. She has served on the board of the Oak Park Arts District and was a local network rep for the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators. In 2017, she founded Banyan, an Asian American Writers Collective whose mission is to promote the visibility of Asian American Writers in Chicagoland and to uplift community spirit through the arts.  

I know I haven't been on here for a while, because like many people I know, I feel like I've just been trying to conserve my energy, trying to find spaces to breathe and recover from the onslaught of difficult things in the world.

But on the last day of March, I was invited to participate in a really fun conversation with Angela Dribben and Caren Stuart on their new collaborative effort, Great Goodness. It's a series of YouTube interviews they're doing with writers/artists/creatives of all sorts, to celebrate the idea of goodness in all its forms in the world— something we all need so much,

Because Angela and Caren are also into astrology, they open the show with a tarot card- or oracle card-drawing; we get to talk about the images on the card a little, and then at the end of the program, they offer it as part of a writing prompt to viewers. Today the card they picked was "Fork in the Road," and it depicted a white reindeer standing in front of a crossroads, in winter. There were signs pointing in many different directions. It had a tether around its neck, but on closer inspection, the tether was not actually attached to anything. A little snowy owl was perched on the reindeer's back, and a string of bright pennants hung above them.  In the distance, a glow came from beyond a forest. I'm also mulling over the images, and wondering whether they'll turn up in a poem...

Speaking of poems, just like that, another April NaPoMo is upon us!

As I've done for several years now, I offer writing prompts for the entire month of April. I'll put them here in weekly batches— so please come back to read. 

Happy Writing!

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* * *

NaPoMo 2025 Writing Prompts

April 1 - 7

- Poets often talk about trusting one’s intuition and taking that “leap” into the as yet undiscovered territory of the poem. This is the basis of all metaphor,  from the Greek metapherein, which means to carry over.
Write down a metaphor, and let your intuition lead you from there into a poem/poem draft.

- It feels like the beginning of spring. In our back yard, our beloved fig tree which was just pruned three weeks ago, is pushing out small leaves that look like little green flames. Look for signs of spring in your own, immediate surroundings. Write about beginnings, or about starting over.

- I am always so grateful when I come across a line of language— it can be poetry, it can be words from a song, from a letter, something overheard in a conversation or on the radio or something someone has said to me— that, when it "arrives," makes me sit up as if I was given an epiphany.  Keep an eye or an ear out for something like this, and when you find it, take it and turn it into/make it part of a poem. 

- Write a poem in which you address a “you” in an unusual or unexpected time and/or location (interpret freely). You can address a familiar character or be inspired by someone who’s done something audacious or atrocious, or imagine a time and addressee in a future of your imagining. 

- Write a letter poem to someone who you've wanted to talk to for a while, but might have been unable to (perhaps because you've been separated by time or distance).  Write a letter even without hope of a response.

- I read about how in the UK, there is a shop called a Poetry Pharmacy— one can walk in and receive a poetry prescription for anything. I would love to visit that place! Anyway— write a poem as a prescriptino for some condition of your choosing/imagining.

- Look through poems, essays, or stories, or even through news or feature articles— and find a question that calls to you. The question should be one that's not just answerable by a simple yes or no — it should have interpretive possibility. Write a poem in response to the question.

April 8 - 14 

- I just came across a thoughtful reminder: it may be true that we've inherited a host of trauma— personal, familial, historical— but it is also true that pain is not the only thing that has been passed down from our ancestors to us. We also have their wisdom, their grace, the beautiful, unique, and specific ways in which they viewed the world and learned to make or grow or fix things to ground and sustain themselves— and that we also have the ability to tap into, to help us keep moving forward. What are some of these things you've inherited? Write a poem about one or a few of these gifts, and how you use them in your daily life.

- Once, at a poetry program, Richard Jones read a poem whose title was, he said, the name of his late mother's all-time favorite lip color: "Cherries in the Snow." And indeed, sometimes the interesting descriptions of color can be found in places like the drugstore cosmetics aisle (nail polish: "Half Past Nude," "Golden Hour"), or at a paint store (I've seen "36 Hours in Marrakesh," even "Dead Salmon").  Pick one such product name, and use it as the title of your poem (which doesn't have to be about that product at all).
​
- Write a poem as a postcard to your future self, but use a specific date/season/time of the year. Where are you, and how are you?

- What would you be, if you could be a plant? Write a poem exploring that, or creating a new plant identity.

- Write a poem in which something that is conventionally viewed as small or meek, takes on a fierce and powerful persona.

- I recently got and put together (with the help of my daughter) a corner bookcase which is already helping to reduce and organize the book "clutter" in our living room. Pull down two or three books at random from your own stash, turn the pages, and take down a sentence or a line from each. See if you can use one or all of them in a poem. Let the lines lead you.

- What makes you giddy? Write an ode to giddiness.

April 15 - 21

- Write a poem in the voice of a character from inside a myth/mythological world of your choosing, but make this character talk about contemporary realities.

-  Make a list of 50-100 words that appeal to you because they are vivid, textured, appeal to the senses, sparkle with some kind of energy (emotional, intellectual, physical - their shape or sound). Look through this list and write a poem using the words you are most drawn to.

​- Write an abecedarian but in the form of a prose poem. That is, your prose poem will be made up of 26 lines in total, with each line beginning with a letter of the alphabet (as you work down through it).

- Write a poem modeled after Natasha Trethewey's "Myth," in which the lines of the second part of the poem repeat the lines in the first part, in reverse order. There will be a middle line that acts as a kind of hinge. 

​- Write an erasure poem based on your choice of source document. (One example is Tracy K. Smith's "Declaration," whose source text is the U.S. Declaration of Independence.)

- Write an ode to a part of your body that you usually take for granted.

​- Write a poem which incorporates a line from a poet you like (you'll put this line in italics, and refer to it in your title in some way); or, as a variation, write a poem in which you argue against a line written by another poet.

​April 22 - 30

- Write either an ode or an elegy for the weeds that you pulled out of the yard, or for the wasp you aimed bug spray at, or for the loaf of bread you forgot on the corner table and that grew mold (or for some other seemingly small or inconsequential thing).

- Write a poem in which you build a Museum of ____.

- Use these lines as a starter for a poem:
   The stones mouth words
   in a language I used to understand.

- We talk about the craft of poetry, of craft in poetry— but how do we really come to know what we know? Write a poem about something you've learned/something you were taught, but in an organic and experiential way (that is, not out of books or "schooling").

- Use these lines in the middle of a poem:
   Historians say such cataclysms
   happen every eighty years.

- Use these lines at the end of a poem:
   It sifted like fine flour, forming
   a mound at the bottom of the bowl

- Write a prose poem that is just one, continuous sentence— you may use punctuation anywhere in it, though — as long as it's not a period or a hard stop (think commas, semicolons, colons, long dashes).

- Write a poem from the point of view of a persona sometime in an unspecified future, looking at a fact or event from our time (this time)— what would be perplexing about this? or fascinating? or repugnant? or admirable?

- Write a poem that is a recipe for a literary cocktail in tribute to a poet you admire.

Today marks 14 years of my daily writing practice — I've written at least one poem a day since a snowed-in morning (rare in these parts on the eastern seaboard, probably even more rare now because of climate change) in 2010 when I drifted over to Dave Bonta's microblog The Morning Porch, and where I read his post that day  morningporch.com/2010/11/159121245/ - and was moved to respond in the comments box in a poem.  I did that for a few more days afterwards; though I'm not sure I posted all of them in this same way. Dave noticed, and invited me to post my poems on Via Negativa—and I've been doing that ever since.

Out of my daily practice, I've learned some helpful things about myself and my process; and I've put together 4 books and 4 chapbooks from the running review (and the revisions) I do of my writing. At least, these are things that I've found to apply to myself--

- Writing is the best way to keep writing.
- Before any thought of publication, there's the joy of meeting yourself on the page.
- Doing this (above) reminds me every day that writing is an opportunity to play; to follow ideas down rabbit holes, discover things, pay attention in this space of writing, no matter how brief every day (I typically do 30-45 minutes).
- Writing poems, I've found, is my preferred form for "processing" how I experience the world: in language, in images.
- Despite what anyone will tell you about "published is published in whatever form," your writing is yours. 

Especially in the last 2 weeks, I feel even more intensely how poetry has the capacity to "save" me - from utter, unfocused distraction; from utter despair...

I'm very grateful for my daily practice, and I'm very grateful for the additional writing community I've become connected to through the years, through Dave and Via Negativa.

***

And here, below, are some snaps from my undergraduate+graduate Advanced Poetry Workshop yesterday, during which my daughter Gabriela came and helped lead a workshop on making poetry zines. It was a JOYFUL session!

​

Last week, on the first day of the Advanced Poetry Workshop I'm teaching this semester, we did the obligatory round of introductions of all class members. One student piped up, out of the blue: Let's also say what our favorite movie is! And so we did. Mine is always and ever Cinema Paradiso, perhaps because for me it captures so perfectly the nature and quality of nostalgia— for a place which formed you, but which in leaving, you find you can never fully return to even if you might physically come back to visit.

For me, this place that I can never stop writing about is Baguio, where I was raised and where I grew up. I sometimes wonder, do those who never leave ever experience a sense of loss or longing for the selves they might have become if they had gone somewhere else, instead of staying put? 

Some things feel like they never change, at the same time that of course you know they have. Deep inside, I've always felt close to my own particular sense of "me," though time and multiple experiences have also augmented that. I can't explain it well, but it seems it has to do with more than what words like "individuality" represent.

This sense of my interiority is something I want to protect, because somehow I understand it can shrink, even become lost—and without it, nothing of the other identities I possess (daughter, mother, wife, teacher, writer, friend, and more) could make up for it. And I would be bereft.

Sometimes it feels like a place of deepest solitude, and other times a place lined with windows out of which I can turn my face with bright curiosity and interest. But it is also changing with the years; I am older. The camera is panning outward, moving toward a distance i can't see clearly yet. Sometimes this makes me feel unbearably sad; other times, I try my best to learn to sit in stillness, before being claimed again by the world of unending care and obligation. .
​

Thank you so much to everyone who came out for Marianne Chan‘s and Luisa A. Igloria's double book launch/reading/conversation at Prince Books Saturday afternoon 17 August — and to our beautiful discussant Courtney Tala McCaskey — our hearts are full!

Thank you to the ODU Filipino American Alumni Association, Nestor Lunasin, Vicky Manugo Greco, and Max Frias for the amazing reception and all your preps… we are so lucky to be in community with you!