All goes onward and outward

It was a hot mess summer

and now it is over. Long exhale… The vernal equinox came and went on Friday. I mourned my mother’s death and floated on the river with a dear friend who could be present with my grief. Maybe that is the mark of true friendship, someone who doesn’t shy away from our sadness.

Venus, pre-dawn

The day my mother died I woke at 4:30 am to intense quiet. The night’s heavy rains had stopped. I got up and saw the clear indigo sky through the bathroom window and a planet blazing above the horizon. Venus, planet of love, orb that outshines all other objects in our sky except the sun and moon.

Venus reached her greatest brilliancy this year on September 19, a few hours before my mom passed. She won’t be this bright again until 2025. I take comfort in her orbit, the mysteries above us, her ancient symbolism of love and connection that connects me to my mother and the light she was for me and for so many people. I am grateful to have been loved by such a radiant woman. And now, to be able to remember her at her brightest, before Alzheimer’s decimated her ability to speak or laugh.

My 12th birthday

A few years ago, I read this personal essay in the NY Times about the beauty that awaits at the end of the Alzheimer’s journey. It gave me hope back then. Now I can say it is true. Please share it with anyone who is losing a loved one to this devastating disease.

I’ve been re-reading Whitman

Especially section 6 of “Song of Myself”— [A child said, What is the grass?]. I read this poem to myself and then to my mother on her deathbed, suddenly remembering that I’d recited it at my grandfather’s memorial, at my mother’s request.

This is why we need poetry. To anchor us in times of unspeakable loss and love. To give us words for our ceremonies, for weddings and funerals, the beginnings and the endings.

Dear Walt, Gemini birth-mate, queer ancestor— thank you for translating the spiral of life, for writing that the dead are “alive and well somewhere”:

All goes onward and outward… and nothing collapses,
And to die is different from what any one supposed, and luckier.

- Walt Whitman

Here are some of my other favorite companion poems for grief. What are yours?

• Marie Howe- “What the Living Do”

• Mary Oliver- “In Blackwater Woods”

• Raymond Carver- “Late Fragment”

“The Long Goodbye” is on The Slowdown!

When I heard that Alzheimer’s was called “the long goodbye,” I knew I had to write about it. And I’m thrilled that my poem is featured today on The Slowdown, the beloved daily podcast from The Poetry Foundation.

It’s bittersweet to listen to this episode now that the long goodbye is finally over. But it’s a gift to have a poem from DARK BEDS shared with so many. At its center, says podcast host Major Jackson, is “the familial promise of unconditional love.”

You can listen HERE.

DARK BEDS is about to launch

How strange to be bringing a book into the world right now! Many poems in DARK BEDS are about my mother, so it feels poignant to revisit them with her so recently gone.

I hope you can come to the LAUNCH PARTY on Friday, October 13— one of the opening events of the Brattleboro Literary Festival. I’ll be reading with feminist poet Cate Marvin at 7 pm in a magical old church, then celebrating DARK BEDS at a soirée in the back room. Think music, treats, bubbly, dancing…

If you can’t join me in Brattleboro, I’m also reading this Thursday night, September 28, at the June Road Press Virtual Celebration. Join me and my amazing press-mates for poetry and conversation.

It’s free and there will be giveaways of books and merch! ✨✨✨

Register HERE for the link. I’d love to see you!

Other ways to support DARK BEDS and independent publishing:

• Order now from June Road Press ($16, the cost of an organic panini)

• Leave a review on Goodreads or Amazon

• Ask your local library/bookstore to carry the book

• Spread the word to your friends and book club 🙏

Books on My Bedside Table I Can’t Wait to Read

• The Wonder State by Sara Flannery Murphy. The latest immersive thriller from Murphy takes place in Eternal Springs, Arkansas, a small town in the Ozarks where five high school friends are mysteriously drawn back home. I just started and can’t put it down.

• So We Can Know: Writers of Color on Pregnancy, edited by Aracelis Girmay. Intimate and heartbreaking and essential for healing, this multi-genre anthology includes visual art as well as essays and poems, all beautifully curated by Girmay.

• Truth and Repair: How Trauma Survivors Envision Justice by Judith Herman. The brilliant author of Trauma and Recovery, whose life’s research has centered the lived experiences of survivors of sexual and domestic violence, is back with a call to action. How can we re-imagine justice by listening to the voices and stories of survivors? What do survivors want? Read this incisive book review to learn more.

New Poetry I Love

• Diary by Marisa Crawford. I read this collection straight through, captivated by its darkly funny, moving voice. Obsessive in the best way, Diary opens an intimate window into a woman’s daily life in New York, soaked in 90s culture and feminist rumination. “Caught myself doing air guitar on the train to “Doll Parts”/ couldn’t stop,” muses Crawford, inviting us into her reality. From Ani, Alanis, and the Indigo Girls to Ally' Sheedy’s Breakfast Club makeover, these poems time-travel and confess, infused with irrepressible energy. Think Kim Addonizio’s Tell Me meets Deborah Garrison’s A Working Girl Can’t Win, with a dash of Frank O’Hara. Crawford shines her irreverent, feminist light on the world and I can’t get enough.

  Got lunch w my dad, left

  feeling sad then got cat-called

  so hard it threw me half a block

  - Marisa Crawford, “Remember Me”

Thanks for getting into Girl Trouble with me. Take care of yourself as the season changes.

I hope to see you at the DARK BEDS launch party— or at the virtual June Road Press event on 9/28!

xo Diana

P.S. “Life is a gradual series of revelations/ that occur over a period of time…” Listening to this Crazy Ex-Girlfriend song on repeat.

P.P.S. We need 8 hugs a day.