What does it say when "Peter Peter pumpkin eater" is the only thing that comes to mind when I think about pumpkin poetry? I mean please, can a nursery rhyme be any more offensive than that one? Pumpkin shell indeed. Luckily, there are other pumpkin rhymes and I'm hoping one of them will get stuck in my head soon and rid me of Peter and his patriarchal ways.

Poets were my first priests, and poetry itself my first altar. -Mary KarrSince the Enlightenment Era we've been very busy pursuing knowledge--and correspondingly with arguing over which group has cornered the market on getting-it-right. Now that we've moved into a post-enlightenment, post-modern millennium, many of us are realizing that facts are slippery creatures. Suddenly our perspectives shift and we see that what is true for you is so very often not true for me...or the other way around...or both things in the same breath-taking moment.

One of my oldest and dearest friends died last month, after what seemed like an all-to-brief and unfairly fatal illness; this post is about her, about friendship and about what we shared.

I can still remember one of the very first poems I wrote. I think it was in first grade that I penned this beauty: There was a howling wind It never seemed to stop. And then one summer day It bumped into a tree -- kerplop! As you can imagine, the editors of Poetry have been pestering me for submissions ever since.

Not only is April National Poetry Month it is also National Poetry Writing Month. For poets and poetry bloggers it means writing one or more poem a day for the month of April. Poems are being written by text, photo, audio, video and all permutations in between. In celebration I want to tell you of the day that a poem saved me from being depressed in the Valley.