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Poem: What's in a Name?

Jan 01, 2024 by Bethel Swift

What's in a Name?

Even pronouncing my name,
explaining how I came to own it,
is a struggle, a grappling, a fight
with faith, or grace, or guilt --
and often I know not which.

Let’s Create a Little Women Christmas

Let’s Create a Little Women Christmas
Dec 01, 2023 by Bethel Swift
Let's Create a Little Women Christmas

You can be Meg and Marmee,
I’ll be Beth, Amy, and Jo.
We won't have a Laurie,
but we may get some snow.

Let’s creep down without mom
awakening, like ants in a line,
carrying big dusty boxes full
of Christmases from another time.

An Artist Can Never Starve

Nov 01, 2023 by Bethel Swift

An Artist Can Never Starve
 

An artist can never starve,

if love blooms from their hearts, 

for the more they give away, 

more blossoms through their art.

 

An artist can never starve, 

when welcome at the table . . .

Poem: Winds of Change

Sep 01, 2023 by Bethel Swift

This month’s cento poem uses two lines from six different poems by three different poets. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to take it in a dark direction or a more hopeful one, so I did both. Citations follow the poem.

 

Cento: Winds of Change

Dead, I am, but I am also alive.1

If I’ve failed in every timbre, still,2

I’ve forced my skin just as thick as I am.3

Poem: Chronically Healing

Aug 01, 2023 by Bethel Swift

Chronically Healing

The things I cannot change rain down
on me like the saddest parade of confetti -
broken promises and repeated mistakes hit
hardest on my barely-holding-it-together body:
endometrial-like tissue growing out of place,
ribs endlessly slipping like tectonic plates,
nerves triggering wave after wave of stabbing,
pulling, burning, aching, dull, relentless, pain . . .

“Yes, And..." Bill Cosby & Other Heavy Topics

Jun 28, 2023 by Bethel Swift

I recently subscribed to Audible Plus. As an author, I’m downright ashamed of myself for subscribing, but as a reader with a limited book buying budget at the moment, I’m pleased with my decision. This duality kind of sets the tone for this blog post and, I hope, serves as a reminder that life - with all its many choices - is not black and white and the people making those choices are not all good or all bad. Years ago, a friend of mine was studying Improv at Second City in Chicago and introduced me to the concept of “Yes, and…” which is the mantra that improv performers follow in both practice and performance. No matter how crazy or how dull their fellow performer’s idea, they are to roll with it and add to it, by saying “Yes, and…” or something equivalent, which allows them to build on or even pivot the plot. But isn’t this also just how life really is - stranger than fiction?

Anyways, back to Audible: I started with Intuitive Eating: A Revolutionary Anti-Diet Approach by RDN Evelyn Tribole MS and RDN Elyse Resch, MS, which I am still slowly digesting (#sorrynotsorry) and finished . . .

Poem: Anniversary Poem

Jun 01, 2023 by Bethel Swift

Anniversary Poem
When I think about home,

I picture the rolling hills

of your biceps and chest;

the tall prairie grasses

that I love to caress . . .

Poem: My Baby Brother

Apr 01, 2023 by Bethel Swift

My Baby Brother

 

My baby brother tells me 

his inner child isn't enough.

 

That the old therapy hack

of taping a childhood photo up 

isn't enough for him, 

a full-grown man,

to put down the habits

that are burning him . . .

Poem: How to Heal When Wounded

Mar 01, 2023 by Bethel Swift

How to Heal When Wounded

Compose yourself.  

Listen for a lull in the struggle.

Then look around this cold damp battlefield
and notice who stands with you still:

Who extends to you grace?
Presumes your innocence?

February Memoir Book Reviews

Feb 15, 2023 by Bethel Swift
This month I am highlighting two birth origin stories: Inheritance by Dani Shapiro, which is her story of discovering and processing her parent’s conception deception (that the father who raised her was not her biological father) and You’ll Forget This Ever Happened by Laura Engel, which tells her story of being forced to give up her newborn as a teenager in the 1960s and reuniting with him some forty years later. Both stories are deep and dark but filled with introspective wisdom and ever-blooming hope . . .

Poem: Acceptance

Feb 01, 2023 by Bethel Swift

Acceptance

(After Jane Kenyon)
 

Gratitude ebbs and flows

amid surges of jealousy.

 

Holding their glossy photos, I am transported–

by the golden teenage gymnast’s beaming smile;

a self-assured figure skater’s soaring spiral;

an elegant ballerina’s graceful bow at curtain call–

to how it might otherwise have been . . .

Poem: Summiting Cerro Renca

Jan 01, 2023 by Bethel Swift

Summiting Cerro Renca
 

A whispered prayer

of gratitude

as my body returns to me.
 

White butterflies flit overhead,

a circle of desperate chanters below–

Poem: Resilience

Dec 01, 2022 by Bethel Swift

A cento is a “patchwork” poem comprised of lines from other poets' poems with only some punctuation changed. I post new centos periodically to share what I'm reading and keep the creative wheels turning. Citations follow each poem. This is December 2022's installment:

Poem: Fulfillment

Nov 01, 2022 by Bethel Swift
A cento is a “patchwork” poem comprised of lines from other poets' poems with only some punctuation changed. I post new centos periodically to share what I'm reading and keep the creative wheels turning. Citations follow each poem. This is November 2022's installment:

Poem: Holding On

Nov 01, 2021 by Bethel Swift
November's poem is a throwback to an old three-line poem I wrote about growing up in a hoarded household.

Poem: Oscar the Grouch

Oct 01, 2021 by Bethel Swift
October's poem is a throwback to an old poem I wrote, roughly seven years ago, about Sesame Street character Oscar the Grouch.
 

Poem: Cento for My Inner Child

Sep 01, 2021 by Bethel Swift
A cento is a “patchwork” poem comprised of lines from other poets' poems with only some punctuation changed. I post new centos periodically to share what I'm reading and keep the creative wheels turning. Citations follow each poem. This is September 2021's installment:

Poem: Fresh Picked Wounds

Aug 01, 2021 by Bethel Swift
A cento is a “patchwork” poem comprised of lines from other poets' poems with only some punctuation changed. I post new centos periodically to share what I'm reading and keep the creative wheels turning. Citations follow each poem. This is August 2021's installment:
 

Poem: Insta Love Poetry

Apr 15, 2020 by Bethel Swift
A cento is a “patchwork” poem comprised of lines from other poets' poems with only some punctuation changed. I post new centos periodically to share what I'm reading and keep the creative wheels turning. Citations follow each poem. This is April 2020's installment. . .

Poem: Elegy for Memory (A Dementia Love Story)

Jan 15, 2020 by Bethel Swift
A cento is a “patchwork” poem comprised of lines from other poets' poems with only some punctuation changed. I post new centos periodically to share what I'm reading and keep the creative wheels turning. Citations follow each poem. This is January 2020's installment.