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Blue Heron Speaks – Featured Poet

I’m thrilled and honored to be theĀ  Featured Poet in the September Issue of Blue Heron Speaks. This wonderful online poetry journal has a goal of presenting “messages of inspiration, support, and nourishment for the soul.”And they really do offer heart-centered poems that speak to seekers after beauty and peace. My three poems include the title poem from my forthcoming collection, Arabesque. An excerpt from the poem treats the word “arabesque” in its other meaning,…

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My Poem “Cone of Silence” at Blue Heron Review

The writing life is a little like surfing: being tumbled under the tide but also catching some wonderful waves. I’ve just caught one of those good waves! I’m happy to say my poem “Cone of Silence” is up this month at Blue Heron Review. This online journal has a mission with a tagline from Hafiz: “An awake heart is like a sky that pours light.” I’m thrilled to have my work alongside that of many…

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As Yearning Is Red – Visions with Waterbirds

This weekend we drove to Sebastopol, over the top of the San Francisco Bay, through marshlands filled with waterbirds. I’m lucky to live near a creek where egrets hunt and nest. I take walks alongside this miniature waterway and appreciating the ducks keep an eye out for that white, upright stillness near the shore, often half hidden by tall dry grasses. When I come upon a lesser or greater egret, I stop at the pure…

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John Clare and the ladybug

English poet John Clare epitomizes for me something I’m often reaching for in my writing and occasionally dazzling into, in still and open moments. This poem, featured on Poetry Daily, amazes me, first into silence and then into writing. The meaning of “clock a clay,” as poet Susan Stewart tells us (she selected the poem for PD) comes from a rural Northhamptonshire belief. The idea is that you can tell time by counting the number…

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Finding the Incarnate in Poetry – an Interview

I’m delighted that IthacaLit, that fine litmag out of Ithaca, NY and piloted by poet Michele Lesko, has published Barbara Ellen Sorensen’s interview with me, as well as a couple of my new poems. Barbara’s interview focused on topics of importance to us both: imagination, creativity, and spirituality. Barbara, author of the recent collection Compositions of the Dead Playing Flutes, asked me questions that made me dig down into my sources. I especially liked thinking…

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Things I learned from my readers

Purchase Gods of Water and Air In book reviews and personal responses to my poetry, readers have revealed to me more about how and why I write than I could have learned through introspection. They’ve also inspired me to write new work. That’s a poem prompt I’ve seen nowhere: “Write a poem based on one reader’s positive comment about your poetry; then revise it based on another reader’s critique.” Here are some things I learned…

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Chopin Reigns

A rain dance poem from Gods of Water and Air. Rain can be like Chopin, all piano strings and syncopated pauses, geometryof blings under wheels and rubber heels.Sudden baptism from branches.Drooled harmonies. On your neck, wetstrings slithering like kisses. Ringsaround drops that plop into pools: ting,ting, ting, ting. Scriabin zitheringloss up your edges, a musical soul-cling, that cold feathering. Visit https://racheldacus.net for more information and writing by Rachel Dacus.

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Review of Gods of Water and Air + four poems up at Pirene’s Fountain!

I’m thrilled to have my new book, Gods of Water and Air, reviewed at Pirene’s Fountain — and in glowing terms! — by publisher/editor/poet Ami Kaye. Ami is the author of What Hands Can Hold and other books. I love the way she summed up my book: “Dacus gives us poetry she has plucked from the fire of her imagination and heart, imparting warmth and sustenance to its readers, reminding us what is sacred in…

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