In this week’s Amy Stewart newsletter, Ms. Stewart reminded me of a service I once subscribed to, but cancelled when I decided I had no mental bandwidth for anything but women in booze, women in bars, women in vineyards, etc. Those days are easing up, though, thankfully/sadly. Amy reminded her subscribers of the Poets.org service of Poem-a-Day, which I promptly re-upped, and suggest everyone else, does, too. 

As part of the Movers & Shakers book tour extravaganza, I had the pleasure of filling discussion panels with writers, entrepreneurs, artists, and the like who all had a stake in the booze/hospitality fields around the country. One of these was Boston-based poet Emily O’Neill, whose latest book a falling knife has no handle (Yes Yes Books, 2018) follows the poet as she falls in love with a partner while steeping herself in the food and drink world. It’s a beautiful book. Reading and re-reading it during my month of travel and talking reminded me of how poetry resets my brain in necessary ways. 

Poetry was my first literary interest, back when the internal timer on me sitting still was set to the length of an Emily Dickinson stanza. It’s slightly longer now, and my brain is more cluttered, so poems help me with this more adult concern. Prose writers can be flippant, but we are all jealous of poets. Jealous of their economy and their chutzpah in pursuing an art form even more subjective in its evaluation. I forgot how focusing for a few minutes on a set of words that is succinct and powerful in its purpose acts as brain-balm. 

Check them out. Then find some living poets and buy their shit.