"If I could sit here for three months alone, saying the same things, doing the same things, day by day -- then perhaps a few pages would be solidly written in the end.... what one wants for writing is habit." Virginia Woolf (Thanks Charis!) *Settle in. It's a long post, dear friends! A new year… Continue reading Sabbatical 2023
Tag: Poet Laureate
Ten Truths & Summer Recap
Ten Truths TRUTH #1: I have started writing this blog over and over and over. Today, I commit to writing and finishing it. TRUTH #2: Since I began my post as Poet Laureate, I have retreated. I have felt fears I haven't felt since I was a child. I have felt small, humiliated, weak, ugly,… Continue reading Ten Truths & Summer Recap
First Poem, First Week – Life of a Poet Laureate!
Let's begin with the poem... What a week... On Monday, May 9th, 2022 at about 4:45pm, the news of my new role as Poet Laureate became official. By 5pm, my socials were on fire as was my inbox. I couldn't keep up with the incoming messages of joy and congratulations! (This is not my ego… Continue reading First Poem, First Week – Life of a Poet Laureate!
Intimacy & The Interview
#NPM22 - INTIMACY - Poem a Day The Intimacy of Vacuuming the House on a Thursday Evening The dried clumps of mud on the kitchen floormake me feel like a bad motherand the chunks of crusted spinach and the rolling tufts of dog hair too When I open the canister on the vacuumdirt is overflowing into… Continue reading Intimacy & The Interview
VANESSA SHIELDS, writer 