If you are a poetry lover and have not signed up for the Rabbit Room poetry newsletter, now is the time.
It has been a rich, busy year on the newsletter. We have published over 100 new poems. We have launched an interview series featuring conversations with well-known poets of faith. We have built up our archive of classic poetry that can act as an introduction to poetry for the poetry-curious. And we have invited several established poets to take over the newsletter for a few weeks as we take a deeper look into our poetry, most recently Angela Alaimo O'Donnell's Flannery O'Connor poems.
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We have chosen ten of our favorite poems from the year to share with you as a sample of the regular fare on the newsletter. Enjoy!
Paying Attention
Pay attention to the little things. Pay attention to the big things too, Because both are easy enough to miss, And are one and the same more often than not. Pay attention to the eerie silence When the air conditioner cycles off And the only sound is the creak of the house. Pay attention to the clank and rumble Of the freight train as it wobbles by. Pay attention to birds—the ones that tweet, The ones that honk, and the ones That lie dead in the road. Notice them. Notice the level of the creek before the rain And after. Remember that the water Rushing around your ankles was a cloud Not so long ago, a cloud that began Somewhere in Alaska, perhaps, and before that, A dark, frigid, and silent subterranean sea. Then notice the minnows pecking at your toes. Pay attention to the turns your life has taken To bring you to the place you now stand. Most blessings sprout not from the plans We make, but from the soil of their sad ruin. Watch their slow, unstoppable unraveling, Their disassembly, the final shudder, and Their collapse, and the dustcloud that follows. Pay attention then to the way your heart Breathes a sigh of relief when the work That was never yours anyway is lifted From your tired hands. Pay attention, When you clean up the mess, to the treasure That the wreck unearthed, and give thanks For your folly and God’s favor.
Andrew Peterson is a singer-songwriter, author, a lover of literature, an inveterate anglophile, and the founder of the Rabbit Room.
Elijah asks, "What have I done to you?"
Far off, I knew your once-white robe from local lore— rusted red, since Carmel. Now you come? A storm of a man, barreling down towards me—plough in hand —in father’s field. Twelve yoke of oxen leaning, heave, mastery— impossible, but I am apprenticed in making each move known through hand and hide and will. Two fields away, I knew you would not turn, and true, you fixed your gaze— (eyes like Yahweh) on the rope that led from beast to beast to me. They say the flames that fell—the flames that felled Baal, by your own tongue— stained you, your clothes. Burnt? No, each thread caught up, undone, remade, in heaven’s answer. You wear the story everywhere you go. Here your stride slows just enough for that same cloak to fall on me, unbidden.
Anna A. Friedrich is a poet and Arts Pastor in Boston, Massachusetts. Her first full-length poetry collection is forthcoming from Wipf and Stock. You can subscribe to her poem-a-Wednesday Substack at annaafriedrich.substack.com.
Boxing
This bell,
my alarm,
sounds.
This morning,
my corner of the ring,
begins.
This day,
my opponent,
war cries in the center,
of this taunting crowd
motioning for me,
with gloves raised.
This life,
roped in,
a bucket for my spit.
This clock,
my referee,
grates upon my ears
and shouts,
“its time.”
It’s only round one.
But already
I’m thinking about it,
feeling it.
Maybe, just
this once,
I’ll take a dive, no
bribes necessary, we
just
count to ten.
This spectacle would end,
and we could all go home.
Zack Eswine (Rev. Ph.D.), serves as lead pastor of Riverside Church in Webster Groves, Missouri. Zack's books include Recovering Eden: The Gospel According to Ecclesiastes and The Imperfect Pastor and he writes poems and stories at The Good Dark.
Zack and his wife Jessica co-founded Sage Christianity (sagechristianity.com) to create hospitable spaces for bringing honest questions into conversation with the wisdom of Jesus.
Pangs
by Kirk Jordan
"For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now."
(Romans 8:22 KJV)
It’s the sound
of flailing. Ten-thousand beetles
on their backs, stuck to the tar of Route 66,
shells splitting like popcorn.
It's the sound
of a braking, thick thud and swerve,
the doe in the ditch,
but not done for.
It’s the sound
of popping umbrellas, vulture kings
with fingered wings cupping
a hot thermal stench.
It’s the sound
of breaking strands, the twang
of a spastic web, moth in the mouth
of a powdered orb-weaver.
It's the curdling anguish
of ten thousand wolves,
the howl
of a Syrian wife.
It’s the dead plinky plink
at the end of the scale,
the clink of porcelain on glass,
beak upon bone.
It’s a low steady moan --
A groan in the wind
in the trees, in our ears
in the atoms, in our
backs
It’s a long pregnant
pause,
the push
of creation
jammed in the pelvis,
waiting
waiting
waiting.
Kirk Jordan is a photographer for the Arkansas Department of Parks, Heritage, and Tourism--.where he mines light, and revels in the glories of the Natural State. He is dad to three grown daughters, and resides with his nurse-educator wife, Dr. Kerry Jordan, and her elderly parents in Conway AR.
Psalm of Pressing
by Sarah Crowley Chestnut
Then, the given line was a word I did not resist.
Then, the tambour of the line was liquid amber.
Then, I understood hesitation is only itself.
Then, I sat in the September grass and said: “So be it.”
Then, each line was a table, a bowl, a cup, a spoon.
Then, both moon and meal were simply the way forward.
Then, I stopped fretting over paths and pasts.
Then, the voice that drives and rides my breath was unburied.
Then, I simply replied.
Then, the fraught edge of myself was hemmed.
Then, I was gathered like a foraged meal.
Then, I was fed. Then, I was clothed. Then, I slept and slept.
Then, I heard the Lord in the given line.
Then, I wept, you are blessed, you are blessed.
Sarah Crowley Chestnut lives and works at L’Abri Fellowship in Southborough, Massachusetts with her husband and two children. She keeps a small vegetable garden, a sourdough starter, and a messy desk. Sarah’s poetry has appeared in CRUX, Red Rock Literary Journal, LETTERS, Christian Century, and elsewhere.
After Bells, After Drums
by Mischa Willett
after Marvin Bell
It’s faith that’s easy: praying, reading, fasting, loving, feasting are hard.
It’s faith that falls like fog around us, everywhere softening the edges, filling our bodies with the cool, wet, web of existence and extra-sensory presence that is.
It’s faith, not ethics, that stretches the ankle strap of a sandal, opens the hand to offer a benediction, coaxes the dough to rise.
And it’s faith, just faith, that makes you stand straight in a city that hunches along its river, its concrete spine, because the column of air that supports you is a gift and an orientation, a heaven inside.
It isn’t doubt when suffering seizes the hilltop of your heart or when the fireplace of ashes misses the heat that made it—when in the traffic you simply can’t hear a thing or the way is unclear—none of that is doubt.
It’s faith, when you come to it, that asks of us everything, that empties and empties until we are full, that fills the gnaw in the gut, dispels the cloud of mind, that runs out the money-changers in the forecourt, that names.
It’s faith, not duty, that takes the self off the altar of worship, leaving both open to occupation.
Mischa Willett (Ph.D.) is the author of two books of poetry, including The Elegy Beta (2020) and Phases (2017) as well as of essays, translations, and reviews that appear in both popular and academic journals. A specialist in nineteenth-century aesthetics, he teaches English at Seattle Pacific University.
Expectation
by Sarah Spradlin
The earth
in birthing
is broken twice:
once
to bury seeds
she is torn open
to make room
for what is barely breathing
then again
to multiply,
she is disrupted
by emerging seeds
disturbing the empty air
to prepare the way
for a flood of feasting.
I measure the distance
between the breakings
and the reapings
through many radiant
and dark hours:
even as I watch the sun
callus the earth
against resurrection,
beneath the surface
she is yielding—
seeds soften and swell,
then break out of darkness
into life.
The first breaking
is inevitable;
the second is a miracle
made no less remarkable
by patient expectation.
Some seeds
never reach
the surface
a sorrow borne by
soil and sower alone
yet,
devoting ourselves
to what may be lost
is perhaps the bravest
thing we do
and I am still surprised
at the violence of love alive,
willing even to receive death
so that something might
take root and rise.
Sarah is a farmer and storyteller raised in Georgia. Now, she lives in Central America where she's worked in cross-cultural ministry since 2020, which pretty much boils down to planting things, talking to people, and writing poetry on long bus rides. Her poetry has been published on Story Embers, Kingdom Pen, and Ekstasis, and you can read more of her work on her Instagram, @sarah.spradlin.
Current Events
So maybe it’s true.
Maybe the world burns.
But in other news,
I stopped for coffee on
a foggy day, then went
to the chiropractor to
get my spine realigned.
Later we replaced the
broken-hinged toilet seat
(“I bet you didn’t plan
to spend your Tuesday
between the wall and
a toilet bowl,” I joke,
holding pliers to bolt.)
After that, we make
quesadillas, watch a show,
turn in by ten, reading
by burning lamplight.
Maybe the world burns too,
and nothing is guaranteed.
but still, it is so good
to be here.
Jen Rose Yokel is a poet, writer, and spiritual director. Her words have appeared at The Rabbit Room, She Reads Truth, and other publications, and she is the author of two poetry collections. She is also the co-founder of The Poetry Pub, an online community for poets. Originally from Central Florida, she now makes her home in Fall River, Massachusetts with her poet/professor husband Chris, their rescue dog, and an assortment of books and houseplants. Her latest book, Beneath the Flood, is available now from Bandersnatch Books. You can find her on Substack at Alongside Journal or on Instagram @jroseyokel.
Life Without Internet
We didn’t know what to call these birds that swerved
along the last light of the summer equinox.
At first we thought them bats but bats dance erratic
and these flew deft-winged, dove by sight, not sound.
They were blunt-tailed, not forked like swallows,
who also love the dusk.
We searched our separate lexicons,
fell silent in the lack.
The old sun slipped behind the hackled hills,
red scattered on the sea.
Pipe smoke crocheted around the stars.
We would wait ‘til one arrived
who knew their name.
Liz Snell lives on Vancouver Island, British Columbia. She studied writing at the University of Victoria and is now studying psychology. She works with adults with disabilities and in her spare time gardens, hikes, knits, and makes awful puns.
Mannequin
My sister and I played beneath the circular racks,
listening to the swish, swish of clothes hangers gliding
across metal rods. My mother pulled out a pencil
skirt to examine the pattern. Then, I spotted her:
a mannequin, draped in 1980s fashions. My mouth gaped
at her soulless face. Be still, girls, my mother hissed.
I stretched a palm to feel her silk dress. She wobbled,
no longer a form but a sound: an ocean wave, collapsing
onto itself, again and again – the roar of fiberglass
shattering against tile. The fashionista lay, unrecognizable,
in jagged, uncountable pieces. I peered into her vacant eyes,
now mingled with broken shards. My mother gasped;
an employee shuffled over with a broom.
My cheeks burned scarlet. I’ve killed her.
The writing of Heather Cadenhead has been featured in Wild + Free, Relief: A Journal of Art and Faith, Literary Mama, and other publications. She publishes a monthly newsletter about mothering her non-speaking son through the lens of the Christian gospel.
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