Worth Keeping, Born Into It, Count Everything, He Built It, Quiet Courage, Under the Door. The Precedent issue / May 9, 2026 Hear the Issue → Welcome to The Precedent Issue, where everything this week is about what it costs to go first. Today's poem, "Open When Ready," is a deep track, but fitting considering today's craft insight. It arrived the way kept things do, moving through a list of objects most people would throw away until you realize the list was never about objects at all. It is a...
11 days ago • 7 min read
Borrowed Warmth, One Leaf, The Break That Lingers, Hold the Weight, Paying Attention, The Lake Knows. The trace issue / May 2, 2026 Hear the Issue → Welcome to The Trace Issue, where everything this week is about what stays after the moment is gone. Some things burn bright and leave almost nothing behind. My original poem Leave Some for Me opens this issue with exactly that tension, the wish to hold onto warmth before the cold moves in. It is a small poem about a human instinct, because we...
18 days ago • 6 min read
Morning Holds, What Still Speaks, The Weight of Parts, Briefcase & Verse, Pocket Relics. The Reverence issue / April 25, 2026 Email a Friend → Welcome to The Reverence Issue, where we slow down long enough to let ordinary things speak. This issue opens with the poem Morning from a Front Porch in Fall, a meditation on the quiet threshold between night and day, where smoke, shadow, and the sounds of a ranch unfold into something larger. From there, we turn to my all-time favorite poet, Ted...
25 days ago • 6 min read
Message to Nowhere, Split Meaning, The Signal Burns, He Kept Speaking, What Remains. The SIGNAL issue / April 18, 2026 Email a Friend → Welcome to The Signal Issue, where messages are never meant to arrive easy. They go out in the dark, by bottle or hoofbeat or some kind of blues rhythm, carried by wind and luck and the belief that somewhere, someone has the right receiver. This issue is about the ones who kept transmitting anyway, and what it means to send something into a world that might...
about 1 month ago • 6 min read
A Roar Begins, Sacred Burn, The Body Knows, Beyond Measure, What Remains. The Ardor issue / April 11, 2026 Spread the word → Welcome to The Ardor Issue, where some things do not fade but continue to burn. This issue opens with An Unmistakable Roar, a poem set at Augusta National during Masters week, where legions arrive in passionate pilgrimage, drawn by something they cannot fully name and cannot stay away from. Augusta marks a man, humbles him, and refuses to release him, but it also calls...
about 1 month ago • 5 min read
Songs Before Light, The Turn That Opens, Still I Rise, What Stays, Grows, The Quiet Opening. The Bloom issue / April 4, 2026 View on the web → Welcome to The Bloom Issue where today’s poem, Sonnet of the Songbird, lifts from a quiet place and finds its way into open air. There’s a kind of bloom I trust more than the ones dressed up for show. I like the ones that push through the cracked dirt, through neglect, through whatever tried to keep them down. No audience or applause, just a pressure...
about 2 months ago • 5 min read
At Your Feet, Voice Without Audience, Steady Work, A Life Poured Out, What Remains. The unsung issue / March 28, 2026 View on the web → Welcome to The Unsung Issue, where today’s poem, The Shoeshine Man, sits just off to the side, doing its work without asking to be seen. I still find myself looking for it whenever I can, that vanishing art of a man behind a stand, cloth in hand, bringing something worn back to life. It is harder to find now. Airports rush past it. Streets don’t hold it the...
about 2 months ago • 5 min read
Bearing Witness, No Frills, A Day That Holds, In Exile, Looking Up, and More. The witness issue / March 21, 2026 View on the web → Welcome to The Witness Issue, where today’s poem, Sighs of the Salvadoran Coffee Farmer, stands in the fields and refuses to look away. I first wrote this piece in 2018 as a triptych, three connected panels that move from land, to place, to people, each holding its own view while building a larger whole. It has stayed with me ever since. It is one I return to, as...
2 months ago • 5 min read
Open Ground, Where Words Return, Dream Origins, Line Mechanics, Bold Voices, and More. The Dreamers issue / march 14, 2026 View on the web → Welcome to The Dreamers Issue. Today’s poem, Green Dreams, follows me as a traveler on the Nicoya Peninsula of Costa Rica. The jungle, primates, and a road to the Pacific frame the journey. Yet beneath the surface, the poem carries a quiet structure of its own, perhaps even a hidden phrase suggesting dreams stand against emptiness. This issue also...
2 months ago • 5 min read