Plan A

In 2016, when Trump was elected president, I fell apart.

My grandmother taught English. My mother taught English. I taught English. My love of language was literally in my DNA. The pen is mightier than the sword was, for me, literal. Now a swaggerer who weaponized language via insults and lies, made up stupid words like “bigly,” termed immigrants and people of color “animals” and reduced women to two categories, “nasty” and “pussy,” ran the country. How was this even possible, if words mattered at all?

That was the year I quit teaching and started a small cookie business. Cookies are simple. You set the oven, put ingredients together in a mixing bowl, and what comes out isn’t going to let you down.

I have a very different game plan if Trump lands a second-term gut punch.

I alluded to my plan in an earlier Substack, and now, well, here it is. With my agent’s full-throated support and valuable input, my daughter Sarah and I are embarking on a collaborative project. It’s a two-volume set anthologizing both classic and new poetry, 100 poems in each book, inclusive, accessible, but not watered down. The first volume is designed to be read aloud to 2-8 year-olds; the second volume will be a book suitable for early readers 6-10.

Sarah and I have long shared with each other poems and poets we love, as well as our own poetry. It’s like sending little pieces of ourselves, essentially or in the moment, often arriving via text or email just as we need them. To both of us, though, poetry is best served old-school style:  printed, bound, and hand-held; maybe read aloud by a loving voice, and yes, with illustrations.

Back in 2016, cookie baking felt like the white flag of surrender I needed to fly. If words meant nothing, at least cookies held their value. A two-volume poetry anthology is a different impulse; less sweet, admittedly, but infinitely more hopeful.

To that end, readers, if you have a poem you’d love to see anthologized, send me a link. I’m curious to know which torches you’d choose to pass along.