In Troubled Times
I can thank Robert Reich for introducing me to this poet, Clint Smith. I’m just beginning to explore his work, but in this poem, he reminds me of Naomi Shihab Nye in the way he looks at both sides of a controversy and asks us to rise to a new level of empathy, to reconsider the way we think about other people’s catastrophes. He challenges me to think differently about reading the news.
Meanwhile, 20 of my Emily Dickinson poems have found a home at Ravenna Press of Edmonds, Washington, and 
I’m pleased as punch about this delightful little book, which combines my poems with those of Port Townsend poet Jayne Marek, and images from artist George J. Farrah.
I keep thinking, these days, of Neil Gaiman‘s admonition — in difficult times, he tells us — “make good art.”
“It would be a poor sort of world if one were only able to read authors who expressed points of view that one agreed with entirely. It would be a bland sort of world if we could not spend time with people who thought differently, and who saw the world from a different place.”