poetry

ICYMI – 2025 Poetry Out Loud

It’s April and that means National Poetry Month! While you wait impatiently for those buds to burst open, refresh your brain with some powerful wordplay recited by some talented high school students!

WVIA’s broadcast of the 2025 Poetry Out Loud regional competition is streaming online. I was happy to volunteer at this event again, this time as the “prompter.” That means my eyes were looking down at the text while the students were reading in case they needed a line. I was happy to be home to catch the event broadcast this year so I could see what I missed!

Congratulations to all the students who participated in their schools and this regional competition. It takes courage to stand up and use your voice with such intention. I’d love to see more NEPA students participate in this program. One of my recent fears with all the federal government cuts is that programs like this will end at the state level. If there are no federal programs, no state champions are traveling to compete at the national level. Not going to go on a political rant here, but we need more investment in programs like this, not less. As a public speaking professor, I assure you more poetry recitation in high school will help students become better communicators.

I’m sharing this screenshot even though I look like an exhausted zombie in my 30 seconds on screen – I’m afraid it’s fairly accurate minus an extra chin (angles are everything!). We recorded this in early December just as the fall semester was coming to a close. I was clearly ready for my long winter’s nap.

-ag

April 7, 2025 0

Counts as Writing

It’s coming … I promise you.

The first three episodes of The Ferment will be fully scripted (revisions pending further development, of course) by the end of winter break (before the Spring 25 semester).

And for as much as the recent election results suck in so many ways, I will use the dark emotions to fuel the art. Just like I do personally when painful feelings arise. I will make something out of this suffering, too. Perhaps you will join me?

We will make something of value out of the ongoing tragedy – because bad things have been happening and they will continue to happen. We pray they won’t escalate too quickly. We pray the country doesn’t veer too far off-course of Progress while we inject as much positive value into our communities as we can.

We will remain diligent- on watch for abuses of power, corruption, harm, and injustice. Over the weekend, I finally made a donation to the WVIA newsroom because I’m not sure where else independent journalists are working and democracy needs to protect them.

Who has the $10 billion that was spent on political campaign advertising this year?

How many Americans have been made anxious, distrusting, and ill from the bombardment of thought bombs falling for months on our global mind? Pennsylvania, at least, feels harassed and violated. Can some of that gross profit be used to fund independent journalism that cannot be controlled or regulated by the government?

If not, what can be done to put our nerves at ease? Uncertainty, they keep saying, it’s what fuels the fear.

Can we do something with campaign spending that benefits all of us? Can we engage in our communities- give back- generously nurture shared experiences- create opportunity for those without capital who given time and space will envision innovative solutions and writer better stories?

Anyway …

I’m working.

November 12, 2024 0

Currents Anthology Available for Pre-Order

Edited by Brian Fanelli and Joe Kraus, Currents in the Electric City: A Scranton Anthology will be published July 16, 2024. The Belt Publishing paperback features work by a couple dozen writers both local or with local ties. It is available for pre-order now. Trust me, you’re going to want a copy.

I’ve written about Scranton so much since moving back to the area in 1999, I struggled to pen a new piece that captures my conflicted relationship with NEPA. It’s not love/hate, exactly. Hate is too strong a word. I will always defend our underdog city against those who feel no shame picking on easy targets. But why should I be so fiercely loyal to a place that has let me down as much as it’s supported me? That’s the question “song of the city electric” tries to answer. It took most of 2022 for me to write and revise the two-part poem. I literally finished it on New Year’s Eve 2022.

Like other poems I’ve written, it’s meant to be performed and I anticipate the opportunity to share the work with you at one or more events this summer when the book is released. I’d like to memorize it. If it takes me as long to commit to memory as it did to write, I’d better get to work on that soon. -ag

February 25, 2024 0

*This post includes two concluding stanzas that were cut from the printed card due to lack of space.

Didn’t like the cold so much when I was younger,
blamed the biting air for skipping classes.
But I didn’t know about wool then
(not the cozy kind that doesn’t itch)
and it was colder in the ‘90s.

Now, suffering hot flashes most days,
the chill is welcome.
There’s a luxury to dressing in layers;
topping off coats with concealing cloches.
Glad for the excuse to cover my aging body.

Like wrapping paper,
women over a certain age
have been too hastily discarded,
tossed crumpled into the corner.
Obsolete as a Twilight Zone librarian.

My sister loves the tubes at Christmastime,
the color play of so many designs.
Nothing, she reminds me, is more satisfying
than a full-roll, clean swipe of the scissors.
Stacy used to stay up all night wrapping presents
but gift bags are too easy.

Our grandmas who grew up in the Depression
taught us to save every scrap.
Slice along the Scotch tape,
salvage what you can,
try not to rip the paper.
Recycle that sheet.

A student writes,
“wrapping paper is terrible for the environment.” *
Oh, shit. That, too?
Coated and covered with glitter, foil, tape, and bows,
it’s hardly recyclable.
But couldn’t we all use a little mystery and suspense?
The pleasure of anticipation?
The magic of the reveal?

Can I look the other way on this?
Imagine four months of winter-bare branches
without snow, now and then, to cushion the view.

I spent a lot of time thinking about masks this year.
Not the flimsy paper things we hoped
would slow the virus
But the subservient facade they call normal,
the polite smile that excuses exploitation,
doesn’t complain,
helps the insecure feel superior
and the abusive absolved.

Mine keeps slipping. Oops, sorry, not sorry.
Just trying to be me!
But they don’t like what they see.
And now I don’t even know who to text anymore.

We’re judged by our exteriors
while we insist it’s what’s inside that counts.
Truth is:
nothing inside that package will fill the void inside of you.
The ghosts will be hungry
until you stop wanting.

We prefer potential to reality,
just wanting to feel seen.
Maybe this time?

Your gifts are not a test:
we’re only counting thoughts.
Still, people give envelopes of cash
or can’t miss gift cards
because they know an ill-chosen gift
will give them away.
The poshest packaging in the world
won’t cover their failure to care.
Because they haven’t been paying attention.
They don’t remember what you’ve said.
They don’t really know you at all.
And who has the time to shop?
“Things” aren’t what life’s about.

Is this how people decide we collect things –
like owls or elephants?
Like a nickname, you don’t get to choose.

It’s all got me thinking about intimacy
(as I struggle to write romance)
and how we fall in love as we reveal
what’s inside to one another,
whisper secrets never before shared,
confess high hopes and silly dreams.

This poem has come a long way.
I don’t know if it’s done
but it’s time to wrap it up now.
Pun intended.

*Furoshiki cloths are fine. Use newspaper roses or natural springs of pine and cones
instead of shiny synthetics.

– alicia grega, Nov.-Dec. 2023

sick in the head

If you asked, I’m sure he’d say I’m better off
now
without him
again.

I did nothing wrong, he assured,
after the break-up text.
Out of nowhere:
Please leave me alone.

Later: It’s mental illness.
His words, not mine.
I would have said, “sick in the head.”

Sure, I’m better off.
*Marked safe from inhibited narcissists today.*
But he doesn’t have to sit across the table
from Grandma when she asks,
with that sly little grin,
“How’s your man?”
Marrying well was the most important thing
anyone was going to let her do in life.
(That, and raising six boys.)

She’d never say an unkind word but
she doesn’t want to hear about the art
or my awkward and exhausted career.

She must think what a shame I had to do all that.
Raising the girls by myself after picking out a bum.
Twenty years divorced and couldn’t find a man to take care of me.

Even when she admires my outfit,
compliments how well I look,
she can see it’s too late.
I let my last chance slip away.

-ag
24 Sept. 2023

September 24, 2023 2

Gregarious Expressions

by Alicia Lynn Grega

Category

ICYMI – 2025 Poetry Out Loud

Counts as Writing

Currents Anthology Available for Pre-Order

Holiday Card 2023: Wrapping Paper

sick in the head

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