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This is a reading of the main essay from today’s letter. Not included in the audio: the poem and the fiction (but they are here in the notes). You should subscribe to the email version at luckywords.substack.com On Books Kate and I had our anniversary this week, and we went book shopping. Besides perhaps the grocery store and church, bookstores are where we’ve spent our marriage, so it feels appropriate that we spent part of our day spending money on books. It was a used bookstore, in part because we like the selection and in part because we like the prices. The book I bought was $7, but there was a 40% off sale going on, so I got it for less than the cost of a gallon of gas at the pump. At freeway speeds, my car gets about 3 gallons per hour, so the math works out very much in favor of the book: will I get 20 minutes of value from the book? The answer to that is almost always yes. Thrift stores are an even better value of course, since most books come in at a half gallon or less, but the selection is hit or miss, and there’s no organization. Plus it feels strange to plop down on a couch with a pile of books at a thrift store. Someone might want to buy that couch. And of course that couch will have that suspicious basement smell, and the couches at our local used bookstore feel very hygienic. The book I bought was an old collection from Garrison Keillor called We Are Still Married and even if I hadn’t actually wanted it, it was our anniversary so I couldn’t not buy it. The intro, the only part I’ve read so far, is from another age. It talks about Ronald Reagan as a contemporary figure and pokes fun at Dan Quayle. There’s a big part of me that feels like 1990 wasn’t all that long ago, which I know makes me feel like an out-of-touch old man. I may be out of touch, but I really don’t feel all that old. On the other hand it was our 33rd wedding anniversary, so I’m not that young either. I feel like just the right age. Just the right balance of young and old: understanding but not indulging in the excesses of youth, grazing but not wallowing in the wisdom of age. Which would sound awfully prideful if it weren’t manifestly true that I’m obviously not enjoying abundant wisdom nor experiencing abundant energy. Dumb and lazy, that’s my style. Perfect balance; just the right age. Garrison Keillor was 47 when the book came out, and he talks as if 47 made him a grizzled veteran of life. I look back at 47 with some nostalgia. Keillor is now in his 80s, and I can only guess about what the thinks about his 47-year-old self. The book is paperback, originally $8.95—which is less than two gallons of gas at my local pump today—and has that wonderful soft paper that Penguin uses in its paperbacks. It’s pleasant to flip the pages and feel them feather across my thumb, the whisper of pages that sounds like sitting next to a person sleeping on the couch, book in lap. The pages are not white, not like my notebook or the glowing screen of your phone, but a softer color: paper that is admitting it used to be wood. This book is a humane object not a consumer product, because I won’t consume it. I’ll read it, but the book will persist, happy to be read and then ready, undiminished, for the next reader after me. Plus if I’m lucky I can take it back to the used bookstore and they’ll give me a buck for it, and they’ll mark it up again and sell it again. The real capitalist move is to sell the same object three, four, five times. Who am I kidding? I won’t sell this book back. If I weren’t going to keep the book I would have borrowed it from the library. For zero dollars I could have read the book and for zero dollars someone else would read it after me. Meanwhile library employees do their work for free, apparently⁠. If I only wanted to rent the book I’d borrow it, otherwise if it comes from the bookstore it is staying with me for the long haul. Kate keeps threatening me that when we run out of bookshelves, we will need to weed out our books. But we can always fit another bookshelf in the house, and I could always double-stack the books on the shelves that we’ve got. Sure, double stacking makes it difficult to find the book you’re looking for, but it’s excellent for dust collection, and besides who is the boss around here anyway?⁠ I am of course joking about never removing any books from our collection. Over the years, I have given plenty of books to the thrift store or taken them to the used bookstore. Numerous books. Surely over the years I have pruned literally tens of books from our shelves. Our dear friend Ellen says, “There’s always room on the friend bus.” And since a good book is a true friend, there’s always room for more books. Young people today meet potential partners via apps: swipe left, swipe right, DM, DM, swipe right, swipe left. It’s not unlike book shopping, really. I absolutely first judge a book by the cover. The cover causes me to pause, the pause gives me a chance to pick it up, picking it up encourages me to read the blurbs on the back cover, which leads to looking at the author photo, and finally I’ll start reading⁠ a couple of pages somewhere in the middle to get a flavor for the prose. How long before I feel hooked? Most of the time I put the book back on the shelf for someone else. Swipe left, swipe right. When I make the commitment to buy a book—and it is a commitment to join my shelves for perhaps the rest of my mortal life—I will bring the book home and that night read for ten minutes, maybe half an hour. And then maybe it will go onto my shelf, never to be touched again. A book is a friend, not a member of the family. The difference between friend books and human friends is that friend books won’t load themselves onto the truck when it comes time to move. To be fair, human friends aren’t loading themselves either, but the good ones are loading something and can talk while we work together. Books are prima donnas in that regard: when they get my attention they want all of it. No, don’t clean the kitchen, don’t get dressed, don’t talk with anyone else, don’t drive to the store.⁠ But also no “where have you been?” when I return from a multi-year hiatus. On this standard, how does my iPhone match up? Same push for all my attention with an added burden of neediness. The phone begs for my attention. It tugs at my sleeve. It punches me in the leg. It pulls the fire alarm. It is jealous of everything else.⁠ But! the iPhone collects no dust and doesn’t need an entire truck when I move. So it’s a mixed bag. Then again, a used book costs me a gallon of gas, 20 minutes of driving. That’s a trip to Costco and back. The cost of my phone is a drive from Boston to Los Angeles. Then to Denver. Then Dallas. Then Atlanta.⁠ Wow I hate my phone right now. And yes of course I’ve got books on my phone. I have dozens. No, I just checked: hundreds. My Kindle app has more than 500, and there are more than a hundred more in Apple Books, and also Serial Reader, Readwise Reader, Libby, Hoopla, not to mention audiobooks which I’m skipping over for now. So my phone can be a vehicle for reading books, but never with as much pleasure as the paper-ink-glue variety. As an object, my phone has as much attraction for me as someone else’s toothbrush. The addictive aspect of the phone is all software. What draws me to the book as an object is how sensuous it is: earthy, warm, soft. On the floor next to me I’ve got 13 books. On the bookshelf at my shoulder are another hundred or so. I’ll say about 300 in the room, and a couple few thousand in the house. Plenty of room for growth. There’s always room on the friend bus. Least Bad Poem The poem’s title is still doubly a work in progress, but I didn’t want to just have another “untitled” poem, and the first line is clearly not the way to go in this case. “Rumbling” Dozing off in my chair Like an old man, Book spread across his (my) belly, Gentle snore thrumming in my (his) chest, I do not know how long The lovers have paused their tiff But my languor has colored their quarrel Into pleasant warm hues And maybe they will reconcile Into a new happy, cozy love, Or maybe they will split forever And find their peace Only hazily remembering Where they once argued In a comfortable chair Under a warm sunny window To the content, rumbling breathing Of an old man reading. The Least Bad Poems that I share aren’t always quite so closely linked with the subject of the essay, but today it seemed too tidy to pass up. Plus, I love the tiny echo to Keats’s “Ode on a Grecian Urn” with its interrupted lovers. This poem also speaks to the involvement that readers play in the process of transforming written words into a story: the reader’s background, current condition, and prior reading will change how we interpret a text. In this case, the pleasant nap alters the timbre of the events in the story, even though it can’t change the events themselves. I’m certain that there are some books that I liked a lot more because of where I was reading it than if I had read it at another time or in another place, and conversely, there are some books that I might have enjoyed much more had I switched into a pleasanter locale. Some Fiction We least heard from these two a couple of weeks ago. Overheard: Heather and Ashley “He’s good, thanks. He says hi.” “So, hey: do you have anything left in your apartment, or has he liberated everything?” “Ha ha, very funny.” “Well?” “Well what?” “Is he still swiping your stuff?” “Just little stuff, nothing important. You wouldn’t even notice.” “It’s going to be so weird if you guys move in together. Suddenly you’ll have a full set of dishes again.” “It’s not…” “Have you said anything to him about it ever?” “No! No, of course not. I couldn’t.” “You want me to?” “Hell no! Honestly, Heather, in every

Howdy! Another audio-first production, this time a sonnet by the fabulous 20th century poet Edna St. Vincent Millay. This one was recorded on a hike up Provo Canyon (yes, again—hey, it’s just up the street and, frankly, it’s a pretty great canyon) shortly before we finally (!) got some snow. What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why, I have forgotten, and what arms have lain Under my head till morning; but the rain Is full of ghosts tonight, that tap and sigh Upon the glass and listen for reply, And in my heart there stirs a quiet pain For unremembered lads that not again Will turn to me at midnight with a cry. Thus in the winter stands the lonely tree, Nor knows what birds have vanished one by one, Yet knows its boughs more silent than before: I cannot say what loves have come and gone, I only know that summer sang in me A little while, that in me sings no more. As I mention in the audio, there’s much to love about this poem. Mostly for me, it’s wonderful because it’s a love poem to herself. All sonnets are love poems, or they contain the echo of a love poem. In this poem, Milay is longing for the woman she used to be. The men in this poem? They’re forgotten. They have no faces and no bodies. They are “unremembered lads.” What Milay does remember is how they made her feel, long ago. This is a poem about aging. She remembers those times back when she was young and beautiful and carefree, when the boys lined up. Those were in the summer, and now, in the poem, it’s winter. What were once branches full of noisy birds, now the “birds have vanished one by one” and in the present of the poem, those “boughs [are] more silent than before.” What we can get from this poem is a feeling. We can take Milay’s nostalgia and try it on for a while. What do we remember from our summer times, and what does it feel like now, looking back? When our memories of faces has faded, what’s left? Milay’s poem invites you to just hold on to that feeling of used-to-be, and in holding it, find some pleasure in that, too. All is well, Jeff Get full access to Lucky Words at luckywords.substack.com/subscribe

Yes, yes it’s very late (again!). I apologize. ON PEACE When Elisabeth finally (finally!) got pregnant, she had to deal with the discomforts of carrying a baby all the while her husband was struck mute. She said that her “reproach” was taken away, but it is hard to imagine that it was a very pleasant time. Meanwhile, her young unmarried cousin, Mary, was also pregnant. More unpleasantness. Mary was “highly favored” among women, but still forced to deal with a pregnancy and the inevitable gossip that surrounded that. Not to mention: travel and childbirth in less-than-ideal conditions. Not only was the birth in a stable, but Mary didn’t have her own mother, any sisters or cousins, any of her support structure except a new husband who probably had never even seen her naked. It sounds like an awkward, lonely way to deliver a child. God sometimes has a funny way of blessing his favorites. It isn’t with comfort, that’s obvious enough. It isn’t with a golden ticket to avoid social scandal. It isn’t with material goods, nor with respite from political strife, nor freedom from family troubles. He doesn’t immediately free His people from oppression, stop wars, or even step in to halt the slaughter of babies. And yet the angels sang, “peace on earth.” It seems clear enough that God’s peace looks nothing like what we would consider peace in a worldly sense. But you know, if you pause to think about it, that you can feel peace anytime. And you know, if you pause to think about it, that peace can be completely divorced from external circumstances. Here’s two quick ideas for finding peace this Christmastime. Warning: neither of these are exactly comfortable, fun, or necessarily easy. * Practice forgiveness. Yes, of course forgive those who have clearly and obviously trespassed against you. But also, can we forgive the everyday things? Forgive the books for being unread. Forgive the dishes for being unwashed. Forgive the traffic for being too heavy, the stores for being too busy, the people who stop in the middle of an aisle with their cart blocking both directions, the New York Times for headlining only depressing news. Forgive Congress for being disappointing, forgive the noodles for being overcooked and mushy, forgive the car for being low on fuel, forgive the leftovers for spoiling in the fridge. This sounds silly, but consider how much annoyance and sadness that you’re carrying around for these things. Sure, some of them you might have prevented; you didn’t, and so you need to forgive yourself, too. Forgive them, and leave a space in your heart to experience the wonder, hope, joy that God rains down as we head into Christmas. Forgive this stuff, so you can fill yourself with the great and good that’s there for the taking. * Wait. Try to find excuses to practice waiting, ten seconds at a time. When discomfort comes, wait an extra ten seconds before doing something about it. Just wait. When boredom comes, count to ten before switching to something new. When you drive somewhere by yourself, give yourself ten seconds to just sit in the car, doing nothing. Wait ten seconds before eating the food that’s set in front of you and everyone else is eating. Just practice waiting. As you practice waiting with these ten second gifts to yourself, start to note what happens in those tiny windows. What sorts of feelings bubble up? Maybe you’ll feel some anxiety at first, but that’ll pass. Maybe you’ll spend it counting down, but your desire to do that will fade, too. You’ll still eat, still get to the store, still get out of that uncomfortable or boring situation. And for ten seconds, you’re like Sisyphus as the stone rolls down the mountain: with a respite, a sense of relief, a feeling of peace before the world starts spinning again. If you’re paying attention, this is a space that God can fill, too. And whatever he fills it with, it comes wrapped in peace. May your next week, as you prepare for Christmas, be filled with peace: ten seconds at a time, and one small act of forgiveness at a time. Think to yourself: what brings you peace at Christmas time? And what do you need to forgive to start to feel peace in other parts of your life? A couple of scriptures: * John 14:27 * Hebrews 12:1 * Alma 38:8 I’m trying to do exactly what I said above and forgive myself for being so late with this post. It’s hard! But this is the way, you know. We’re all going to screw up; and we all need forgiveness from ourselves and from others. I hope that you can forgive me for being so lousy at this. And I do sincerely hope that this little essay thing is helpful to you as you prepare for Christmas. I’m waiting for snow, but the days are still in the 50s most days. I grew up in San Diego, and thought that it was pretty special that I could ride my bike all the way up until Christmas as a kid. Well, I can still ride my bike here — and I live in the land of “the greatest snow on earth.” If there were any snow… Also, no poem and no photos today. I’m choosing for done over perfect. I hope you can forgive that, too. Get full access to Lucky Words at luckywords.substack.com/subscribe

So Advent started last Sunday. I had intended to get this out before then, but then things happened, and I didn’t get it out there. My apologies. About Advent Advent is the season leading up to Christmas, starting the fourth Sunday before. Christmas, the twelve days of it, begins on Christmas Day. Right now, we are in the middle of Advent. For many Christians, they celebrate every Sunday of Advent with a little devotional thing and lighting of candles. We do it in my family. Just like last year, I have written little essays and will be sharing them here. I’m adding a recording of me reading them, in case you’re too lazy to read. The plan is to get these out before Sunday, so you could, if you wanted, to use these readings as a seed for your own Advent celebrations. This week I’m late, but I’ll have out the next one, peace, out on Saturday. WEEK ONE: HOPE Hope sits at the center of any life who tries to follow Jesus Christ. It nestles alongside faith and charity. And like faith and charity, hope is something we must deliberately choose. When we see the messiness of the world around us, it’s easy to give in to despair. Sometimes, maybe, most of us do. The birth of Jesus Christ gives us reason to hope when all the signs around us fail to. We acknowledge the reality of the awfulness of things, but then counter-logically, we choose to live with a feeling of hopefulness. Real hope is firmly grounded in reality. It sees clearly. Hope is not a bury-your-head-in-the-sand virtue. Through hope, we can encounter reality head-on, with clear eyes. We can use all our intellectual gifts to understand the world as it actually is. And, with the gift of hope (and it is indeed a gift), we can see the troubles of the world and yet still hope for something better. Hope powers action. Anxiety takes a place at the opposite of hope. Anxiety is intellectualized fear about the future. I worry about what might come. Maybe most of us do. With hope, we can acknowledge that worry, that potential for failure or ruin, but we also acknowledge that things might work out after all. Sure, the potential for awfulness exists, but the potential for wonderful success exists, too. Hope sees the many options, but chooses the happy path. I have to choose it, I have to put in some effort. Maybe most of us do. For me, Christmas feels intentionally designed to foster hopefulness. At Christmastime, despite whatever is happening in the world or in my life today, I look backwards through traditions and memories, and all the while I anticipate a lovely Christmas Day. I live in a short-term hope. Maybe most of us do. It’s the hope that looks forward to a joyful day just a few weeks from now. But Christmastime also helps me cultivate a larger vision of hope. It reminds me to live in long-term hope. Maybe most of us do that, too. It’s the hope that we will measure up to what God intends for us. It’s the hope that His work can be fulfilled in each of us. He did His part in sending down his Son to exemplify Godly behavior, in sending down his Son to expiate for us—almost like a cheat-code so that our mistakes won’t damn us—though it was enormously painful for everyone involved. After all His hard work, physically and emotionally, I hope that I’m worth it. I hope; I live in hope. Think to yourself now: what do you hope for in these weeks leading up to Christmas? A couple of scriptures: * Isaiah 40:9-11, 30-31 * Ether 12:4 I hope to have a Least Bad Poem to share next time, along with a Christmas song. Until then, may your days be merry and bright. All is well, Jeff Get full access to Lucky Words at luckywords.substack.com/subscribe

I recorded this while sitting on the shady bank of the Provo River, shoes off and feet in the water. It was over 90º outside, and my spot was one of the best places I can imagine along the entire Wasatch Front today. Text of poem This is the second sonnet in Edna St. Vincent Millay’s Renascence and Other Poems, published in 1917. Time does not bring relief; you all have lied Who told me time would ease me of my pain! I miss him in the weeping of the rain; I want him at the shrinking of the tide; The old snows melt from every mountain-side, And last year's leaves are smoke in every lane; But last year's bitter loving must remain Heaped on my heart, and my old thoughts abide! There are a hundred places where I fear To go,—so with his memory they brim! And entering with relief some quiet place Where never fell his foot or shone his face I say, "There is no memory of him here!" And so stand stricken, so remembering him! This is a fun little poem, both highly felt and still deliberately clever. Millay is often a clever poet, and sometimes I think her cleverness gets in the way of sentiment. I don’t know if that’s the case here, but I don’t think so. What do you think? Read more about this poem or subscribe at luckywords.net Get full access to Lucky Words at luckywords.substack.com/subscribe

Recorded on a lovely afternoon in early June 2025, up on Cascade mountain, a couple thousand feet above my house. In the recording, I promised a photo. Here it is: The recording might be a bit quiet, and I apologize about that. If it’s annoying to you, just send me a note so that I’ll be motivated to find a better solution next time. Text of poems Sonnet 4 Unthrifty loveliness, why dost thou spend Upon thyself thy beauty's legacy? Nature's bequest gives nothing but doth lend, And being frank she lends to those are free. Then, beauteous niggard, why dost thou abuse The bounteous largess given thee to give? Profitless usurer, why dost thou use So great a sum of sums, yet canst not live? For having traffic with thyself alone, Thou of thyself thy sweet self dost deceive. Then how, when nature calls thee to be gone, What acceptable audit canst thou leave? Thy unused beauty must be tomb'd with thee, Which, used, lives th' executor to be. Sonnet 5 Those hours, that with gentle work did frame The lovely gaze where every eye doth dwell, Will play the tyrants to the very same And that unfair which fairly doth excel: For never-resting time leads summer on To hideous winter and confounds him there; Sap cheque'd with frost and lusty leaves quite gone, Beauty o'ersnow'd and bareness every where: Then, were not summer's distillation left, A liquid prisoner pent in walls of glass, Beauty's effect with beauty were bereft, Nor it nor no remembrance what it was: But flowers distill'd though they with winter meet, Leese but their show; their substance still lives sweet. Sonnet 6 Then let not winter's ragged hand deface In thee thy summer, ere thou be distill'd: Make sweet some vial; treasure thou some place With beauty's treasure, ere it be self-kill'd. That use is not forbidden usury, Which happies those that pay the willing loan; That's for thyself to breed another thee, Or ten times happier, be it ten for one; Ten times thyself were happier than thou art, If ten of thine ten times refigured thee: Then what could death do, if thou shouldst depart, Leaving thee living in posterity? Be not self-will'd, for thou art much too fair To be death's conquest and make worms thine heir. My voice was quite deep because I was dealing with the beginning of a cold that is still lingering. I decided to do three sonnets at once because, frankly, the procreation sonnets get a little tiresome after a while. Every one has something interesting in it, but my whole goal is to give you a hook to learn to enjoy/appreciate poetry like this. If you’re actually paying attention to what you’re reading, and if you pause to think and reread, you will of course see that Shakespeare is making an economic argument in sonnet 6. Basically, if one kid brings happiness, then ten kids will bring 10x happiness. The alternative without children, says Shakespeare is that your only heirs will be worms. Ouch. If you head to the website you can see some unrelated photos I took at my recording spot I grabbed some quick pictures with my phone of the wildflowers that were growing on the trail that day. Beardtongues, mule’s ears, buckwheat, salsify, starwort, and flax. What a wonderful world, don’t you think? All is well, Jeff Get full access to Lucky Words at luckywords.substack.com/subscribe

Recorded on site and in one take on the banks of the Provo River, May 2025. Today’s poem is by Susan Marsh who is in her own words a “writer, poet, artist” based in Wyoming. That career description is one I aspire to, though, of course I’d choose Utah. The poem was published in 2022. Text of poem “One Patch of Quilt” by Susan Marsh We know about the way they treat the chickens But on a budget, buy the cheaper eggs. One man says wolves are meant for shooting, Another lives with a wolf named Cucumber. At the sight of a snake my mother grabbed the hoe. I got there first, carried it to the woods and let it go. Rescued from a backhoe's jaw, a rubber boa Spent the winter eating crickets in a terrarium Until it was warm enough to be set free. The friend who kept it became an expert In the ways of rubber boas, small shy snakes Most of us have never seen. It all comes down to empathy One patch of quilt acknowledging the other For we lie together with stitches tight, The only escape an irreversible rending of the fabric. from The Earth Has Been Too Generous (Finishing Line Press, 2022) I’m fascinated by the idea of interspecies connectedness. I love stories about people working to give rights to trees and rivers, even though it complicates my own interaction with them. In some respects, having empathy for the deer that sneaks down from the foothills at night to snack on suburban gardens is easy: they’re hungry and we just put the food out there in the open. Sometimes it’s harder for me to generate empathy with some of my fellow humans (sidelong glance at the driver of the Cybertruck in the parking lot, Mike Lee, RFK Jr., the person who leaves his empty McDonald’s wrappers on the picnic table and just leaves, any billionaire ever). Perhaps there is a pathway from generating empathy with the natural world and increasing my empathy with my fellow humans. Of course, the route of natural-world-empathy goes through stewardship. I’m trying to learn more about how it all works together, the natural world. And I’m looking at the dead tree right next to me, all its bark pulled off and unable to move the liquid from the river right there just twelve inches away to its leaves. Or to where its leaves used to be. That tree is dead, but it’s surrounded by healthy, living trees. The ecosystem in this stretch of river seems healthy. It’s thriving. On a hike in Zion NP a couple of weeks ago, I had long stretches with no human interaction. I was by myself, and I found myself talking to the plants. When I saw one whose name I knew, I’d say hello as I passed. I’d say, “howdy there, firecracker penstemon. Lookin’ good!” I’d brush the juniper branches in a friendly, nice-to-see-you way. And I know I’m absurd. I’d shut up and keep my hands to myself when I would pass a person going the opposite direction, but so long as I was alone, I pretended that I was at a party, and greeting the people I knew. Was this generating empathy or insanity? Kate laughed when I told her about it. Maybe it’s both? Regardless, I hope you enjoyed this poem and some brief analysis. Marsh says that we are like squares of quilt; can you think of a different metaphor that describes how we relate to others (people or animals)? If you’ve got one, write it down: you’ve got a poem! You can share it with me, if you’d like. I’d love to see them. Get full access to Lucky Words at luckywords.substack.com/subscribe

In the spirit of getting more prescriptive, this is the first of an intermittent and irregular series about how and why of poetry. Today: the portability of poetry, illustrated with a classic by Carl Sandburg, “Why Did the Children Put Beans in Their Ears?” ## Text of poem “Why Did the Children Put Beans in Their Ears?” by Carl Sandburg "Why did the children put beans in their ears when the one thing we told the children they must not do was put beans in their ears? "Why did the children pour molasses on the cat when the one thing we told the children they must not do was pour molasses on the cat?" I promised in the recording that you'd have it just about memorized by the time I was done with the episode. Let me know if that's true or not. I strongly suspect that it is, or close enough at least. When I say that a poem is portable, I mean of course that you can carry it in your head. But here's an interesting thing that's true of poetry and very few other forms of art: what you have in your head is not a copy of the art, and it isn't a memory of the art. You have the thing itself. If you have the poem memorized, you have the poem, the original, all the time. You may remember a song's performance, and you may remember a piece of visual art, but each of those are just copies. But for a poem, what is the original? While the manuscript in the poet’s hand is of course a discrete object on its own, the manuscript is not the poem. The poem is the words, and words are abstractions. When we write the poem down, we are simply capturing it. When you read it and especially when you memorize it, the action isn't happening on the page, but in your head. And so, this Sandburg poem. I intentionally chose something easy to remember and apparently straightforward. But as I point out in the podcast, there are layers here. By memorizing this poem, you will discover times when it resonates with you, and the poem will grow in significance. You'll discover more meaning as you stick with it. Get full access to Lucky Words at luckywords.substack.com/subscribe

Recorded live on the La Virkin Creek Trail in Kolob Canyon, Zion National Park, May 2025. You’ll hear the wind noise pretty prominently at times, and I’m sorry if it annoys you. Not sorry enough to do anything about it, because I personally find it kind of charming. There are a bunch of photos you can see if you visit the website (luckywords.net) that don’t show up in podcast notes. ## Text of poem “Variations on the Word Love” by Margaret Atwood This is a word we use to plug holes with. It's the right size for those warm blanks in speech, for those red heart- shaped vacancies on the page that look nothing like real hearts. Add lace and you can sell it. We insert it also in the one empty space on the printed form that comes with no instructions. There are whole magazines with not much in them but the word love, you can rub it all over your body and you can cook with it too. How do we know it isn't what goes on at the cool debaucheries of slugs under damp pieces of cardboard? As for the weed- seedlings nosing their tough snouts up among the lettuces, they shout it. Love! Love! sing the soldiers, raising their glittering knives in salute. Then there's the two of us. This word is far too short for us, it has only four letters, too sparse to fill those deep bare vacuums between the stars that press on us with their deafness. It's not love we don't wish to fall into, but that fear. this word is not enough but it will have to do. It's a single vowel in this metallic silence, a mouth that says O again and again in wonder and pain, a breath, a finger grip on a cliffside. You can hold on or let go. In this recording, as usual I break down some of my favorite lines/images/phrases, but I also use it to help illustrate my favorite definition of what poetry is: saying with words something that cannot be expressed in words. Which is a paradox, yes. But poetry is a paradox. And that’s why so many people dislike it. I had originally written “that’s why so many people struggle with it,” but I realized that “struggling” is the point at issue here. Good poetry will always require some effort, some struggle. Poetry is trying to hang out at the edge of what language can do. All good poems are trying to say, “there’s no word in the language for this thing, and I’m going to try to explain it to you.” That’s what Atwood is trying to do here. Is it any wonder that it requires a little bit of effort from the reader? And in this case, don’t you feel just a little bit that you want to explain it better than she does? I hope you do, and I hope you try. One of my favorite things on this hike was seeing all the flora and fauna. I of course like hiking with all the dramatic cliffs and geology, but I always get a thrill when I see a firecracker penstemon (penstemon eatonii) in glorious, full bloom. And many, many lizards. I edited out of the recording where I saw a lizard and then went quiet for a full minute just watching it watching me. I think this is a western whiptail (aspidoscelis tigris), which is one of the cooler names for a lizard. Strava recorded my hike as 15.88 miles, which I think is slightly exaggerated, but boy howdy were my knees feeling it by the end. Absolutely worth it, but it took a day to recover. I’m certainly glad it wasn’t warmer, and I’m glad to be getting back to my home turf tomorrow. All is well, Jeff Get full access to Lucky Words at luckywords.substack.com/subscribe

Text of poem Look in thy glass and tell the face thou viewest, Now is the time that face should form another, Whose fresh repair if now thou not renewest, Thou dost beguile the world, unbless some mother. For where is she so fair whose uneared womb Disdains the tillage of thy husbandry? Or who is he so fond will be the tomb Of his self-love, to stop posterity? Thou art thy mother’s glass, and she in thee Calls back the lovely April of her prime; So thou through windows of thine age shalt see, Despite of wrinkles, this thy golden time. But if thou live rememb’red not to be, Die single, and thine image dies with thee. Recorded on site and in one take in the Uinta National Forest up at about 6500 ft of elevation, just up the road from my house. The sun was shining, the orange-crowned warblers were singing. This poem is another of Shakespeare’s procreation sonnets (and there’s still a number left to go), but this one is doing some interesting things with what it means to be a man (and a woman). Why is the woman nothing more than a field to be tilled in one line, and in another she is the model of the handsome young man? Is Shakespeare a creepy sexist or not? For sure he’s objectifying women, but according to Shakespeare do they play a contributing role or are they just functional? This is always a fun poem to talk about with students, because they have feelings about like “unbless some mother” or “disdains the tillage of thy husbandry.” And then they get confused and worked up about “thou art thy mother’s glass”—and for good reason. It’s confusing! Some students find this process very frustrating, but then I can see some others start to light up, and when they can crack open a poem and start to see how it works, they glow a little: something that was opaque before is not at least partially comprehensible. One of my goals in teaching poetry is to get them to slow down, pay attention, and to think deeply about what’s on the page. It’s a difficult skill for young people today, mostly because the world of social media is opposed to slowing down, opposed to paying attention, and opposed to thinking deeply. A hot take on a poem is almost always going to be wrong, or if not wrong, it’s so superficial that it might as well be wrong. Even though I’ve taught poems for years and years, I still will find something that I didn’t understand or I didn’t see before. And then I’ll be embarrassed: how many students did I corrupt with my only partial understanding? Who am I to be teaching? On good days I realize that my newly-enlightened state is still only partial, and that I’ll surely find something new in the future that will make today’s reading look superficial and immature. And on and on. Did you get just a little out of today’s poem? Is it making you think? If so, it’s doing its job, and you’re doing yours. Good work, all of us. Get full access to Lucky Words at luckywords.substack.com/subscribe

Recorded on site next to the river, up Provo Canyon in the second week of April 2025. As I was talking, the sun came from behind the mountain on the east and I went from slightly chilly to filled with glorious light. It was a good day. Text of Poem Here is is: “Calmly We Walk through This April’s Day” by Delmore Schwartz Calmly we walk through this April’s day, Metropolitan poetry here and there, In the park sit pauper and *rentier*, The screaming children, the motor-car Fugitive about us, running away, Between the worker and the millionaire Number provides all distances, It is Nineteen Thirty-Seven now, Many great dears are taken away, What will become of you and me (This is the school in which we learn ...) Besides the photo and the memory? (... that time is the fire in which we burn.) (This is the school in which we learn ...) What is the self amid this blaze? What am I now that I was then Which I shall suffer and act again, The theodicy I wrote in my high school days Restored all life from infancy, The children shouting are bright as they run (This is the school in which they learn ...) Ravished entirely in their passing play! (... that time is the fire in which they burn.) Avid its rush, that reeling blaze! Where is my father and Eleanor? Not where are they now, dead seven years, But what they were then? No more? No more? From Nineteen-Fourteen to the present day, Bert Spira and Rhoda consume, consume Not where they are now (where are they now?) But what they were then, both beautiful; Each minute bursts in the burning room, The great globe reels in the solar fire, Spinning the trivial and unique away. (How all things flash! How all things flare!) What am I now that I was then? My memory restore again and again The smallest color of the smallest day: Time is the school in which we learn, Time is the fire in which we burn. Schwartz was a Jewish-American poet in the mid 20th century, and was very much a New Yorker. He spent most of his career teaching, and isn’t very widely read anymore. I think his poetry is more cerebral than sensual, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing but it does make it hard to get excited at the first reading. He died young (well, 52 feels young to me for anyone to die) of a heart attack, but had spent much of his adult life struggling with alcohol addiction and mental health issues. Part of what makes this poem a little difficult is how he uses his verbs. Look these lines from the end of the poem: “My memory restore again and again / The smallest color of the smallest day.” What exactly is going on there? It would be a lot easier if he said “my memory restores [present tense] again and again…” because he would be telling us that his memory brings back tiny snippets of memory. Or imagine this version, “I wish that my memory could restore again and again…” to show that much is lost from his memory, but he wishes it were back. Or even, “To my memory: please restore again and again…” Schwartz of course doesn’t give us that clarity, so we have to make it up ourselves. Which is part of what makes poetry cool, but it’s also work, and I get it, people don’t want to work for their leisure. Next up Shakespeare’s sonnet #3 is next on the docket. Yes, it is another procreation sonnet, but I think that sonnet #3 is a particularly good one. Get full access to Lucky Words at luckywords.substack.com/subscribe

This was recorded two weeks ago, on a day that I woke up and it was dumping snow. I went up Rock Canyon, which was just gorgeous. Now, just twelve days later, it’s warm and delightful. Sorry about the sound quality, too. I was not planning to record, and this was just me and my phone. Text of poem William Shakespeare’s sonnet 2, “When forty winters shall besiege thy brow” When forty winters shall besiege thy brow, And dig deep trenches in thy beauty’s field, Thy youth’s proud livery so gazed on now, Will be a totter’d weed of small worth held: Then being asked, where all thy beauty lies, Where all the treasure of thy lusty days; To say, within thine own deep sunken eyes, Were an all-eating shame, and thriftless praise. How much more praise deserved thy beauty’s use, If thou couldst answer ‘This fair child of mine Shall sum my count, and make my old excuse,’ Proving his beauty by succession thine! This were to be new made when thou art old, And see thy blood warm when thou feel’st it cold. This is the second of the “procreation sonnets” and we’ve got a bunch more to go.1 Once we get past the procreation sonnets, things mix up a bit. But for now, the speaker (who might be Shakespeare or might be Shakespeare playing a character) has just one theme: telling the handsome young man to have some babies. Now. What we see in this poem different from the first sonnet is an extended description of aging. Now, in this sequence, reaching the advanced age of 40 means that you’re *really* old. I take some umbrage at the sentiment. All intelligent people know that when you’re 40, you’re just getting started. Right? Get full access to Lucky Words at luckywords.substack.com/subscribe

Text of poem “Spring” by Edna St. Vincent Millay To what purpose, April, do you return again? Beauty is not enough. You can no longer quiet me with the redness Of little leaves opening stickily. I know what I know. The sun is hot on my neck as I observe The spikes of crocus. The smell of the earth is good. It is apparent that there is no death. But what does that signify? Not only under the ground are the brains of men Eaten by maggots. Life in itself Is nothing, An empty cup, a flight of uncarpeted stairs. It is not enough that yearly, down this hill, April Comes like an idiot, babbling and strewing flowers. Recorded (and edited and posted!) while on site on the banks of the Provo River, on the morning of April 8, 2025. Notes and thoughts This is one grumpy poem about springtime, don’t you think? Millay is always a gutsy poet, and likes to poke you in the eye. What a gem. What is she so grumpy about? Maybe it’s just me, but when I read the news today, sometimes I feel the same tension between the budding spring and the mean spirited chaos from all three branches of government. Amidst all the selfishness and greed, April’s new life might feel like the work of an idiot, babbling and strewing flowers. Millay won the Pulitzer in 1923 and died in 1950. Get full access to Lucky Words at luckywords.substack.com/subscribe

For the past few years, I’ve recorded a series of podcasts every April for National Poetry Month. It’s 2025, and I’m doing it again. Woohoo! The original goal was to do a new poem every day: 30 poems over the course of the month. That is always too much work: finding the poems, doing some research, recording (on site outdoors!), editing, and posting. A daily podcast, even just a little ten minute job, could be a full-time job. In the past, I’ve had a full-time job and I don’t have the energy for two, and so I’d fade. My plan this year is to play it by ear. I suspect that I’ll start out strong and midway through the month have a couple of hiccups that slow things down. It’ll be an adventure for the both of us! Shakespeare’s Sonnet #1 Here’s the text of the poem: From fairest creatures we desire increase, That thereby beauty’s rose might never die, But as the riper should by time decrease, His tender heir might bear his memory: But thou, contracted to thine own bright eyes, Feed’st thy light’s flame with self-substantial fuel, Making a famine where abundance lies, Thyself thy foe, to thy sweet self too cruel. Thou that art now the world’s fresh ornament And only herald to the gaudy spring, Within thine own bud buriest thy content And, tender churl, makest waste in niggarding. Pity the world, or else this glutton be, To eat the world’s due, by the grave and thee. Recorded on-site on a single track trail up Provo Canyon. Some interesting links * Sir Patrick Stewart reading the sonnet in the early days of Covid: video * The Wikipedia page about controversies surrounding the word “niggardly” which, I remind you, is not etymologically related to the n-word. Over the upcoming days and weeks, we’ll go through a number of Shakespeare’s sonnets, and a bunch of other poetry as well. If you have favorite poems, or poems that you’ve always felt guilty because you didn’t “get” them, send ‘em my way! I’ll do a podcast about it and you’ll get a wedge into understanding what you previously considered ununderstandable. The real goal of these is to help non-poetry people grow to be poetry-tolerant. You know who I mean: folks (maybe like you?) who say, “why do they have to make everything so difficult? Why can’t poetry just say what they mean?” Or maybe folks who when they see something in poetry, they just stop reading and move onto something else. If that’s you, you’re missing out. Poetry is one of the great art forms. Every culture throughout history has poetry, and it’s important. Reading poetry will put hair on your chest. Or if nothing else, you could learn to enjoy it. I am genuinely excited for this. Which is nutty, I know! But I really do love poetry, and I like talking about poetry, and people have enjoyed listening to me talk about poetry before. Do you know anyone who already enjoys poetry (or who might enjoy poetry) that might like listening to a slightly gruff-voiced guy read and give a (very brief!) explication? If so, forward this email on to them. Ask ‘em to subscribe! Wait: have you subscribed? It’s free! What’s stopping you? Until next time. All is well, Jeff Get full access to Lucky Words at luckywords.substack.com/subscribe

It’s April again, which means it’s National Poetry Month! The podcast is back, again. My ambitions are much more modest this year, and also moving in different directions. The excitement, for me at least is that I’m going to be adding in video to the mix. I’ve been learning a lot, and the curve is steep. But it’s been rewarding to become acquainted with an entirely new set of skills. For today, however, we are going old school: just the audio like always. I’ve moved my podcast hosting from Squarespace to Substack. Which has been a pain because my brain just shoves both companies into a similar slot of companies with names that start with the letter S and are fake sounding compound words made up of normal words. If all goes well, this won’t affect you at all, the podcast will appear in your podcast player as if nothing has changed. Fingers crossed that it stays that way. Another thing: I’m only committing to four episodes this year. That’s a massive reduction from what I had attempted in the past, which was to ship an episode daily. But I almost always burned out, and it overtook my life. What with my life being un-overtakable right now, and with the addition of video, I’m just committing to four. Maybe I’ll accomplish more? Let’s see at the end of April. Because I’ve been out filming and not doing audio only stuff, and because it’s already the fourth and I haven’t posted, this was recorded at my desk (gasp!) instead of on the trail. I don’t plan on this becoming a habit, and I spiced it up with some little bit of royalty-free music. Still, it feels funny to release an episode where… I’m just talking indoors. Kind of lame, honestly. The text of this episode’s poem is from Simon Dach, a seventeenth century German poet. It’s called “Written in Bed in The Year 1647, at Night, When I Could Not Sleep for Asthma.” Here’s the text: What? Is it not enough to be willing to die once? Nature? Fate? God? Why do you hold me back? There is no delay on my side, my course is finished; Must I pay you a toll a thousand times for the passage? How bitter it is to be ready and have to wait! Is death gain? It is an expensive bargain indeed for me! So many years and illnesses come together to kill me; I am still alive, and I've been given up for dead ten times at least. Wife, children, is it you that are doing this? Are you prolonging my light? Look at my misery! Is this charity, Grudging me my benefit for the little benefit to yourselves? Oh, do not make things worse for me by your presence! The last pain of all, I think, cannot be worse than having to stay alive, wanting to be dead, and not being able to die. Get full access to Lucky Words at luckywords.substack.com/subscribe