Page one of a book, a blank notebook page, the blinking cursor on your computer screen: Readers and writers are constantly facing beginnings. In poetry, every word, every syllable, every sound is a beginning—an invitation into beauty, joy, sorrow, anger, and a greater depth of understanding.
With a similar understanding we dot the period on the old year and move on to the new and all the adventures that lie ahead. As we prepare for a brand-new year of readings, events, essays, audio, and hundreds of more poems, we invite you to join us in taking each poem as a new beginning.
In her poem “Elegy in Joy,” Muriel Rukeyser writes, “Nourish beginnings, let us nourish beginnings. / Not all things are blest, but the / seeds of all things are blest. / The blessing is in the seed.” So we wish you a happy new year, and share with you poems that you can take with you into all of your beginnings in 2016 and beyond.