Absurd amount of poetry news and behind-the-scenes peeks and gifs incoming!

If you want the short version:

1. Our poem “Our Glass Hearts,” based on an obscure but truly magical fairy tale called “The Three Sisters and Their Glass Hearts,” won the 2025 Fairy Tale Magazine poetry contest, and we are still screaming.

2. We had two poems published last week by two editors that we adore. You can read “A Choir in Gray” (written for our student Melinda) in Eternal Haunted Summer, edited by Rebecca Buchanan, right here. And you can find “Reliable Girls” (a joyful twist on “Diamonds and Toads) in Worlds of Possibility, edited by Julia Rios, here.

3. Join us for Poets for World Central Kitchen this Friday night at 8PM ET! This event is organized and run by the wonderful C.S.E. Cooney and some of her oldest friends, and it’s going to be a beautiful evening. You can learn more and sign up here.

4. We’re taking you behind the scenes to the carnage that can happen when we write and edit poetry, so stick around to the end if you want to see what that looks like 😂

Ok. Read on for the long version!

“Our Glass Hearts”

We’ve been breaking out into spontaneous shrieks ever since we found out we WON the Fairy Tale Magazine poetry contest. We love this poem, and we love the strange, beautiful fairy tale it’s based on. You can read the beautiful Russian tale “The Three Sisters and Their Glass Hearts” here. 

You’ll be able to read “Our Glass Hearts” in Fairy Tale Magazine on July 15th, so more to come!

“A Choir in Gray” and “Reliable Girls”

Ok. Want some poetry dirt? We’ll give you some poetry dirt.

“A Choir in Gray” is about magical singing whales. 

“Reliable Girls” is a comic poem about the two sisters from “Diamonds and Toads” – you know, the ones who spill precious gems and vipers from their mouths every time they speak. 

These poems are WEIRD. And deliberately funny poetry is REAL HARD to sell and publish, which we think is a real shame.

Also? These poems are both pretty old (by our standards anyway!) We think we wrote them both circa 2020, maybe 2021. “Reliable Girls” has the distinction of being our most rejected poem ever, clocking in at ten rejections. 

And yet, we really believed in both of these weirdo poems, and we’re so, so grateful to Rebecca and Julia for getting them.

Here’s the honest-to-god truth:

Writing is subjective as hell.

There is no poem, no novel, no essay, no NOTHING that everyone is going to think is the sh%t. 

You cannot please everyone with your writing. It will never, ever, ever happen.

So you might as well please yourself.

And here’s the secret:

The most successful, prolific writers we know? They write, and they write what delights them. 

And these poems completely delight us. We freaking love them. Every time we look at them, they make us smile. And, at the end of the day, isn’t that what matters most about the art you make?

Poets for World Central Kitchen

We’re doing a free poetry event with poets we adore. Here’s Claire’s pitch:

“Recently, my friend Liz Pino Sparks and I slid into our DMs to share some of our local joys and goings on, and also to lament the world horrors we all have been witnessing. We wanted, so badly to do something.

So we decided to host a night of poets reading their work: to raise our spirits, and more: to raise awareness and funds for World Central Kitchen, which does such great and good and beautiful work in communities ‘impacted by natural disasters and humanitarian crises.’

We named a night: Friday, June 27th, from 8 PM to 10 PM, Eastern. (7 PM-9 CENTRAL, 6 PM-8 Mountain, 5 PM-7 Pacific.)”

So let’s f*%&ing do something to make the world a little better – sharing poetry and raising money to feed people. It’s going to be a gorgeous evening, and we hope you can join us!

“More Than Never” to “Letters From Neverland”: How We Edit Poetry

Editing be hard. 

We’ve spent most of June up to our eyeballs in poetry. Our goal for this month is to finish the poetry collection we’ve been working on for *checks notes* 11 years. The theme? Fairy-tale sisterhood. And we’re almost done!

A huge part of what we’ve been doing is editing old poems that we love but that we just didn’t think were quite up to snuff. Like we said – some of these poems were written circa 2014!

Brittany has a tendency to want to throw out a poem that isn’t working or isn’t quite right. Meanwhile, Sara is like “just let me in there with a hatchet, it’s gonna work, I can feel it.” Usually after one pass with said hatchet, Brittany is like “OH, wait, I see it!” and jumps in and levels it up even more. Very, very few poems have been cut completely, but many have been subjected to extensive surgery.

We thought you might like to see what that process can look like, especially if you’re working on your own revisions.

Please Note: It’s pretty hard to do unconventional spacing on a blog post, so we opted to just differentiate speakers with italics instead of the alternative spacing we actually used!

So here’s our first draft of a poem about Wendy and Tinkerbell →

FIRST STAB:

What if instead of hating you, I’d taught you to hem Your beautiful, old-fashioned dress And pull honied nectar Through your hair to curl it. What if instead of mocking you, I’d let you alight on my soft, untested  Hands and asked you to tell me  Stories of Neverland before Pirates and children conquered its shores. Maybe you wouldn’t have believed You had to mother a pack of boys No younger, but more lost than you – Wash their clothes, soothe their fears, Play house earnestly until it wasn’t play. Maybe you wouldn’t have believed You had to drink down poison To make the cruelest boy see you,  Want you, love you, choose you – Even remember your name. Instead of curdled spite, We could have shared Secrets, scraps of silk, The shifting skies of Neverland And dark, uncharted seas. Instead of jealousy, We could have built Connection, honored rage, Felt the strength of Never birds And of someone having your back. Did you know, suspect, I taught Peter how to fly? The pixie dust? A misdirect. I could show you how to soar Without his counterfeit bag. Did you know, ever guess, I taught Peter how to love? The thimble? A sham. I really wanted a friend, Someone to fly with, not to. Do you want to come with me? In an hour, in a moment, This very moment, Neverland is expanding, ours, A universe of salt and stars.

To be clear, we don’t hate this at all, it just…

Honestly, it felt like a watered down copy of one of our favorite co-written poems, “Waking,” which is a dialogue between Snow White and Sleeping Beauty. This one needed a stronger emotional core and to be honed a little more sharply, to move a little faster.

So here’s our first attempt at editing it →

FIRST EDIT:

I wish I’d taught you how to hem Your beautiful, old-fashioned dresses And pull honied nectar Through your hair to curl it. I wish I’d let you alight on my soft, untested  Hands and asked you to tell me  Stories of Neverland before Pirates and children took it. I wish I’d told you you never had to mother A pack of boys no younger or more lost than you – Wash their clothes, soothe their fears, Play house until it wasn’t play. I wish I’d begged you never to Drink down poison to make the cruelest boy  See you, want you, love you, choose you, Remember your name. We could have shared Secrets, scraps of silk, The shifting skies of Neverland And dark, uncharted seas. Did you know, suspect,  I taught Peter how to fly? I could show you how to soar Without his bag of dust. Did you know, ever guess, I taught Peter how to love? I could offer friendship  Free of thimbles or forgetting. Begin again with me? This very moment, Neverland is expanding, ours, A universe of salt and stars.

This was better, but something still felt off. It still felt too much like “Waking,” and we knew we could still make it a little punchier.

We thought we might see what happened when we wrote ONLY from Tinkerbell’s perspective, to see what new things might come up →

TRYING ONLY FROM TINKERBELL’S POV:

Now that you’re gone, I think of you often. I wish I’d taught you how to hem Your beautiful, old-fashioned dresses And pull honied nectar Through your hair to curl it, As the mermaids do.  I wish I’d told you that Mothering a pack of boys, No younger, but more lost than you, Was never your job. Washing clothes, soothing fears, You played house earnestly Until it wasn’t play. Maybe I wouldn’t have believed I had to drink down poison To make the cruelest boy see me,  Want me, love me, choose me – Remember my name. Maybe we could have shared Secrets, scraps of silk, The shifting skies of Neverland And dark, uncharted seas. Did you know, suspect, I taught Peter how to fly? The pixie dust? A misdirect. A sham, like your thimble. I could have shown you how to soar Without him. In an hour, in a moment, This very moment, Neverland is expanding, ours, A universe of salt and stars. How many years has it been? Would I still find you In the house with the balcony, Gray shimmers in your hair? If I tapped on your window, Would you open it for me, As you once did for him? Clap your hands, I will hear you.

This was definitely better.

It was sharper, more focused. But we missed Wendy’s perspective too.

Ultimately, we decided we did want this to be a conversation between these two very different characters who were famous for their animosity.

Was there a way to Frankenstein the drafts to make something better?

NURSE, SCALPEL! 

We managed to choose bits and pieces from the second and third drafts that we thought were the sharpest and strongest. And we’re SO PLEASED with what we ended up with. 

Now, we can’t share the whole finished version here (because that would count as first publication), but we’ll put a snippet from the end:

MERGED VERSION SNIPPET:

Would I still find you In the house with the balcony, Gray shimmers in your hair? Would you still tap on my window, Soft as a breeze shifting a branch, A light, a bell, a needle? Clap your hands, I will hear you.

So if you’re staring down the barrel of a poem that just isn’t quite working, don’t be afraid to play (or go at it with a hatchet) and see what you can make from the bones.