Live your poem

Drew Myron writes for love (and for money) and has been called the “poet laureate of vulnerability.”

She is the author of Thin Skin, photographs and poems, and her poems appear in a variety of books. She leads writing workshops for all ages in all places, and enjoys working with people who think they can’t write.

Unless you 

visit the dark places, you’ll never 
feel the sea pull you in and under, 
swallowing words before they form. 
Until you visit places within you 
cloistered and constant, you will travel 
in a tourist daze, wrought with too much 
of what endures, depletes. 

If you never turn from light, close 
your eyes, feel the life inside, you’ll leave 
the church, the beach, your self, 
knowing nothing more. 

Unless you are silent, you will not 
know your urgent heart, how it beats 
between the thin skin of yes and no. 

—  Drew Myron

Where Art is Made

We are builders, makers, hopers, doers.
From clunkers and junkers,
out of shards and clay,
we shape and frame, sort and stir.
Each of us turning grime into gold.

 Against fence and lock,
a door swings, a window opens,
a sunflower reaches for a fresh day.

 Everything is always growing.

Dirt dusts places not yet alive
and in this gravel of possibility,
we honor the old and worn, the faded and frail,
know that good bones are worth holding.

Deep against rock, trains clack and roll,
we press into paper, scissors and paint,
splattered, gathered, mixed.

With each ding-ding-ding, solid freight
floats our dreams and we clatter, wide awake,
in dark, in light, in love and hope.

The day opens, the sky widens, you are here.
Hand in hand, arm in arm, each grip
is a dare to you declared:

Breathe, work, sear and sculpt.
Sew and hold, paint and saw.
Mix and mingle. Break rules, break ground.
Create your self, your world, your now.

On the bridge of progress, we dance and dive,
wonder, wander, taste and make.

With each how and why and what next?
we dig in and reach out
to build in the mind,
a step, a ladder, another sky.

Let’s scaffold the unknown.
In every thing, promise.

 — Drew Myron

"Where Art Is Made" by Futuristic Films

Created for River North Art District (RiNo) 
in Denver, Colorado

Conceived by Tracy Weil, RiNo Co-Founder/Creative Director

Narrated by Toluwanimi Obiwole, 
Denver's first Youth Poet Laureate (2015) 

Erosion

Who knows how
the mind files memory?

Missing pieces, your
history, this life, lies
three states to the south —

lost rusted cars, bindweed
decay in the sun

wild geese fight winds
that rattle shingles, shake doors

your vacant eyes sort
through weeds, neglect

memory somersaults
lands against antelope
bones blanched in desert heat —

futile to search for data:
the face of a son, the hand of the wife
price of wheat, words,
any words to rise, rescue us

from this wait,
this long silent loss.

—  Drew Myron

A note from Drew about the poem:

This poem appears in Beyond Forgetting, a book of poetry and prose dedicated to people who have lived — and died — with Alzheimer's (Read the New York Times review here).

Erosion is a poem about my grandfather. My grandparents Bart and Lu (short for Lucinda or Lucy) Myron were wheat farmers in Washington's Spokane Valley. After 40 years of farming, they retired and spent winters in the Arizona desert. In their last years, they lived with my parents in Colorado. Bart lived to nearly 95 (just a few months shy) and Lu lived to 97.

With Care

We are cooks, cleaners, nurses, aides,
drivers, sweepers, seekers, soothers.
Each life is a story we bend to hear.

The day opens, the sky widens,
you are here, in a courtyard of blooms.

Minds stretch, spirits lift,
we meet the grip of your hand,
see the tilt of a head, know the
flash of your smile.

We are talkers, watchers, painters, writers,
planting seeds and playing games. We are
holding hands and hearts, aches and pains.

Light shines on hurts and in this trust
we carry the faded and frail, the slow and still,
know that good bones are worth healing.

With each why and what next
we reach for peace, a calm, another joy
Of bingo and books, balloons and cheer.
Cherries and chats, birthdays and cake.

Here, soup simmers, a piano plays, a singer calls.
On memories we float through past and
present and now. Today is you, is always
changing.

You are heard, held, whole.
In our name, in our hearts,
in every action love.

— Drew Myron

Film by Immense Imagery

Created for Columbia Basin Care  
in The Dalles, Oregon.

Crush Walls 2020

Artist Tracy Weil and I teamed up for a painting + poetry collaboration as part of CRUSH, a week-long celebration of graffiti and street art in Denver, Colorado. Every September, nearly 100 artists take over a 30-block area in the RiNo Art District, creating larger-than-life murals for all to enjoy.

There is great power in partnership. In collaboration, perspective shifts. A painting deepens, a poem grows. Meanings merge and boundaries enlarge to create a work broader than the initial singular start.

Uncertainty is the New Certainty — painting by Tracy Weil, poem by Drew Myron.

Learn more here.

How to Hold

there is a holiness that
never knows a pew
and prayers
that are poems
that are tears
that are hands
that hold me even now
when the world on hold
holds nothing at all

—  Drew Myron

What a long, strange year it’s been!

The pandemic that hit the U.S. in March 2020 still rages one year later. From politics and finances, to health and grief, to love and longing, covid complicates — and maybe, also distills. I’m not sure what to make of this long year of loss; I'm still writing my way through.

I’m pleased to be part of Pandemic 2020: An Anthology of Pandemic Poems by Oregon Poetry Association Members, a hefty book featuring work by over 100 Oregon poets. This artful and historic document carves beauty from one of our era’s most difficult times.