As many of you know and are experiencing, yesterday was the first day of school in Seattle (and elsewhere). The house was quiet in a way it hasn’t been in over a year. My award-winning poetry book “Empire of Surrender” doesn’t come out until January 2022, but I want this week to mark when I begin talking about it, writing about and promoting it, because today I am so acutely aware of my children’s absence in the house and so grateful for all the additional time I was able to spend with them.

My books, my poetry, begins and ends with the loves of my life. May I do the work it takes to deserve them, always.