Welcome to “Poetry at The Arts Fuse.” A new poem every Thursday

The Catbirds

They sang ecstatically as if it were morning

                                       Char deNoird

The day lilies have taken over
shaming fennel into submission and eventual death.

They are teaching me how to write a poem.
And my anger subsides into a calm light
that seems drugged were it not coupled and occupied with fever.

The catbirds take wild raspberries
mew loud over the garage
warn everyone not to mess with their young.

Gloria Monaghan is a Professor at Wentworth University. She has published six collections of poetry. Her seventh book, Diary of Saint Marion, is to be published in 2025 by Lily Poetry Review. Her poems have appeared in Nixes Mate, NPR, Poem-a-Day, Lily Poetry Review, Mom Egg Review, Quartet and River Heron among others. She has been nominated twice for the Pushcart Prize, as well as the Massachusetts Book Award, and the Griffin Prize. She recently completed a film on painter, Nancy Ellen Craig, which was accepted into the 2023 Provincetown Film Festival.

Note: Hey poets! We seek submissions of excellent poetry from across the length and breadth of contemporary poetics. See submission guidelines here. The arbiter of the feature is the magazine’s poetry editor, John Mulrooney.

— Arts Fuse editor Bill Marx