Asking Me To "Stand With The Dems" You keep asking for more money, and for me to “stand with the Dems.” I’ll stand with the Dems when they actually take a stand for us all. I’ll stand with the Dems when they break a few rules, peacefully yes, creatively for sure, forcefully, of course, as when dealing with any bully. I’ll stand with the Dems when t…

We are helpless mapmakers. We can’t stop drawing lines, creating meaning, and shaping stories to explain the world around us. It’s how we navigate life—through beliefs, assumptions, and the mental landscapes we construct. But if we combine this irresistible human trait with the deepest wisdom we have—the kind that recognizes our profound interconne…

If we look inside ourselves, each of us has places in our lives of brokenness, sorrow, and grief. Places that have strung us out to dry... What then? That's when this week's poem comes in handy.Av Dale Biron

Can a humorous poem make serious points? Yes. Poems can help us make sense of the world. Poems can help us ask new, sometimes uncomfortable questions. A just right poem can help us write whole new ways of seeing and feeling the world, and what's going on in it...Av Dale Biron

How To Be Less Fearful (to remind myself) "What if we, are the only Calvary that’s actually coming? What if the kindness we seek, we must bring ourselves...?" –Dale BironAv Dale Biron

Finding moments of sanity, refuge, and even joy, is more critical than ever. This week's special poem is a potent reminder of this...Av Dale Biron

Listen to one of the most popular poems, from one of the most popular poets in the last 100 years...Av Dale Biron

"There is no requirement to read, or hear, or write anything! But why not? If I were empowered by The Great Gods of Permission, I would provide you vast Amazon rivers of it. Baptize, forgive, and bless you with it. After all, language is your human super power, the only tool you can’t put down...." –Dale Biron…

Of all the things poems can do, one of them is to help us work with catastrophic loss, to grieve and make sense of the senseless...Av Dale Biron

We would be shocked and eventually saddened to hear someone say this to us. Everyone has a favorite song, right? Of course, they do! But today, let's go beyond our favorite songs and ponder our favorite poems. I want us to be equally shocked if someone cannot name their favorite poem. It may actually become even more critical in our lives. Also, we…

How can we weave more beauty and meaning into our lives in 2025, in the face of so many profound challenges and difficulties?Av Dale Biron

Thanks so much to each of you who have been on this poetry-based journey during 2024. In case you're in need of a collection of essays that hitches up some amazing poems with those traits that are most needed by leaders, here it is. The book is a few years old, but the poems and leadership qualities featured are timeless. Stay tuned for 2025 and a …

"The world is not made of atoms but of stories," said poet Muriel Rukeyser. This means good, beautiful, pro-social stories (which are often poems!) can help overcome the most unjust, anti-social, and destructive stories. Here's a poem that does just that...Av Dale Biron

Perhaps we need to be a bit more humble, more careful, before we declare that we've won or lost. In this cast, the west. Turns out winning and losing may have everything to do with our timeframe, and that these binary categories we so often use, may not be up to the task. Here's a poem that muses on this very subject...…

Your true story is important. I don’t know its contents and contours, but I’m certain it exists. It reflects the world, and your uniquely entangled and wondrous place within it. Your true story lies deep within your body, at a kind of soul level, we might say. It has something to do with what gives you joy, satisfaction, and clarity, combined parad…

Let's start a small, but significant political revolution with poetry. When someone asks you for your money and support, first give your heartfelt ideas, feelings, and opinions about what is right and wrong with politics. If they listen and respond well, then consider your support and money.Av Dale Biron

Write your own special declaration to Mother Earth and to the sanctity of your own interior self, meaning your heart and imagination...Av Dale Biron

For all those who are hurting, upset, and dismayed after the election...Av Dale Biron

A Paradox After the Election It is 7:27 PM, Wednesday, November 6th, and I am tired, even of hope. Or maybe it is hope, that’s grown old, and now helplessly tired of me. I long for a place of equanimity, where nothing can easily attach itself to what feels like permanently me. Choosing “now,” is likely all there is. And suspecting that at least hal…

Could it be we do not trust some things that we should, and do trust other things that we should not?

To scapegoat. To play fast and loose with the truth and especially with blame. To add insult to injury. To ignore any and all logical and systemic connections between cause and effect. To refuse any chance for deep, just, and real solutions. These are the dangerous moves of the demagogue...Av Dale Biron

To "know about" something is largely an intelectual endevor. It's helpful, but incomplete. To actually "know" something deep in our bones, we must "feel" it more fully, which invites both the head and the heart to the party. This merging of our intellect with our emotions provides the possibility of wisdom. Poetry can help.…

The world is made of stories. You are a story. Everyone you know and love is a story. Let's not accept stories about ourselves, others, or the world that are old, tattered, and no longer work...Av Dale Biron

Does Mother Earth need a restraining order? This is one of several questions we tackle in this edition of the Dale Biron On Poetry Podcast. We also want to know the relationship between probability and possibility? Hint, living in possibility is pretty important...Av Dale Biron

Once you've extracted as much learning as you can from your past mishaps, mistakes, and misfortunes, it’s best to simply let it all go…Av Dale Biron

Courage is to "know" our heart, and to "follow" it. In times of great turmoil and difficulty, it becomes even more important to do so. As in these times...Av Dale Biron

Once we are part of this mysterious, unfathomable, undefinable, condition we call life, we are in (and within) the universal club of kindness.Av Dale Biron

Can a poem explain the power of anger? Yes, the right poem, and the right kind of anger... Righteous anger.Av Dale Biron

There will be times when you can place your body into the natural world, to walk, see, feel, hear and touch. And there will be times when you can’t. But you can still seek healing solace.Av Dale Biron

Might there be a poem equal to a cat video? Can a critter help cure our sadness, even our subtle but irreversible sadness?Av Dale Biron

Here's how to read poems for optimum inspiration, joy, and impact. (Relax. Renew. Repeat...)Av Dale Biron

War is necessary, needed, and natural… Wait, is this actually so? Powerful poems can help us push up against our cultural beliefs and expectations, especially the ones that are no longer serving us. This is one of my favorites mind and heart decolonization tools. A poem by Pablo Neruda, that says let’s just be quiet for a time...…

Our worst grudge is the one we hold, often unwittingly, against ourselves. It's the one that does the greatest damage. Time for forgiveness...Av Dale Biron

Sometimes increasing our peace of mind becomes our highest priority. This poem may help...Av Dale Biron

How might a poem help us with difficult decisions in these dark times?Av Dale Biron

A simple poem about a beautiful, flawed, and precious thing...Av Dale Biron

New stories, powerful metaphors, and compelling images, are arriving now daily. And not a moment too soon, because the old narratives have lost virtually all of their credibility, and certainly all of their magic. It's new cultural "pickle juice" we need, now more than ever...Av Dale Biron

We are social beings. We make, consume and live by the stories we share with others. Stories that help us see and feel, think and navigate the world and our place in it. Stories that eventually define what passes for what we call our common sense....Av Dale Biron

As the extraordinary teacher and public intellectual, Bayo Akomolafe once put it, “The times are urgent: Let’s slow down...” In this episode we contemplate what it would be like to start again, to start fresh, to start small and go slow...Av Dale Biron

If we really want to have greater "agency" in this world (and at the same time, joy) we're going to need our dear friends by our side. In this episode we'll look at poetry that celebrates those we call our friends.Av Dale Biron

Resistance, Resilience, Renewal: Poetry’s Power in Turbulent Times... In this course, we’ll take a journey through the tumultuous landscapes of contemporary society, guided by the bright beacon of poetry. Through readings, discussions, and provocative inquiries, we will uncover the ways in which poetry serves as a practical and potent force for res…

"Look. The poppies they are at it again exploding on the hills with their deep yellow flames and / supple hearts..." Excerpt from "Sun Trail" by Dale BironAv Dale Biron

If you actually love poetry, it’s not because you chose to do so in any traditional sense. We choose poetry because something mysterious and deep in our body chooses for us.Av Dale Biron

Some mornings, despite the catastrophes, we wake up shining...Av Dale Biron

If you want to simultaneous enjoy your life, have better relationships, and get more things done, then you'll need to spend more time in your personal optimal zone. That includes having more fun. This week is all about that...Av Dale Biron

We all want to fulfill the "why" of our lives. Therefore, how we "pickle" ourselves matters. Or said another way, the "context" we create for ourselves and others will determine how successful we are at creating the vision and world that is most important to us.Av Dale Biron

The simple, basic, foundational fact we must understand to be successful in any creative (especially artistic) endeavor...Av Dale Biron

When we create stories about human nature, based upon observing traumatized humans, we get a picture that is both predictable and wrong. –Musings of a PoetAv Dale Biron

A Post-Humanist world would be one that fully embraced a "more than human world..." This week's episode continues to explore this theme, and features a powerful and poetic quote by David Abram, who coined the phrase used in the title. Plus one of the most famous poems written by the brilliant poet, Robinson Jeffers.…

"...We must un-humanize our view of the world just a little, make being of service, as needed and as sacred as sunlight. Invite both head and heart, home, to a welcomed wholeness. Declare joy and having "enough" the newest kind of envy..." –Dale BironAv Dale Biron