Lana Hechtman Ayers, STILL LIFE WITH SORROW & JOY

Still Life with Sorrow & Joy, Lana Hechtman Ayers, The Poetry Box, 2026

What a lucky thing to have poet-friends.

I had two big deadlines at the end of May (didn’t quite make them, but almost);  I’m teaching another Creative Retirement Institute Class (on William Stafford, and it’s going beautifully); and I seem to have forgotten all about being a blogger. But then comes this package in the mail, two books from none other than the Lana Hechtman Ayers, managing editor (and one-woman dynamo) of the Concrete Wolf Poetry Series, MoonPath Press, and World Enough Writers.

As a bonus, Lana will be reading for Poem After Poem, on Zoom this Sunday afternoon, with Donna Hilbert. I’ll be there. You can join by pre-registering at https://lanaayers.com/News.htm.

Penelope Scambly Schott calls Still Life with Sorrow & Joy ” a joyous celebration,” full of both grief and delights. The collection plays with form, pays tribute to other poets, dreams wildly, and blends paeans to beloved pets with longing for lost two-legged loved ones. The poems are all about love, though at times they keen over our failure to love enough. In the very short, “Night Vision Goggles,” we get these three bare lines: “All we do not understand / could fill battlefields — // and does.”

Here’s one more:

“The Words We Speak Become the House We Live In”

— Hafiz

The first speech is apology.
House of fractured glass,
roof of Van Gogh nebula
that allows in all weather.

The second speech is question.
Swaying Schrödinger rope bridge
that may or may not collapse
above a black hole of assumption.

The third speech is desire.
Longing for blue lake and fog,
worldly wiles of musk,
the way crows caw at dusk.

Fourth speech is tongue-tied.
Apple that bobbles into
your palm bruised,
battered with sweetness.

The fifth speech is easy song.
Salmon shapeshifting along
upstream, lyrical shivering scales,
and the pale, pale riverboat sky.

The final speech is goodbye.
Shudder of butterfly wings,
sigh of fire that alters
the glint in God’s eyes.

— Lana Hechtman Ayers

Again, here is the link to see more information on Lana’s Poem After Poem reading this Sunday at 3 p.m. Pacific Time.