Welcome, my digital friends. Won’t you join me graveside, on a soft summer morning, where something beautiful is transpiring? 🦋
After reading this week’s poem, if you’re so inclined, feel free to scroll down and check out some of the things happening in my world as I continue my adventures in writing.
Now, for some new poetry…
This week’s poem has me thinking about place, or setting, to use the old lit class term, and the way poets occasionally pretend it’s just where we park the furniture.
It’s not.
A real setting exerts force. It leans on the poem. It alters the chemistry of whatever enters it. Put a moth in a pantry and you have annoyance. Put the same moth in a chapel? Suddenly everyone is contemplating the soul.
We are embarrassingly easy to manipulate that way.
Still, the manipulation works because place is never empty. We drag our private histories into every room, field, graveyard, and badly lit dentist’s office we enter. The world arrives preloaded. A bench is only a bench until someone once sat beside us there. Then it becomes a landmark with an agenda.
Poetry understands this better than most forms.
A poem has so little space to operate that location cannot afford to lounge around looking picturesque. It must earn its keep under compression. The best poetic settings do not decorate the emotional life of the poem. They complicate it. They make beauty less innocent, grief less stable, memory less reliable.
This may be why certain places remain lodged in us long after we have purportedly forgotten them. We imagine we are remembering what happened there, when perhaps we are also remembering who the place permitted us to become. Or what spirit once shared it with us.
That is a stranger proposition. Isn’t it?
As always, I look forward to hearing your thoughts, feelings, and reactions to this week’s poem in the “Leave a Reply” comment section at the very bottom of this page.
-PS Conway 🦋 🦋 🦋
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still wet from light
the caterpillar clambered up the headstone,
ponderous in her approach,
utterly unaware of the epitaph
or the meaning of a name.
her intention fastened
upon the thin branch
that caressed the granite
like tender human fingers,
a place to rest and gather herself
under a leaf’s brief mercy,
her mouthparts sticky
with silken anticipation.
instinct beckoned her upward,
neither time nor weather nor humans
were ever her concern
only her unwavering destination
to dangle, to weave, and to wait.
wait to emerge,
swaying above the headstone,
her gossamer wings
still wet from light,
the first soft gasp of flight,
the morning air
made strange and sacred.
leaving the graveyard behind forever.
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This Week’s Links to My Published Work…
- Purchase Echoes Lost in Stars
- on Amazon USA: https://a.co/d/eZPzwxX
- on Amazon Canada: https://a.co/d/ebjqinU
- on Amazon UK: https://amzn.eu/d/avWTF19
- on Amazon DE: https://amzn.eu/d/8IDYSIv
- Purchase Life Sucks
- on Amazon USA: https://a.co/d/arnze2N
- on Amazon Canada: https://a.co/d/8sBYofv
- on Amazon UK: https://amzn.eu/d/brzfJ4l
- on Amazon DE: https://amzn.eu/d/95Y4WAA
- My author website: https://psconway.com/
- My Interview with AllAuthor: https://allauthor.com/interview/psconway/
Media News…
*NEW* My interview with Steve Cuden for his brilliant podcast StoryBeat – what a great conversation! https://www.storybeat.net/p-s-pat-conway-poet-episode-395/
*NEW* My interview with Editor-in-Chief, Gabriela Marie Milton of Literary Revelations Publishing House: https://literaryrevelations.com/2026/01/25/the-portrait-of-a-poet-ps-conway/
*NEW* My interview with author Tricia Copeland on her podcast Finding the Magic Book is now available to watch: https://youtu.be/NhieYECI-H4
Latest Publication News
It has been a productive last few months for me. 12 POEMS published. If you are interested in a reading any of these, I have embedded the Amazon links below.
- My 5 untitled haiku have been published in the haiku anthology, Haiku for Soulmates, published by the brilliant and award-winning Gabriela Marie Milton and Literary Revelations Publishing House. This is a gorgeous book – click on the title for the Amazon link.
* - My poem mercy were published in The Ekphrastic Review on May 12. They are a literary “online journal devoted entirely to writing inspired by visual art. Their objective is to promote ekphrastic writing, promote art appreciation, and experience how the two strengthen each other and bring enrichment to every facet of life.”
* - My 3 poems – the wet centre is bottomless, laugh tracks, and three flights away – were published in Mouthful of Salt in Issue #3 on April 27. They are “a Black-led literary journal dedicated to bold, boundary-pushing storytelling. Our editorial vision is shaped by a wide range of lived experiences, and we are committed to creating a space where writers from across the globe can be seen, heard, and celebrated.”
* - My poem the color of staying was published in the Spring’26 edition of PHIL LIT Journal on March 15. This literary journal “promotes writing that engages with philosophical, metaphysical, ethical, & existential themes; without sacrificing beauty, craft, surprise, or risk.” Please be sure to check it out.
* - I have 2 poems – paint and i have seen love do the same – published in The Belfast Review, Winter/Spring 2026. Based in the north of Ireland, this gorgeous emerging literary magazine, in addition to poetry, “aims to create a dialogue between the arts, featuring genres not usually included in literary journals such as song lyrics, plays, screenplays, and hybrid forms, to better reflect the lived experience of art, the self, and the city.”
Latest News – Life Sucks…
So far, Life Sucks has received many ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Editorial Reviews. More to come soon.
I’m anticipating a whole bunch of solid Reader Reviews to begin populating Amazon in the next few weeks, too. The goal is to get to 50 Reader Reviews ASAP to kick Amazon’s promotion engine into a higher gear.
Speaking of Editorial Reviews, we secured a BIG ONE – BookLife. This is the indie press division of Publishers Weekly and represents a major credibility lift to my published work. Here is a link, in case you’re interested in reading the entire review:
And here are a few other snippets of other editorial reactions so far!
– “Snort-laughs and gasp-worthy wit – PS Conway goes there, and it’s hilarious.”
– “A must-read for anyone stressed, cynical, or just in need of a damn good laugh.”
– “Darkly funny, brutally honest, and weirdly comforting – like therapy, but with colonoscopies.”
🦋 COME BACK EACH WEEK FOR NEW POETRY 🦋