I always love featuring the poetry of Robin Reagler. She was one of the first bosses I had, way back when I graduated from college and was working for Writers in the Schools here in Houston. She was an amazing person to work for, inspiring and compassionate and ready to inject levity when a situation most needed it. Now, decades later, we have both moved on from that excellent organization, so I don’t see her very often, but I love running into her at poetry events around town.
Please enjoy this lovely poem of hers which first appeared in SLAB (2022).
I used to be somebody’s daughter.
When sadness threatens to take me down, the rituals
kick in. I begin
by walking it out.
Sadness, the thread,
I, the spool.
Sunshine hits metal
The brightness, blinding
I want you to understand how I feel
[We pause inside this poem together]
***
Robin Reagler is the author of The Always (forthcoming 2023), Night Is This Anyway (2022), Into The The (2021), and two chapbooks. She won the Charlotte Mew Prize selected by Natalie Diaz and the UK’s Best Book Award. She led Writers in the Schools (WITS) from 1998-2020 and is now a professor of English at Houston Community College.
Sappho's Torque 