Category Archives: Poetry

Just like that, it’s December

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I’m not sure how December happened. My last post here seems to have happened at the end of May. Where have I been?

I guess I’ve been exactly where everyone else in the United States was—or should have been: at home. Or, if you prefer, nowhere. Those days have dragged and dragged, and yet here it is December. And what have I to show for it all? So much and so little.

I have a giant raised garden that yielded towering tomato plants, though not quite enough fruits on them, plus lettuce, carrots, chard, kale and kale sprouts, and so much basil that everyone I know will be receiving pesto for the holidays. Just this weekend, I was surprised to find a late crop of lettuce volunteers and delicious carrots, weeks after the first frost. My gardening books tell me that December is a month to slow down, and the garden definitely has done that, but it hasn’t yet gone into hibernation. Some of the carrots became part of a chicken cottage pie on Saturday night, and there are more waiting to be harvested.

I’ve also started teaching myself to bake bread. I started with a fairly simple oat-corn bread, made a sweet Swedish cardamom bread as gifts for local family at Thanksgiving, and just this past weekend baked my first loaves of Swedish Limpa bread. Limpa is part of my customary Christmas, but my Swedish bakery has gone out of business. I’m delighted that I can now begin making my own. I haven’t yet found quite the right spice combination, but I’ll keep experimenting.

I’ve spent a good portion of the last six months ill-focused (anxious) and unable to read books. Poetry has pulled me through for the most part, although for a few days around November 3 even poetry seemed daunting, and I started reading cookbooks instead. If you like to cook and are having trouble focusing on reading, try it sometime. It was a brilliant solution—and started me down the path of bread making.

I’ve also been sending a lot of postcards, and have started making my own cards as a kind of art therapy. Paper crafts seem to relax me (along with cookbook reading). The banner photo up top is from one of my postcards. Here are a few others:

I’m looking forward to making more, possibly some holiday-themed ones during December. I like the creation, and connecting with friends, and supporting the U.S. Post is a bonus.

Between the primary and general elections, I wrote about 1,000 postcards to help get out the vote in Wisconsin and Michigan. That’s an accomplishment that gives me pride. I’ve also been posting a poem a day on a chalkboard on my front porch (and on social media for friends) every day since June, inspired by a friend who was doing the same. I’ve found myself largely unable to write anything long during the pandemic—witness my absence from this blog. Sometimes just a three-line poem has daunted me. But I’ve kept at it, and sometimes I think it’s what’s keeping me sane.



I have managed to have a few poems published since the start of the pandemic, though. Two actually were products of the pandemic, both of which found homes on Headline Poetry & Press. I wrote Pi Day at the very start of the pandemic, when we had just gone into lockdown and the world seemed scary but I still had lots of hope. What I Fear Most came later and has lots more angst. More recently, Back Patio Press featured two very different poems by me: RIP Munchkin, and I Like My Life, but It’s Unexpected.

Writing all this down, I feel more like I’ve accomplished something during this pandemic. Hooray!

Good from sadness

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Most people I know are having mood swings in this pandemic. On top of feeling isolated and penned in, there’s much to fear—for ourselves, our loved ones, our nations, and for humanity.

Reading poetry can help me when I’m in a funk, as can sunlight and the outdoors. I don’t think I can write my way out of a funk, but sometimes I’m able to put pen to page despite low spirits. There’s a chicken-egg conundrum to this; I’m not clear what comes first—whether writing helps me get away from the gloom, or I’m already on my way out and that allows me to give voice to my feelings. But they do often seem to go hand in hand.

Today, a poem I wrote near the darkest point of my recent funk—during a two- to three-day period starting on Holy Thursday of Easter week—made its way into the wide universe. “What I Fear Most” is published now on Headline Poetry and Press, and the editor who accepted it made my day by telling me it had struck home personally with them, voicing what they considered a common experience.

It’s gratifying and comforting to know that something positive can come from sadness. I’d rather not have gone through (or put my husband through) that 1 1/2-week funk. But having done so, I’m glad to think I might help someone else muddle through as well.

I intended this blog to serve as something of a social distancing diary when I started writing daily posts with the institution of shelter-in-place orders. Clearly that plan has crumbled, given the nearly two-week gap. But sometimes it’s hard to write, and hard to share. I’m forgiving myself.

Photos of the day

I used most of yesterday’s good photos in yesterday’s blog post. Here are a couple taken while the sun was out one day during my funk. Dogs on the deck—a recipe for contentedness.

Are we going stir crazy yet?

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Today’ is Illinois’ first full day of sheltering in place, my hometown’s fourth, and my own eighth. I’ve gone more than a week now without leaving my house and yard except to walk the sidewalks of my neighborhood. I’m a little bit stir crazy, but I’m okay.

I have big plans today: virtual Church of the Informed Citizen, via Skype, and a fire pit social at the edge of my front yard with my next-door neighbors. How will we manage the fire pit, you ask? The plan is: Fire in the center, two chairs on our side, two on theirs, always 6 feet apart. I think we can do it!

Goal setting

I think goal setting is probably a good idea while we’re all sheltering at home. I can easily get up in the morning and fritter away an entire day, so it helps to tell myself early in the day what I’d like to accomplish.

Here’s how yesterday’s goals tallied up for me at the end of the day.

  • Chicken pot pie—check
  • Dog walk—check
  • Exercise walk—nope, just with the dogs
  • Laundry—check
  • Place my seed order—check
  • Read—only at bedtime, but check
  • Create something—check
  • Photo of the day—check

I added the photo-a-day goal mid-day. Being cooped up in one place, I think challenging myself to take a photo that’s worth sharing each day might be a good way to keep from falling into a rut. I’m pretty good at ruts. I need the challenge.

Photo of the day

I over-achieved yesterday on the photography front. We walked past someone’s terrific sidewalk chalk art on our walk, and that’s the picture shown up top. Rolo got in on the action later by being too cute for words, twice. Here’s one of the results:

And then, of course, there was the chicken pot pie. Rarely can I resist the urge to take a photo of a pie that I’ve baked, be it savory or sweet. It’s not great photography, perhaps, but food porn really isn’t about the photography. I can assure you it was delicious, served with a side salad.

Yesterday’s creation: poem art

A while back—a long while back—I bought an old book of illustrated children’s stories to transform into something. I was thinking at the time of some sort of altered book, but that idea gave way to poetry at some point. Yesterday, I took a page of it, found a poem in it, and then looked for a picture to go along with it. The result: a teeny-tiny poem called “The growing darkness.” I had a lot of fun putting it together, I think largely because it made me work with my hands. Here it is:

The growing darkness, a poem by Kim Kishbaugh (c) 2020

I think next time I might start with a picture and find a poem specifically for it.

Goal setting

Here are today’s goals:

  • Photo of the day
  • Dinner from scratch, by me, probably spaghetti carbonara
  • Create something
  • Read
  • More laundry
  • A tidy table in my living room

Enjoying a different pace

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Hound dog upside down on couch

I added cardamom to my coffee this morning, three firm shakes in the basket with the beans before grinding. It’s a treat I usually save for weekends, when I have more time to savor the morning brew.

Working from home, I have that little bit of extra time now, to sit with coffee in hand or at my side, listen to the birds outside, read some news, or watch the sky lighten behind the houses to the east.

A poem for today

I started my day reading Billy Collins, one of my favorite poets, because his words are deceptively simple and accessible, and because he’s funny. We all need laughter, and funny poetry can be very funny. Billy’s a really good reader (see how I’ve put us on a first-name basis? It just feels right with Billy!) Here he is, reading one of my many favorites among his poems, “Consolation,” which I think is a timely poem for those among us who are reluctantly canceling travel plans right now.

#AmWriting

I wrote a poem of my own this morning, too, one that I think will need a bit of work to polish but perhaps not too much. It happened because I opened up my computer and discovered that all of my browser tabs were gone and I couldn’t recover them. Sadness ensued, followed by poetry, and all was well with the world.

Walk in the woods

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trees in shadows
Icy lake in the woods

I finished rereading Peter Wohlleben’s fascinating book about trees yesterday and yearned for the woods. So off we went. It being already late afternoon, we didn’t have a lot of time, but long enough to clear our lungs and feed our souls. It was spring, and the woods were both soggy and somewhat snowy and the lakes icy. The sun helped lift our spirits and offered a picturesque sunset before putting itself to bed. All in all a satisfying afternoon, though not the same as being in the country.

I grew up in the country and miss nature and solitude. The tradeoffs, though, are culture and museums and ethnic restaurants, and those would be hard for me to give up. Unless I moved to Ireland, in which case I feel I could trade everything else and never miss it. I could be wrong.

I read a while back that Irish tourism officials were looking for someone to run a coffeeshop on Great Blasket Island during tourist season, and a friend (who clearly knows me very, very well) sent me the same article this week. I actually find this enormously tempting, despite the fact that the island has no electricity. Sadly, my two old dogs put me in no position to travel right now, let alone ship myself overseas for six months. But maybe next year? The thought of living and writing on the west coast of Ireland fills my soul. I might only write odes and celebrations.

stone circle in Ireland
This is the only picture here that isn’t from yesterday’s walk. It’s from Ireland. Sigh.

Not now, though. The first poem I ever wrote was born from bleak frustration, and sometimes I just need to get darkness onto a page. I had a poem published this week at Headline Poetry & Press that was one of those. One sunny day came about because January was literally so very gray in Chicago, and the news accompanying it seemed uncompromisingly bad. With an impeachment trial emphasizing our national divisions, I could barely bring myself to read or watch the news. Then February rolled in, and on the evening of Feb. 1 the sun peeked out for five minutes, and then the poem came. It’s intentionally ambiguous, straddling a no-man’s land between depression and hopefulness. I’m grateful to Headline Poetry for giving it a home.

fungus on a fallen tree
Isn’t that some cool fungus?

Also this week I had a poem accepted to Back Patio Press, where it will be published on March 4. That’s one day after another piece will come to life at Tiny Seed Journal, and two days after my wedding anniversary, so I’m looking forward to early March. Also in early March is the next meeting of my book club, when we will discuss White Fragility: Why it’s so Hard for White People to Talk About Racism, by Robin Diangelo. I’ve just started it and am looking forward to the conversation. If you’d like to read it with us and discuss virtually, I’ll see you in the comment section.

late afternoon sun in the woods