Poetry is not a luxury, it’s a lifeline.
In a world where so much feels uncertain, gathering in community matters more than ever. The generative writing sessions I host here have been a place to breathe, to create, and to remember our voices still matter.
Through the end of August, I’m offering a Back-to-School discount—Resist Fascism with Poetry & Community: 30% off the annual subscription. This gives you access to our monthly Poetry as Medicine sessions, plus an all-new fall series, Poetry as Resistance.
Join us. Write with us. Let’s keep speaking, creating, and refusing to be silent.
(If you are genuinely unable to afford any kind of subscription but you want to join, please reach out to me directly and I will comp your subscription through the end of this year.)
I’ve written less this summer. Moving, blending families, waiting for layoff announcements at my day job, and trying to parent young children without succumbing to the daily horror of the news has felt like its own full-time work.
I’ve read the parenting books, taken child psychology classes for my graduate degree in education, and spent nine years working with children from preschool through third grade. I know how to connect with kids. But lately, parenting has felt particularly hard. Parenting is, by nature, an act of hope, a daily wager that the children you are raising will survive and thrive once they step out into the world.
I’m not naive. Parents have been raising children through genocide, autocracy, famine, and war for millennia, and yet we all hope we won’t have to. The United States has always been a deeply flawed country, but now the regimes I studied in my university history classes feel closer than ever. I am often overwhelmed, unsure how to shield my child from so much suffering or how to help alleviate it in any meaningful way.
And yet, on an ordinary summer morning, my son reminded me that sometimes the smallest acts of care are their own quiet kind of resistance—that even if I cannot intervene everywhere I wish to, I can still find ways to serve.
I Didn’t Rehearse for This
On our walk to the coffee shop, my son
asks about the charred black bodies
swarmed by ants. I explain how summer
rain pushes earthworms from the dark
safety of soil, how their thin-skinned
bellies are not made for the roughened
heat of pavement. He is tender-hearted,
soft as the creatures burning at our feet.
Tears stream down his rosy, well-fed
cheeks & he asks if I’m sad too. I do not
know how to tell him about the suffering
my thirty-nine-year-old eyes have seen—
the grief of knowing I cannot bring anything
back to life. But I am teaching him
to pay attention, to know when his small
hands can be of service, so we spend
our morning returning worms to the soil.
We work side by side, slow & steady.
His brow furrowed in concentration.
He is focused on our small stretch
of sidewalk & I am thinking there is no
shortage of worms who need saving—
how I will teach him this work is important
though we cannot save them all.
Thank you for reading and for being here with me.
Has parenting felt like a struggle for you too? How are you finding small (or big) ways of leaning in where you can? As always, I look forward to meeting you in the comments.
Upcoming Community Events for Paid Subscribers:
Final Session on Writing Our Longing - The Longing of the Soul (90 minutes):
Wednesday, August 20th at 7 PM CST
Monthly Poetry as Medicine Writing Circles (90 minutes):
Thursday, August 21st at 7 PM CST - Pádraig Ó Tuama
Monday, September 22nd at 7 PM CST - Maggie Smith
Sunday, October 26th at 10 AM CST - Danez Smith
Sunday, November 9th at 12 PM CST - Louise Glück
Thursday, December 11th at 7 PM CST - Margaret Atwood
Links to all sessions sent via Zoom the day before
Poetry as Resistance (60 minutes)
Sundays at 1 PM CST - October 5th, November 2nd, December 14th
Women’s Hiking & Writing Retreat in the Scottish Highlands
If you need something to look forward to—a place to breathe, to write, to remember yourself—I hope you’ll join me next May (2026) in the Scottish Highlands.
We’ll stay in a cozy lodge tucked between mountains and lochs, spending our days hiking ancient trails, writing, and exploring the wild, quiet beauty around us. Our time together will be a return—to nature, to creativity, to the parts of ourselves we sometimes leave behind.
Our writing circles will be generative and gently guided, meant to open new paths back to yourself. There is absolutely no prior writing experience necessary.
Full details are below—hope you’ll come walk and write with us.
If you’re reading this in the app, you’ll need to copy/past this link into your browser to upgrade (that’s still not possible via the app): https://daniellecoffyn.substack.com/subscribe
I just read this to my 9 year old son, loved it. I need to write some that children can read like this. We're talking about what acts of resistance and hope we can do!
Danielle, how touching, returning the worms to the soil, your son's tender heart moving, turning over, learning the things you are taking the time to teach him. In that old Brad Pitt movie, 12 Years in Tibet?, the monks are overwhelmed and distressed when the builders dig up the soil because they consider the creatures underneath worthy of their love and care. Their rescue.
Your poetry circles are everything everything.