1. Poetry: Produce, Bear, Surrender by Chloé Leisure (she also happens to be one of my dearest friends), For When It’s Hard and For Every Secret Agent of Change and On Your Twenty-Second Birthday and Even If I’d Rather Not Know It and One Before the Big Adventure and Letter to Others in the Dark by Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer, The Plum You’re Going to Eat Next Summer by Gayle Brandeis and For You Who Have Loved Old Dogs by Silas House and If Night You Were a City by Adam Wiedewitsch and Parts of a Body House by Erika Meitner on The Slowdown with Maggie Smith, My Mother Told Us Not to Have Children by Rebecca Gayle Howell and Sitting on a Bench, I Doze Off Piecing Together the Day by Lance Larsen and Tabula Rasa by Matthew Wimberly and Memorial by Janna Schledorn and Almost a Friend by Esat Alpay on Rattle, Folded by Luis Muñoz and Noon by Eugenio Montale and Silence Comes from Somewhere Else by Nikola Madzirov and Love Lies Bleeding by Christina Rossetti on poets.org, Goodtime Jesus by James Tate shared by Patti Digh (that last line is so perfect), The Mighty Sage by Julia Fehrenbacher, The Pool by Jena Schwartz, Allowed To Be Ordinary and A Friend’s Voice by James Crews, Peach by Dorianne Laux shared on Heart Poems, Leave It by Maya Stein, The Most Beautiful Thing by Andrea Scher, How to Change Your Life by Maria Popova, and I Am Not All That Has Happened and Beloved by Julia Barton.

In related news, One thing can say many things from Pádraig Ó Tuama, and Watch Movies Like a Poet (“my guide to gathering poetic images and atmosphere from film”) from Alix on Earth & Verse, and Wendell Berry’s Life on Earth by Katie Myers.

2. Pendulation by Josie George on What is Here? “What are you doing to keep going right now?”

3. I Couldn’t Save My Ex. Can I Save the Planet? “Discerning what work is ours to do in times of climate breakdown” by Satya Robyn.

4. Good stuff on The Beautiful Mess by John Pavlovitz: Things I Learned Since My Father Died and Christians Could Stop Trump’s Violent, Hateful Chaos At The Polls—And All They’d Need Is Jesus.

5. An Existential Guide to Death on The Shadowed Archive.

6. This morning, “a simple check in” from Erin Geesaman Rabke.

7. More questions than answers, “AKA. The way it should be” from Jeanette Winterson.

8. Good Stuff on The Marginalian: The True Purpose of Tarot and How to Break Free from the Tyranny of Certainty: The Japanese Concept of “Ma.”

9. Letter From Scotland, “Some thoughts on going deeper, and writers’ residencies, from a glen near Edinburgh” by Alexander Chee.

10. Recommitting to Creative Play, “with the help of my kindergarten self” by Anne Butera on In an Artist’s Garden and Studio.

11. Mossy catwalks, mycelial designs and Monty Don: the growth of gardener style on The Guardian, “Aspirational clobber, hot horticulturists and a TikTok content rise suggest gardening has never been cooler.” In related news, ‘The End Of An Era’: Frances Tophill, Rachel de Thame and Others React To Monty Don’s Gardeners’ World Departure.

12. How to host Lightning Talks. “The magic of a mini TED in your living room” by Gillian Morris on Supernuclear.

13. Pitter patter and some notes from the swirl by Lisa Olivera on Human Stuff.

14. Just a little loose. “Some things are still here because somebody bothered to fix them” by Jasmine on The Tiny Joy Project.

15. Solace by Seth Godin.

16. You need a reason to draw. “I’ll give you a bunch” by Danny Gregory.

17. The Telling. “Where we were when the world changed [on 9/11]” by Elissa Altman on Poor Man’s Feast.

18. Jokapäiväinen, “Finnish (YOKKA-pai-vai-nen): noun; Everyday, quotidian, diurnal, mundane” by Ella Frances Sanders on Orion Magazine.

19. So Many Tender Things by Laurie Wagner.

20. No One Owns 9/11 Mourning by Frederick Joseph. “Twenty-five years after September 11, the struggle over who belongs at its memorial reveals how much of its human cost we still refuse to recognize.”

21. ‘I’m sick of her talking about it’: 11 readers share how GLP-1s have affected their relationships on The Guardian. “As weight loss drugs have risen all around the world, it has reshaped users’ relationships for better and for worse.”

22. I’ve been squandering my attention. Maybe you too? by Andrea Scher.

23. CARING IS EMBARRASSING (so embarrass yourself), “the mighty wisdom of being cringe” by Brad Montague on The Enthusiast.

24. I bet there’s a story there. “The absolute miracle of junk drawers” on The White Pages.

25. A landscape of Symbols, “Creating from dreams, meditation, intuition” by Alix on Earth & Verse.

26. Tenderheart by Joanna Byrd on Short Reads. “Feeling sorry for a snake.”

27. Sara Bareilles Confronted Grief, and Found Herself on The New York Times. (gift link)

1. Poetry: What is Here? and The Poem You’re Going to Write Tomorrow and In the Garden and One Intention and In My First Pilates Class, I Reckon with Impossibility (which I printed out and gave to my Pilates teacher) by Rosemerry Wahtolta Trommer, Invisible Work by Alison Luterman, When Crimea was still a place of light by Lyudmyla Khersonska and Be Less Poetic by Tariq Al-Arabi and [The rage that shatters a man into children,] by César Vallejo and Consolation of Poetry by António Osorio and The Valley of Aijalon by Babette Deutsch and The Cocoon by Robert Frost and [We waved them off long ago. So why] by Dimitri Psurtsev on poets.org, Are You Not Tired Yet? by Mohammed al-Khatib, translated by Tayseer Abu Odeh and Sherah Bloor and Missed Time by Ha Jin on The Slowdown, Harry Styles by Greg Hughes and On the Past by Marvin Glasser and What Walls Are Good For by Dick Westheimer and To the Young Man Who Cried Out “What Were You Thinking” When I Backed Into His Car by Lynne Knight and The Jogger by Rebecca Starks on Rattle, the first of September by Maya Stein, The Invention of Goodness by James Crews, and End of August by George Bilgere on Heart Poems.

Poet Wendell Berry died this week. In related news, Wendell Berry, Writer Who Extolled America’s Agrarian Past, Dies at 92 on The New York Times, (gift link: “A Kentucky farmer, he railed against agribusiness and championed small family farms and the environment, winning widespread acclaim”), No Unsacred Places (“Remembering Wendell Berry in both word and deed”) by Erina Kim-Eubanks on Sacred Imagination, and Membership, Belonging, and Barbershops (“For Wendell Berry, 1934–2026”) from Patti Digh, and Our Real Work (“Inspired by Wendell Berry”) by James Crews, and How to Have Enough: Wendell Berry on Creativity and Love by Maria Popova on The Marginalian, and Thank you, Wendell Berry (“A remembrance”) on Orion Magazine, and The Ground At Our Own Feet (“In honor of the amazing man and writer, Wendell Berry”) by Julia Fehrenbacher, and How to Be a Poet by Wendell Berry.

2. Is Anyone Else’s Mental Health A Mess, Or Is It Just Me? on The Beautiful Mess by John Pavlovitz.

3. It’s Brave to Feel Deeply. “An invitation to stay tender in a world built to numb you” from Sara Kuburic on Notes From My Phone.

4. In Paris, “There is no need” by Jeanette Winterson.

5. Pedaling toward God by Laura Lentz on Writing at Red Lights.

6. Just This. Just Now. Just Here. “Somewhere between water, pigment, and page” from The Isolation Journals with Suleika Jaouad.

7. Losing a parent is a bewildering, lonely experience. Here are the things I wish I had known before by Gaby Hinsliff on The Guardian. “There’ll be exhaustion, love tinged with occasional rage, even moments of black humour. But my mum would want me to tell you: don’t be afraid.” I feel this in particular, “Washing up at her kitchen sink a fortnight ago, looking out at the same scarlet fuchsia I remember blazing in the garden when my father died, it struck me for the first time that soon I would no longer be anyone’s daughter. What I didn’t know then was that the loss of both parents would feel less like the end of a relationship and more like its transition to a new stage, of finally being able to see them clearly as people in their own right.”

8. Let This Practice Change You by Jena Schwartz. “You don’t have to be skilled. You don’t have to be good. Just show up and get ink on your hands.”

9. Rusty and Penny by Patti Digh. “On becoming the last one standing.”

10. The crumbled receipt from Jasmine on The Tiny Joy Project. “You wonder what the heck is this receipt and unfold it to see a few items, a date and a time. Maybe it all comes back to you, maybe it won’t. Either way, this little piece of paper is proof that you were here. Little proof that you did something while you were here.”

11. Chicken or Egg? How to hatch ideas by Danny Gregory.

12. Have You Said All You Have to Say? “Another way to check in with your work” by Jami Attenberg on Craft Talk.

13. Enrollment and learning by Seth Godin. “Why are you taking this class?”

14. Welcome people into your world! “Creating a visual language to use in your publications” from Alix on Earth & Verse.

15. Shame has kept me quiet about my depression and anxiety for too long by Elizabeth Kleinfeld. “On decades of being called lazy—and everything that label got wrong.”

16. You don’t have to wait for their funeral to notice their outstretched hand by Garrett Bucks on The White Pages. “On when we anoint and when we ignore.”

17. At the aquarium, my four-year-old son is obsessed with the Atlantic sturgeon by Mia Herman on Short Reads.

18. The Weirdness of Using Social for the Hyperlocal, “how i’m using and not using social media for a new community space” by Elise Granata on Group Hug.

19. Good stuff from Elissa Altman on Poor Man’s Feast: a list for a complicated week (“Some Bits of Beauty During a Difficult Time”) and on being the enemy (“Coming to Terms with What My Mother Thought of Me, and the Complexities of Grief”).

20. I Thought I Was In Love With My Roommate. I Wanted To Be Her. by Kristin Amico on Open Secrets Magazine. “Decades later, a social media surprise reminded me I had become the woman I once wished I could be.”

21. The Top 10 Data Center Myths from Moms Across America. “Data centers have become one of America’s hottest debates. They are sold as essential pieces of infrastructure that create jobs, generate tax revenue, support national security, and keep our cell phones going. Meanwhile, on the ground, host communities are confronting the consequences for their water, health, air quality, utility bills, farmland, public budgets, quality of life, and even their ability to control what gets built in their own towns. In a storm of conflicting claims and corporate talking points, what does the evidence actually show? Let’s examine 10 of the biggest data center myths, and separate fact from fiction.”

22. One of my favorite quotes from Pema Chödrön: “Things falling apart is a kind of testing and also a kind of healing. We think that the point is to pass the test or to overcome the problem, but the truth is that things don’t really get solved. They come together and they fall apart. Then they come together again and fall apart again. It’s just like that. The healing comes from letting there be room for all of this to happen: room for grief, for relief, for misery, for joy.”

23. The longlist for the Booker Prize 2026.

24. The 2026 Audubon Photography Awards: Winners.

25. This man’s ‘rubbish’ pet drawings went viral. Now, thousands want one.

26. A Prayer for Nepal and Tibet, and How to Help on Lion’s Roar. “James Gritz reflects on the devastating flash floods in Nepal and Tibet and shares resources for those looking to support relief efforts.”