What gives you pleasure when you read this? What sticks out to you? What excites you? What confuses you?

And sort of going about it that way instead of asking, what does it mean?

Because what does it mean scares me? Even if you asked me about my own poems and said, okay,

so what does this mean? I'd be like, oh, I can tell you what I was thinking about when I wrote it.

And I can tell you sort of what some of the thematic concerns are or what the metaphor means.

But, you know, trying to sort of like give a cliff notes one sentence summary to describe

something as complex as a poem sort of takes the joy out of it. So I get the sort of like

anxiety around poetry. And I think it's mostly because even teachers sometimes are nervous

about poetry and therefore pass that anxiety on to young people.

Hi, this is Dene. I'm the founder of Simple Families. Simple Families is an online community

for parents who are seeking a simpler, more intentional life. In this show, we focus on minimalism

with kids, positive parenting, family wellness, and decreasing the mental load. My perspectives

are based in my firsthand experience raising kids, but also rooted in my PhD in child development.

So you're going to hear conversations that are based in research, but more importantly,

real life. Thanks for joining us.

Hi there. Thanks so much for tuning in. That voice you heard in the intro is Maggie Smith.

Maggie is one of my favorite poets. Now when I say one of my favorite poets,

I don't exactly read a lot of poetry because I'm very intimidated by it.

But I have found Maggie to be very accessible and relatable. And even though I am no expert in

reading and understanding poetry, I have found it to be quite a mindful activity for me.

I'm the kind of person who tries to fly through books. Usually my audible is said at 2x,

trying to digest as much as I can, as fast as I can. So poetry has been a good way for me to press

...