This chapbook explores the ways we are changed as we delve into the process of dancing with words. These poems provide advice for writers: enjoy the process; look beyond the obvious moment to more relevant truths; and remember there is beauty to be discovered all around us.
Clark reminds the reader of the importance of understanding the reasons you write, to provide yourself and others with support and impartiality, and to know that being stuck is an illusion. She tells us that with words, we create worlds—One word is a pomegranate: full of enough seeds to sow an entire orchard.
The poem “The Path: Ways to Help a Creative” was nominated for a 2026 Pushcart Prize.
What people are saying
“Delighting in ‘To Be: Poems for Writers” by Loralee Clark is a lyrical and thoughtful meditation on what it means to be a writer. “Delight,” the opening poem of the collection, is an exhortation to write: “…let’s not make it harder/than it has to be.” From there Clark pivots to the core question of her chapbook: Why write? “…it’s just one foot in front of the other answering questions which need to be asked.” Her anguished “The Reason” reaches deep to show us her creative process: Cut me open, slick and somber, splayed on your desk. As with all of Clark’s poetry, the natural world figures prominently as a source of wisdom and joy: “A hawk flew into a window. Did she think she was headed into the sun?” This collection is a love poem to writing and to all who cherish it. A writer who is facing a “dry spell” will find this collection a life-line! Those who aspire to write will find it inspiring. Those who wonder why in the world we do it, might find these poems a window into the heart of the writer.
–Ann Chinnis, Pushcart Prize recipient, 2025, author of Poppet, My Poppet, I Can Catch Anything, and Love Song: Port & Starboard (forthcoming)
~~
A curious creature hides in plain sight, a creature called a writer. A writer can pose as someone you know. You may even be married to one.
In “Delighting in ‘To Be,’” Loralee Clark writes poetry for writers and for normal people who do their best to understand, love, and care for writers. Loralee provides a peephole into a writer’s inner world, a world of normal objects that transform into images, animals that are not what they seem, and the angst of writing.
This book will help you expand your world and see it as you never have before.
–Nolcha Fox, author of “Writing Between the Lines”
Sample Poems
The Artist Gathers
He finds the lichen
among the grasses:
symbiosis,
community,
cosmos of suns,
moons like meat;
leaf pushing, pulling
like he who loosens
flat green shield from
slate, singing, leaving
a bundle of hair
bidden, believing
willingly, brilliantly
offered.
He brings
pieces back
in his basket,
thick caning bearing
the weight of
the time it took
for the growing,
for us to remember
complexity,
convolution, consecration.
In that twilight,
re-fashioning
pieces into eagle: totem, talisman
enduring, producing
its beak,
braiding the song
calling him home.
~~
The Path: Ways to Help a Creative
–for Cara
Bring them water,
apply the salve.
Cut the wood and double it.
Sort the laundry.
Excuse the piled dishes their crusty excess.
Make the tea.
Add the sugar.
Welcome the sunlight and pull the weeds.
Rub the sore muscles.
Move the rock.
Fill the glass again and again.
When they judge
their work, themselves,
remind them
it’s not good or bad
it’s just
a part of the process.
Remind them
it’s difficult forging
your own path
without a model or mentor.
Weigh the grain, mill the flour.
Feed the starter
and begin again.
Bring them water.
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