Mike Maggio

Opsicocious

You miss your fire nozzle mind
Spraying words on the page,
Arranging them before they dry
Into crisp static thoughts.

Now, ideas float in your mind’s cove—
Pulled by a current reaching back,
Into old drafts and fragments;
Propelling new arrangements,
A slower but stronger stroke.

You take a break to window gaze,
Wondering when inspiration will come.
Suddenly, like a daffodil  in a snowfield,
An idea emerges to remind you
of the glory of being a poet at your age.

Copyright 2026 Joanna Howard

Bio:

Joanna Howard spent many happy years writing, reading, teaching and speaking poetry in the Washington, DC area. She now lives in Branford, CT, acclimating to the poetry scene there. 

30 for 30 is sponsored by Potomac Review

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Before the Memorial Day Weekend

Copyright 2026 Marian K. Shapiro

Bio:

Marian Kaplun Shapiro, now 86 years old, is a practicing psychologist in Lexington, Mass. (USA). She is the author of a professional book, and five books of poetry. A five-time Senior Poet Laureate of Massachusetts, she has been twice nominated for the Pushcart Prize. Upbringing, her latest collection of graphic poems, was published by Plain View in January, 2023.

30 for 30 is sponsored by Potomac Review

BACKYARD ROSES

When the hour is sad in September
and when it isn’t
Jon or I, at the kitchen table
looking out at the backyard garden newly minus its chorus of black-eyes susans
observes, “There are two roses plus what looks like a bud.”
“Yes there are,” answers the other.
Later in the day Jon will go outside to take a photo
and by then, sometimes, the two roses will be bigger and the bud a tiny half-blown actual rose.
And all three seem redder than before
whether or not this later hour is less sad.

   from “A Lady of 80” (Alien Buddha Press, 2024)

Bio:

Marion Deutsche Cohen is the author of 32 collections of poetry or memoir; her newest poetry collection is “Stress Positions” (Alien Buddha Press), and her latest prose collection is “Not Erma Bombeck: Diary of a Feminist 70s Mother” (Alien Buddha Press). She is also the author of a book of #MeToo poems, two controversial memoirs about spousal chronic illness, a trilogy diary of late-pregnancy loss, and “Crossing the Equal Sign”, about the experience of mathematics. She teaches a course she developed, Mathematics in Literature, at Drexel University’s Honors College. Other interests are classical piano, singing, Scrabble, thrift-shopping, four grown children, two grown step-children, and six grands. Her website is  marioncohen.net .

30 for 30 is sponsored by Potomac Review

Untitled

Menopausal earth
dropped her shawl one winter day:
flowers in the snow.

Copyright 2026 by Claudia Gary

Bio:

Claudia Gary’s new poetry collection, Time and Other Solvents, is a story of healing. She teaches Sonnet, Villanelle, Persona Poem, Meter, etc., at The Writer’s Center (writer.org) and privately. She’s also an advisor at New Verse Review,  as well as a health/science writer, visual artist, and composer. See pw.org/content/claudia_gary.

30 for 30 is sponsored by Potomac Review

It’s hard to believe that 13 years have gone by and that 30 for 30, a project I started on a whim, is still going strong. Every year, there are poets who tell me that they look forward each year to this event. And every year, in addition to the returning poets, there are always new ones showing up: new voices in the panoply of poetic expression.

This year’s theme —  Suddenly, a flower in a snowfield — comes after what was, for many of us, a hard winter. Not only was the weather horrendous, at least here in the mid-Atlantic, but the national deluge of disturbing news — from tariffs to ICE to the now unfolding war on Iran — left us with an insatiable desire for hope. And that’s what this year’s theme attempts to address.

Poetry, like all art forms, is an expression of humanity’s response to the events that surround us. War, peace, love, hatred — these are all emotions that find their way into the songs and poems, the sculptures and paintings that make up the human oeuvre. But, above all, it is hope that keeps us going — hope for new life, hope for a better tomorrow, hope for our children and grandchildren n a world where uncertainty seems to rule the day.

I hope that this year’s presentation of poems from far and wide brings you joy and helps you face the disturbing issues that seem to come to use each day with a sense that “this too shall pass.” This year, our poets range from North Carolina to Connecticut, from Wisconsin to California and places in between. Our sponsor, Potomac Review, is located in Maryland, And our esteemed judge, Michael Palma, originally from the Bronx, resides in Vermont.

Beginning tomorrow, you can enjoy a new poem each day by connecting to www.mikemaggio.net. Comment as you see fit. And, in the words of the late Jesse Jackson: “Keep Hope Alive.”

30 for 30 is sponsored by Potomac Review