In The Midst Of All

In the midst of darkness, there is light.
In the midst of evil, there is virtue.
In the midst of war, there is peace.
In the midst of agony, there is ecstasy.

In the midst of night, there is day.
In the midst of illness, there is health.
In the midst of winter, there is summer.
In the midst of hate, there is love.

In the midst of grief, there is healing
In the midst of hunger, there is Bread of Life
In the midst of thirst, there is Living Water
In midst of loneliness, there is companionship

In the midst of sin, there is redemption
In the midst of catastrophe, there is restoration
In the midst of rain, there is a rainbow
In the midst of adversity, there is privilege

In the midst of decay, there is renewal.
In the midst of hopelessness, there is possibility.
In the midst of poverty, there is wealth.
In the midst of pain, there is joy.

In the midst of tears, there is laughter.
In the midst of anguish, there is pleasure.
In the midst of disappointment, there is satisfaction.
In the midst of futility, there is hope.

In the midst of the bad, there is the good.
In the midst of the ugly, there is the beautiful.
In the midst of the unholy, there is the sacred.
In the midst of the body, there is the soul.

In the midst of suffering, there is mercy.
In the midst of rage, there is calm.
In the midst of failure, there is success.
In the midst of death, there is life.

In the midst of all.... THERE IS GOD.

Rev. Saundra L. Washington, D.D., is an ordained clergywoman, veteran social worker, and Founder of AMEN Ministries. http://www.clergyservices4u.org. She is also the author of two coffee table books: Room Beneath the Snow: Poems that Preach and Negative Disturbances: Homilies that Teach. Her new book, Out of Deep Waters: My Grief Management Workbook, will be available in July.

Los Angeles Times

A totally Californian poet laureate Los Angeles Times He'd like to make the entire state a democratic, virtual poetry workshop. Professor Juan Felipe Herrera, recently appointed California's poet laureate by Gov. Jerry Brown, leads a poetry workshop at UC Riverside. (Irfan Khan, Los Angeles Times / April ...

PBS (blog)

Poetry Out Loud Makes Beautiful Noise Huffington Post (blog) Kristen Dupard, a high school senior from Mississippi, won the 2012 Poetry Out Loud national recitation contest on Tuesday. It was a long road for Kristen, who had to advance from her classroom to a school-wide competition, then on through ... Conversation: Kristen Dupard, 2012 Poetry Out Loud National ChampionPBS (blog) all 2 news articles »

Letting Jazz Have a Turn Interpreting the Poets New York Times Each was about the length of an LP and based on a book of poetry. “God's Trombones” drew on the 1927 work of the same name by James Weldon Johnson, seven connected poems using the rhetoric of the black American church service; “Inferno” drew on Dante.

Roselle Park's Poet Laureate Leona M. Seufert scheduled for two readings in June Suburban News By Suburban News Roselle Park's Poet Laureate Leona M. Seufert will be reading at the Third Unity in Prayer Gathering on Sunday, June 3 and as part of the entertainment billing at the Church of the Assumption's St. Anthony's Italian Feast on Saturday, ...

Poetic novel proves the power of small publishers Victoria Times Colonist She moves seamlessly between poetry and prose in the pages of Leaving Now, writing with an obvious respect for language. By making the choice to incorporate as much poetry into the novel as she does, Paré limits the actual number of words that makes up ... and more »

Block Island Times

Poets rock the island Block Island Times By Judy Tierney | May 20, 2012 Photo by: Malcolm Greenaway World-class poets Coleman Barks (left) and Billy Collins (right) mugged with Island Bound owner Cindy Lasser and props from around her bookstore. “Does it get any better than this?

Daily Mail

RAISINA TATTLE: A poetry session Daily Mail By Raisina Tattle A discussion on minority rights in the Rajya Sabha last week lapsed into a poetry session. Union minister Salman Khurshid gave back as good as he got from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)'s Muslim face from Uttar Pradesh Mukhtar Abbas ...

Minneapolis Star Tribune

POETRY: "The Alphabet Not Unlike the World," by Katrina Vandenberg Minneapolis Star Tribune With the dominance of the personal lyric, much contemporary poetry feels like that moth: a moment frozen in time and sealed off from the world as if the poet is afraid they will get it wrong if they venture outside their own experience.

Scranton Times-Tribune

Wilkes remembers Scranton poet 800 receive degrees; daughter who lost battle ... Scranton Times-Tribune Ed and Anita Diskin, both 67, walked across the stage to receive a Master of Fine Arts in poetry for their daughter, Jennifer Diskin, also of Scranton, who died in December after a long battle with Hodgkin lymphoma. She was 38. and more »

TheChronicleHerald.ca

Poet marries precision, compassion TheChronicleHerald.ca Monica Kidd, a doctor based in St. John's, is a novelist, poet, journalist and filmmaker. (Anita MacPherson) The human skull gracing Monica Kidd's new book of poetry, Handfuls of Bone, reminds me of a Heather Spears story told at Dalhousie's medical ...