The Mad Poet of the Year blog posts share the poetry of a long-time Mad Poet. This year-long appointment provides readers with a deep dive of the writer’s work and thoughts on poetry. We are thrilled to have Lisa DeVuono serve as the Mad Poet of the Year for 2024.
Full Moon
Decorating the garden
with lights
small but bold
I wish to avoid the inevitable
darkness that will be upon us
as we head to the shortest days of the year
This year when we had to choose
between loneliness and well-being
sitting solo in chairs made for the company of others
What is the process of hope?
to emerge from all the fearful hiding
tattered but intact
Darkness is a wakeup call
that when we work together
we have no reasons to fail
Still when I am done stringing
the luminescent globes
that will turn on at dusk, and fade by dawn
I make sure I whisper to the moon
“Please, do not think my lamp lighting
is an invitation to stop shining.”
Heading into wintertime, it’s always a mixed blessing. I’m not a big fan of cold dreary winter days and long for the warmth of summer but it does offer me the chance to hibernate and hope that slowing down might bring peace. While the camaraderie of the holidays serves as an opportunity to gather, it can also point out the loneliness of those who may not have family or friends.
I wrote this poem during the first year of the pandemic when we were still in the place of uncertainty about the virus, unclear about the treatment, and in grief about lost moments and loved ones.
I was stringing up some lights in the garden so that we could see them from our window, to cheer us on. It was a full moon that night and I imagined that I was negotiating with it. “Hey Moon…I’m trying to lighten my life and make things look hopeful even when I don’t feel hopeful so I may need your help to carry on” or something equally vulnerable.
For me, this is ultimately a poem about connection and reliance on others. It’s about the communities that we lost, and the ones that we were trying to hold onto.
I hope the lights in your life continue to shine and be a beacon for you when the darkness bears down and can be too much to handle.
Lisa DeVuono is the 2024 Poet Laureate of Montgomery County. She was one of the founders of It Ain’t Pretty, a women’s writing collective that performed locally. She produced multi-media shows incorporating song, music, poetry, and dance, including Rumi in Song at the Sedgwick Theater; and Whole Heart Home, and Breaking Open Breaking Free, part of the IceHouse Tonight series in Bethlehem.
She led creativity and poetry workshops and has worked with teens in recovery and cancer patients. She wrote a peer-based curriculum Poetry as a Tool for Recovery: An Easy-to-Use Guide in Eight Sessions for facilitators working with persons living with mental health challenges.
In addition to the full-length manuscript This Time Roots, Next Time Wings, her poetry has appeared in the Mad Poets Review, Paterson Literary Review and the anthology Grit Gravity & Grace: New Poems about Medicine and Healthcare. She is the author of the chapbook Poems from the Playground of Risk published by Pudding House Press and was the recipient of an honorable mention in Passaic County Community College’s annual Allen Ginsberg Contest.
Recently retired, she has worked as an administrator, librarian, and lay chaplain.