Skip to content
poets.ca circle logo black transparent

League of Canadian Poets

  • About
  • Programs & Services
  • Awards & Contests
  • Microgrants & Bursaries
  • Poetry Community
  • Join
  • Support the LCP
×
  • About
  • Programs & Services
  • Awards & Contests
  • Microgrants & Bursaries
  • Poetry Community
  • Join
  • Support the LCP

After Ada Limon’s “Instructions for Not Giving Up” by Kate Marshall Flaherty

By League of Canadian Poets | June 22, 2023
Poem title: After Ada Limon’s “Instructions for Not Giving Up” Poet name: Kate Marshall Flaherty Poem: Take just one small maple nose—off your car even, where the wipers smear it into yellow streaks. Don’t curse its sisters for their mess, don’t sweep them violently from the cement path, or rake them with rage from the front grass. No, pick just one green piece from the path, tenderly, as if picking up a baby bird, a piece of beach glass, a gemstone clapped free from its engagement ring. Pick it up with both fingers and place it gingerly in the palm. Look at it as if it wasn’t the mess it makes, or the work it wields, and rather reflect on how alike it is—witness and witness-er, green thing and greenhorn—see if you can leave behind the chores in your head that mark your messy relationship; see if you can consider its seed like a new thought that will turn work to wonder, tomorrow’s task to today’s green buds of now. End of poem. Credits and bio: Copyright © Kate Marshall Flaherty Previously published in Digging (Aeolus House, 2022). Kate just celebrated the launch of her latest poetry book, Titch, Piquante Press, in May, and Digging, Aeolus House last year. She’s recently been published in the Literary Review of Canada, Trinity Review, Vallum, Untethered and others. She guides StillPoint Poetry Writing and Editing Circles live and online, and writes spontaneous p.o.e.m.s (poems of the extraordinary moment) for charity and fun.
Posted in Poetry Pause
Support poets and poetry in Canada. Donate today.

Established in 1966, the League of Canadian Poets is a National Arts Service Organization dedicated to supporting poets, building poetic communities, supporting inclusive and equitable free expression, and promoting Canadian poets and poetry. 

Site Links

  • About
  • Programs & Services
  • Awards & Contests
  • Microgrants & Bursaries
  • Poetry Community
  • Join
  • Support the LCP
Member Hub

Get In Touch!

  • League of Canadian Poets
    C/O Centre for Social Innovation
    720 Bathurst St
    Toronto ON
    M5S 2R4
     

  • (416) 504-1657

  • [email protected]

  • The League of Canadian Poets operates remotely; in-person office hours are by appointment only. 

"Poetry means having the courage to forage the depthsof what makes & unmakes us."

–Adebe DeRango-Adem, Author of Vox Humana, 2023 Raymond Souster Award Winner

Donate Today
Poetry needs superheroes. A donation to the League of Canadian Poets supports poets and poetry from coast to coast.

The office of the League of Canadian Poets is situated in the land of Tkaronto which is the traditional territory of many nations including the Mississaugas of the Credit, the Anishnabeg, the Chippewa, the Haudenosaunee and the Wendat peoples and is now home to many diverse First Nations, Inuit and Métis peoples.

Footer-logos-resized-new

© 2023 League of Canadian Poets

GoDaddy Web Design
Scroll To Top