Tweetspeak Poetry

  • Home
  • FREE prompts
  • Earth Song
  • Every Day Poems—Subscribe! ✨
  • Teaching Tools
  • Books, Etc.
  • Patron Love

Poetic Voices: Sheila Squillante and Jessica Goodfellow

By Glynn Young 6 Comments

TSP Squillante Goodfellow

One thing poetry can do is present the common and familiar in completely new terms, clarifying or uncovering ideas or thoughts or insights that we didn’t see before or were not aware of. Both of our Poetic Voices poets featured today have done that in recently published collections.

Sheila Squillante’s Beautiful Nerve looks at the familiar and commonplace – a sparrow, a slant of light, the color green, a cookbook, bears – and essentially re-imagines them. They are still familiar, and yet, in Squillante’s hands, they had become something  different. An example is what she does with the concept of landscape – she puts a picture frame around it.

Beautiful NerveDivine Girl

Look at the landscape for a while—
it’s a matter of surrounding with a frame
a portion of your vision,

the dance on salt, the earth
flattered and wonderfully surprised.

Eyes shining, explore
the metaphoric potential in
to glide over, the mark with a slur.

Make up a secret about yourself.

Sheila Squillante

Sheila Squillante

Turning the natural into art interprets the artist (or poet) within that landscape, and within the space of a relatively few lines. Every poem in the collection has this effect, although some are longer than others (“Divine Girl” is one of the shortest).

Squillante is the author of three poetry chapbooks, serves as editor-in-chief of The Fourth River, and is an assistant professor of English at Chatham University in Pittsburgh, where she’s associate director of the MFA program in Creative Writing. In Beautiful Nerve, she’s created a collection of poems that is full of wonder and beautiful things.

In April, we noted The Insomniac’s Weather Report by Jessica Goodfellow, published last year. She has a new collection this year that’s even more engaging, Mendeleev’s Mandala. It’s about pilgrims, and time, and science, and self-improvement projects, among other things, with sharply defined images that grab your attention and hold it.

Here is one of the poems about time.

Mendeylevs MandalaA Metronome is the Opposite of Wind

Wind launches the laundry, shakes hands
with a scarecrow, shuffles rust-edged petals

of dogwood, hungry for anything hung,
dangled, crucified. Who do you—or maybe

Hoodoo you. She calls, passing. The wind is
a woman, we say, when a thing disappears;

a man, when a thing is demolished.
I’ve come to the field today to be

away from metronome, clock, and door—
instruments of opening and closing, doing,

undoing, redoing. The wind is no one’s
instrument; it opens and opens, which is why

it cannot stay. Once you made me a gift
of a metronome, saying, Without symmetry,

there’d be too much to desire. What your rule forgets
is the human heart’s four unequal chambers,

left of center. But its valves close and open,
its throbbing is even, metronome in give-and-take

with wind. Or vice versa. No one’s wholly satisfied,
or wholly dispossessed, in this elliptical ruin of breath.

Jessica Goodfellow

Jessica Goodfellow

The 12 poems that comprise the “time” section of the collection (section two) are particular favorites. Included in the 12 are poems about a candle clock, a sundial, an hourglass, the invention of the clock face, and even a list of words a blind man’s wife must no longer use (and, yes, it’s about time).

Goodfellow has published two previous collections and received a number of awards. She currently works at a university in Japan. She blogs at Axis of Abraxas: A Poetry Blog. Mendeleev’s Mandala is an intriguing collection. If it’s an indication of future work, we have some great poetry to look forward to.

Photo by Vlastimil Koutecky, Creative Commons, via Flickr. Post by Glynn Young, author of the novels Dancing Priest and A Light Shining, and Poetry at Work.

___________________________

How to Read a Poem by Tania Runyan “I require all our incoming poetry students—in the MFA I direct—to buy and read this book.”

—Jeanetta Calhoun Mish

How to Read a Poem: Based on the Billy Collins Poem “Introduction to Poetry” uses images like the mouse, the hive, the switch—to guide readers into new ways of understanding poems. Excellent teaching tool. Anthology included.

Buy How to Read a Poem Now!

  • Author
  • Recent Posts
Glynn Young
Glynn Young
Editor and Twitter-Party-Cool-Poem-Weaver at Tweetspeak Poetry
Glynn Young lives in St. Louis where he retired as the team leader for Online Strategy & Communications for a Fortune 500 company. Glynn writes poetry, short stories and fiction, and he loves to bike. He is the author of the Civil War romance Brookhaven, as well as Poetry at Work and the Dancing Priest Series. Find Glynn at Faith, Fiction, Friends.
Glynn Young
Latest posts by Glynn Young (see all)
  • Poets and Poems: Patricia Clark and “O Lucky Day” - May 27, 2025
  • Poets and Poems: L.L. Barkat and “Beyond the Glass” - May 22, 2025
  • A History of Children’s Stories: “The Haunted Wood” by Sam Leith - May 20, 2025

Filed Under: Blog, book reviews, Poems, Poetic Voices, poetry, poetry reviews, Poets

Try Every Day Poems...

Comments

  1. Mary Sayler says

    June 2, 2015 at 9:46 am

    Glynn, you’ve not only introduced us to two fine poets but have given readers insights into writing poetry! Thanks. I’ll highlight this on the Christian Poets & Writers blog – http://www.christianpoetsandwriters.com.

    Reply
    • Glynn says

      June 2, 2015 at 9:51 am

      Mary, thank you! I really enjoyed both collections.

      Reply
  2. Sandra Heska King says

    June 2, 2015 at 11:53 am

    My bank account is struggling to keep up with your recommendations, Glynn. 🙂

    Reply
    • Sandra Heska King says

      June 2, 2015 at 11:53 am

      Maybe I need to write a book to pay for my books. 😉

      Reply
      • Glynn says

        June 2, 2015 at 2:23 pm

        Sandra, that is a great idea. You could call it “How to Make Money Reading Books.” Thanks for reading, and the comments.

        Reply
        • Sandra Heska King says

          June 3, 2015 at 10:41 am

          Or “How to Lose Money But Find Yourself Reading Books.” 😉

          Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Take How to Read a Poem

Get the Introduction, the Billy Collins poem, and Chapter 1

get the sample now

Welcome to Tweetspeak

New to Tweetspeak Poetry? Start here, in The Mischief Café. You're a regular? Check out our May Menu

Patron Love

❤️

Welcome a little patron love, when you help keep the world poetic.

The Graphic Novel

"Stunning, heartbreaking, and relevant illustrations"

Callie Feyen, teacher

read a summary of The Yellow Wallpaper

meet The Yellow Wallpaper characters

How to Write Poetry

Your Comments

  • Collage: Unwrapping Gifts from the Quiet - Tweetspeak Poetry on Children’s Book Club: The Tale of Despereaux
  • Lucinda Berry Hill on Poetry Prompt: The Phoenix
  • 10 Ways to Help Your Favorite Introverted Author: 1,000 Words - Tweetspeak Poetry on The Joy of Poetry: As Much as She Could Carry
  • Donna Hilbert on Poets and Poems: L.L. Barkat and “Beyond the Glass”

Featured In

We're happy to have been featured in...

The Huffington Post

The Paris Review

The New York Observer

Tumblr Book News

Stay in Touch With Us

Categories

Learn to Write Form Poems

How to Write an Acrostic

How to Write a Ballad

How to Write a Catalog Poem

How to Write a Ghazal

How to Write a Haiku

How to Write an Ode

How to Write a Pantoum

How to Write a Rondeau

How to Write a Sestina

How to Write a Sonnet

How to Write a Villanelle

5 FREE POETRY PROMPTS

Get 5 FREE inbox poetry prompts from the popular book How to Write a Poem

Shakespeare Resources

Poetry Classroom: Sonnet 18

Common Core Picture Poems: Sonnet 73

Sonnet 104 Annotated

Sonnet 116 Annotated

Character Analysis: Romeo and Juliet

Character Analysis: Was Hamlet Sane or Insane?

Why Does Hamlet Wait to Kill the King?

10 Fun Shakespeare Resources

About Shakespeare: Poet and Playwright

Top 10 Shakespeare Sonnets

See all 154 Shakespeare sonnets in our Shakespeare Library!

Explore Work From Black Poets

About Us

  • • A Blessing for Writers
  • • Our Story
  • • Meet Our Team
  • • Literary Citizenship
  • • Poet Laura
  • • Poetry for Life: The 5 Vital Approaches
  • • T. S. Poetry Press – All Books
  • • Contact Us

Write With Us

  • • 5 FREE Poetry Prompts-Inbox Delivery
  • • 30 Days to Richer Writing Workshop
  • • Poetry Prompts
  • • Submissions
  • • The Write to Poetry

Read With Us

  • • All Our Books
  • • Book Club
  • • Every Day Poems—Subscribe! ✨
  • • Literacy Extras
  • • Poems to Listen By: Audio Series
  • • Poet-a-Day
  • • Poets and Poems
  • • 50 States Projects
  • • Charlotte Perkins Gilman Poems Library
  • • Edgar Allan Poe Poems Arts & Experience Library
  • • William Blake Poems Arts & Experience Library
  • • William Shakespeare Sonnet Library

Celebrate With Us

  • • Poem on Your Pillow Day
  • • Poetic Earth Month
  • • Poet in a Cupcake Day
  • • Poetry at Work Day
  • • Random Acts of Poetry Day
  • • Take Your Poet to School Week
  • • Take Your Poet to Work Day

Gift Ideas

  • • Every Day Poems
  • • Our Shop
  • • Everybody Loves a Book!

Connect

  • • Donate
  • • Blog Buttons
  • • By Heart
  • • Shop for Tweetspeak Fun Stuff

Copyright © 2025 Tweetspeak Poetry · FAQ, Disclosure & Privacy Policy