L.L. Barkat finds the joy in the everyday.
The first book I ever read by L.L. Barkat was Stone Crossings: Finding Grace in Hard and Hidden Places. I read it straight through, likely because I was reading it in a hard and hidden place. I had finished a group bike ride across about half of Missouri with an unexpected meeting with construction on a bridge. I thought I was shaken up but generally okay for the next three days, until I was in a work meeting and suddenly discovered I was having trouble breathing. I made it home, and my wife drove me to the Emergency Room. On the way out the door, I grabbed Stone Crossings, thinking I’d have something to do while waiting in ER.
By 1:30 a.m., I was in a hospital room after a diagnosis of four broken ribs and a partially collapsed lung. I couldn’t sleep, so I read the book. I will likely connect Stone Crossings with broken ribs for the rest of my life. My crossing wasn’t stone, but it was hard; the bridge was made of wood. And the impact was hidden for three days.
My bike trip and reading the book came a few short weeks after meeting Barkat on what was then called Twitter and an impromptu poetry jam that started one Saturday afternoon in June 2009. She organized the poetry jams that ultimately became Tweetspeak Poetry. A year later, I joined her on the editorial staff of The High Calling.
I write all of this because we have a good history. I’ve read all her books. I’ve read her poetry. She published two of my books, Poetry at Work and Brookhaven. I’ve read the books of her daughter Sara. And I am singularly incapable of writing a fair, unbiased, objective review of L.L.’s new poetry collection, The Book of Joy: 100 Poems for Your Heart.
Just so you know.
Just like she found grace in hard and hidden places, she finds joy in the small and simple things of the everyday. Things like the rain, an avocado, tea (don’t get her going on tea, herbal or commercial). There’s a poem about laundry. Yes, laundry. And plants, like purple oxalis, cala lilies, wineberries, violets, English ivy, itea, and sunflowers (and don’t forget the old herb garden). Times of the day and times of the year. Holidays. Writing and poetry. I did a double take when I saw one about a compost pile. And then I read it, and I understood. It’s not about a compost pile; it’s a memory.
And this one. This one stopped me cold. I was dazzled.
Afternoon Walk
I happen upon
an adorable “snow mushroom”
crafted by sun and wind
in my neighbor’s yard.
Further on, an ice chandelier
hiding beneath the hedge
with the crimson berries.
And, everywhere, the joy
of so much diamond dust
scattered across thick blankets
of brilliant white.
I’ve seen “diamond dust” like that, one winter near Gaylord, Michigan, while I was with two petroleum engineers who patrolled pipelines in winter – by snowmobile. Yes, that diamond dust just dazzled.
Barkat structures her poems simply, and I suspect it’s because the joys she’s describing are simple ones. She didn’t need large, elaborate piles of words to describe joy in any of its manifestations. She needed simplicity and plain English, and that’s how she wrote.
poet L.L. Barkat
Barkat’s official title at Tweetspeak Poetry is managing editor. Those of us who work with her know it’s really Poetry Queen, with Tea. She’s also the publisher of T.S. Poetry Press and the author of several poetry collections and memoirs. Her poems have been published by VQR (Virginia Quarterly Review), Best American Poetry, My French Life, and many other literary journals and publications. Of all her titles and accomplishments, the one she’s likely most proud of is mother to two extraordinarily talented daughters (they figure in The Book of Joy, too.)
I was able to finish reading The Book of Joy with no broken ribs and my lungs intact. These 100 poems about joy elicited smiles, laughs, understanding nods, and a host of personal memories (there’s one about the troll on the bridge, and I nearly jumped up and yelled, “Yes! My mother read me that story!”). That’s what poems about joy should do, and these poems do it so effortlessly that you know how much hard work was poured into them.
Photo by Theo Crazzolara, Creative Commons, via Flickr. Post by Glynn Young.
Browse more book reviews
How to Read a Poem uses images like the mouse, the hive, the switch (from the Billy Collins poem)—to guide readers into new ways of understanding poems. Anthology included.
“I require all our incoming poetry students—in the MFA I direct—to buy and read this book.”
—Jeanetta Calhoun Mish
- “The Book of Joy: 100 Poems for Your Heart” by L.L. Barkat - October 27, 2026
- Poets and Poems: Betsy Mars and “Rue Obscure” - October 22, 2026
- Poets and Poems: Kortney Garrison and “The Fixed Hours” - October 20, 2026
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