Christina Daub

@christinadaub

Poet Co-editor of the forthcoming poetry anthology, Turning Poetry into Food: A Collection of Poetry X Hunger poems Co-founded The Plum Review Taught poetry at George Washington U. Translates poetry from Spanish & German

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Christina Daub@christinadaub· 19d

The Past by Stephen Dunn from The Insistence of Beauty for #smallpoemsunday @tomsnarsky.bsky.social #poetry

The Past

Herrings begin to glow just after they die, never while alive. When I read this
I wanted to sit for a long time in the dark.
Nothing in nature is a metaphor.
Everything is. I thought both thoughts.
And knew inexactly why I felt sad.
Herrings dead and aglow—
I should have been properly amazed,
the way anyone looking at a star would be, realizing it was years away, untouchable.
Yet there it is, shining.

by Stephen Dunn
from The Insistence of Beauty
W.W. Norton, 2004

Christina Daub@christinadaub· 29d

Humbled & grateful to have read last night at one of America’s oldest free libraries, the Enoch Pratt Free Library hosted by the editor, Emily Holland of the oldest continuously published poetry-only journal in America, Poet Lore with finalists: Nnenna Aduaka, Christina Burgoyn & Carol Buell.

Answering a lot of questions! L to R: poets Emily Holland, Nnenna Aduaka, Christina Borgoyn, Carol Buell, & Christina Daub

Christina Daub@christinadaub· Jul 13

Honored to be reading my poem which won the 2026 at Enoch Pratt Library Prize, judged by Poet Lore Tuesday July 14, 6:30 PM. This will also be live streamed on YouTube at www.youtube.com/watch?v=yIIh... #poetry #Baltimore

Partial image of the Table of Contents in the current issue of Poet Lore featuring the title of my poem, “At Calvert Cliffs.”

Poster for the Enoch Pratt Poetry Prize reading on July 14 at 6:30 PM at the Enoch Pratt Free Library on Cathedral Avenue in Baltimore.

Christina Daub@christinadaub· Jun 28

Capital Love fest ruled today @thewriterscenter.bsky.social Here’s a poem by Jason Gebhardt from @wwph.bsky.social #poetry for #smallpoemsunday @tomsnarsky.bsky.social

DESCRIPTION OF A LOVE SONNET

Of all the love sonnets I've written
the whole Arabian Nights of them
the one thousand and second is unspeakable having finally captured the shimmering blue
of the peacock's feathers the true tenderness of an infant's grip my heart's entire holdings
so perfect it has no use for end rhyme
or pentameter l'd be summarily executed merely for reciting it but that's O.K.
when I listen close on the quietest nights silence
broken by a car's passing the branch scrape against the window breath these shadow lines that you are permitted to hear will suffice
to say have loved all that could be

by Jason Gebhardt from the anthology, Capital Love, WWPH, 2026

Christina Daub@christinadaub· Jun 25

Hunger Leadership Awards from the Congressional Hunger Center went to Chef Carla Hall, along with awardees Nancy Dalton, Tanner Roark, Chris Bernard & Alexis Bylander. Reps Bonamici and Fitzpatrick were also honored. Exciting to see all the interns fighting to end #hunger @poetryxhunger.bsky.social

Panel of hunger leadership awardees: Alexis Bylander, Chris Bernard, Tanner Roark and Nancy Dalton.

Some of the many Interns working to end hunger at last night’s Congressional Hunger Center’s leadership awards ceremony.

Christina Daub@christinadaub· Jun 23

🩷@wwph.bsky.social🩷 Check it out!

BIG celebration of the new anthology titled CAPITAL LOVE at the Writer’s Center in Bethesda, Maryland this Sunday from 10 AM to 6 PM.

Christina Daub@christinadaub· Jun 18

…it wears me… “Picture of a Soul” by Elizabeth Spires #poetry ~from her book “A Memory of the Future.”

Picture of a Soul

A shirt I was born in.
I wear it. Or it wears me.
White, of course.

A loose fit.
Growing as I grow
but slowly going dull.

It must be washed once,
twice, three times,
then hung to dry.

There, can you see it?
Hanging high
on the hill.

Waving its arms
in the wind. Beckoning.
Sun shining through.

by Elizabeth Spires

Christina Daub@christinadaub· Apr 27

Another Wendell Berry gem. #poetry #smallpoemsunday @tomsnarsky.bsky.social

Christina Daub@christinadaub· Apr 22

Gratitude! I won the Enoch Pratt Poetry Prize! My poem was chosen by the editor of Poet Lore and will be in their Winter/Spring issue. #poetry #poetrycommunity Thanks for the nudge to submit, @kelliagodon.bsky.social

Christina Daub@christinadaub· Apr 19

For every bullet, a redwood. by Kelly Grace Thomas #smallpoemsunday @tomsnarsky.bsky.social #poetry

Soft Discipline

Most days, I'm dumbstruck
by what humanity is capable of:
every miracle and massacre.
For every bullet, a redwood.
For every salted grief, a new joy
is born. It is a soft discipline,
trying to love this world—
even when it breaks your heart.
Even when it breaks.

~Kelly Grace Thomas

Christina Daub@christinadaub· Apr 12

Say goodnight to every part of my anatomy from “Insomnia” by @greggsha.bsky.social from his book Speaking in Italics, Souvenir Street Books, 2026 @danvera.com #smallpoemsunday #poetry @tomsnarsky.bsky.social

Insomnia

In bed, at night, on crisp, patterned sheets,
I dream of sleep. Eyes wide open, body tense as a wire. I count and recount all the sheep
in the yard. Say goodnight to every part
of my anatomy that I can name. I recall
the events of the day, swallow them as if
they were some kind of narcotic, sleeping

potion. Snippets of conversation play over
in my head; edited, polished, grammatically correct. But the words are no lullaby, only manage to keep sleep at bay. As a last-ditch effort, I try to fool sleep. Eyeballs rolled
up, rapidly moving behind eyelids that
snap open like window shades.

Christina Daub@christinadaub· Apr 5

“mostly rejoicing” Messenger by Mary Oliver #poetry

Christina Daub@christinadaub· Apr 1

Toward a future garden… #poetry by Tina Chang

Spring by Tina Chang

I said I was the vessel.

I said it to the sun.

I mentioned it to the snow

which made an appearance

last night, heavy and sorrowful

but fleeting. It stayed

long enough for me to dream

about it, long enough

for my footprint to leave

a legacy in frost as I walked

toward a future garden.

Christina Daub@christinadaub· Mar 29

With poets Nancy Naomi Carlson and Mojdeh Bahar after Mojdeh's extraordinary reading of her lyrical translations of Jila Mossaed's The Dusk of Exile: Poems of Longing and Light.

Christina Daub@christinadaub· Mar 28

“Did you know nothing dies?” from @kelliagodon.bsky.social beautiful new book, Accidental Devotions #poetry @coppercanyonpress.bsky.social

Everything Is Equal When You're Distorted by the Afterlife

When M told a poet, You are young and nothing is sacred,
we watched the smallest bloom on our seaside roses wilt./

It was a certain evening where nothing was happening.
It was a certain evening where strangers were building/

wildflower museums. We are old and everything is/sacred —the fireweed is thigh high and a friend is/

dying. Or the sunflowers are. All things echo with loss.
Everything is equal when you're devoted

to the afterlife. Did you know that nothing dies? is what/ my nephew told me, holding a dead moth he found

on a shelf in his room. He is young and everything is/ sacred. When he sees one of his chickens

has been killed by a weasel, he doesn't tell his mom because he hates to see the glitter of pain in her eyes.

There's a sweetness in the dying sunflowers. Promise/ me you won't tell my mom about the moth, it's part of her

name. When I ask him what he means he says, Mother.
She is more than powdered wings—a woman and son/

walking into the garden, her trust of blossoms, their/ dislike of fences, how everything in his eyes still blooms.

by Kelli Russell Agodon
From her book, Accidental Devotions, Copper Canyon Press, 2026.

This poem is written in couplets, but it was impossible to re-create exactly the line breaks due to the formatting here. I was not also able to indent to show a carryover line. Apologies.

Christina Daub@christinadaub· Mar 27

One of Emily Dickinson’s envelope poems #poetry from Christine Burgin/New Directions

Had
we
senses tho'
But
perhaps
well they're at
Home
So
intimate
Madness
He's
liable
Thats'
'Tis
Had within
oUr
'tis not
with
with them
the eyes
our
Head -s -
prudent
How
well
we
are
We
could
upon
Earth
that
Blind - not the
World
§ So
Utterly
Unmoved

Christina Daub@christinadaub· Mar 17

everything glowed/ with backstory from the poem Time Travel for Beginners by Ardon Shorr 2023 Rattle Poetry Prize winner #TwoPageTuesday #poetry @rattlepoetry.bsky.social

TIME TRAVEL FOR BEGINNERS
Every crumb of starlight sails
across the universe,

the journey of a million years
to end inside our eyes.

Except I was looking at you,
canvas coverall cinched at the waist,

as you undressed me with photons,
wrapped me in stories,

painted with x-rays,
until everything glowed

with backstory-the names of trees,
the name of an extinguished star,

still visible, ghost in the sky,
climbing a staircase of optic nerve

into an afterlife of sight.
Hand on my hand you pointed to the past:

the sun, an 8-minute time machine,
the moon, one second old,

and the incredible now,
unfolding like a cone,

megaphone of memory stretched to the sky and balanced on the tip was us,

a luminous shout
of life at the speed of light.

In a blink, this moment reaches the moon.
When we pack up the hammock, it floats

in the acid clouds of Venus.
Which means that somewhere, there is a spot,

past the gaps in Saturn's rings,
beyond the storms of Jupiter,

outside the curved embrace of the Milky Way,
at least one place in the universe,

where you could turn around and see us,
back when we were still in love.

Christina Daub@christinadaub· Mar 9

from Remembrance by Lauren Camp #smallpoemsunday @tomsnarsky.bsky.social #poetry

REMEMBRANCE
We must answer each question
with another question.

We must erase our first sorrow.

How shall we hope?
We must hope.

Do you remember the prayer we said bent over, the giving of body to ground?

We must shape ourselves
first to shadow and then to infinite, the wait of such hunger in every cell.

No matter the hours.
I'll tell you everything. I'll tell you the silence.

Poem by Lauren Camp from her book, 100
Hungers, Tupelo press, 2016

Christina Daub@christinadaub· Mar 8

Best AWP ever. Got to spend time with old friends and new. Went to some excellent panels and hiked the book fair trails several times. Read at @tupelopress.bsky.social 30/30 event at @greedyreads.bsky.social

I’m standing in front of the Shō Poetry Journal table holding up issue #4.

Reading off site at @greedyreads bookstore in Baltimore.

Pizza with poets Kelli Russell Agodon, Susan Rich and Saddiq Dzukogi. Note how we carefully guard the bag of poetry books.

Christina Daub@christinadaub· Mar 7

Had fun with @kelliagodon.bsky.social at her new book signing today at @coppercanyonpress.bsky.social “Accidental Devotions.” Here she is flanked by two Tinas! #AWP26 #poetry

Photo of three poet friends from left to right:
Tina Daub, Kelli Russell Agodon & Tina Kelley.

Christina Daub@christinadaub· Mar 1

…fighting to un-hear… Here’s Catch by @burgi.bsky.social for #smallpoemsunday @tomsnarsky.bsky.social

Christina Daub@christinadaub· Mar 1

Looking forward to being the guest poet of @burgi.bsky.social at her book launch today of her new poetry collection, White Door. She’ll be reading with Susan Scheid, who is also launching her new book,True Blue. Join us at @thewriterscenter.bsky.social at 2 pm. #poetry

The photograph is of the covers of two new books of poetry: True Blue by Susan Scheid, and White Door by Burgi Zenhaeusern.

Christina Daub@christinadaub· Feb 22

Another Unfortunate Choice by Wendy Cope #smallpoemsunday #poetry @tomsnarsky.bsky.social

Another Unfortunate Choice

I think I am in love with A.E. Houseman,
Which puts me in a worse-than-usual fix.
No woman ever stood a chance with Houseman
And he's been dead since 1936.

by Wendy Cope

Christina Daub@christinadaub· Feb 17

…little flakes of water… Snow Buntings by Mary Oliver #poetry

Christina Daub@christinadaub· Feb 15

Prayer in the shape of the wind rises. ~Pattiann Rogers #poetry #smallpoemsunday @tomsnarsky.bsky.social

A rustling shower passes, and now fiery suns
as small as seeds hang suspended on the point-tips of every spear of forest pine.

Galaxies,
I say, and a wraith appears, an actual apparition of bestowing beside me in the glittering forest.
I know it.

Prayer in the shape of the wind rises.
Galaxies fly, a rain of galaxies in motion,
a ringing
crescendo of light.

Who is it who makes music
with falling stars of water? Who is it who tunes the art of benevolence?

Is it burning water
that creates rainlight in falling pellets of sun?
Is it sunlight that creates the voice of galactic rains?

All of those deaf suns are singing in chorus
together: This is so.

The Word (Sun after Rain)
by Pattiann Rogers from her book, Quickening Fields,2017.

Christina Daub@christinadaub· Feb 13

The darkness lifts #poetry by Louise Glück

THE UNDERTAKING

The darkness lifts, imagine, in your lifetime.
There you are—cased in clean bark you drift through weaving rushes, fields flooded with cotton.
You are free. The river films with lilies,
shrubs appear, shoots thicken into palm.
And now
all fear gives way: the light
looks after you, you feel the waves goodwill as arms widen over the water; Love,

the key is turned. Extend yourself— it is the Nile, the sun is shining, everywhere you turn is luck.

by Louise Glück from her collection, The House on Marshland, 1971, The Ecco Press

Christina Daub@christinadaub· Feb 1

“As if I’d invited them” Here is a🐞of a poem for #smallpoemsunday @tomsnarsky.bsky With thanks to Silver Birch Press and their Bugs & Insects series #poetry #motherhood

July Orbit

by Christina Daub

Under the branch shawling
the top of the tomato plant:
ladybugs-spotted planets,
little Marses-wings
tucked in or half out,
chewing aphids—

a feast constellated
on the hairy stalk—
no breeze
to break the heat.

Here is some shade
to eat en famille,
I say, as if l'd invited them,
as if I'd strung the plant
with tight-skinned globes—
welcome lanterns
of greenish red—

a summer party
I'd been longing for—
my boys at home again.

Christina Daub@christinadaub· Jan 30

“…the sap of sweet danger ripening within” From Rilke’s Sonnet 23 of part 2 of the Sonnets to Orpheus, translated by Daniel Joseph Polikoff. #Rilke #poetry

Sonnet 23 from part two of the Sonnets to Orpheus by Rilke translated by Polikoff

Call me to that one amongst your hours
that resists you ever and again:
close as a dog's beseeching eyes
but always turning away just then

when you think you've finally grasped itso!
What's thus withdrawn is most your own.
We are free. We were let go
where we thought we'd first been greeted, and so less alone

Anxiously, we yearn for anchorage some sure hold,
we who are too young, sometimes, for what is old and too old
for what has never been.

We, just only then, when we praise despite being afraid,
for we, alas, are the branch and the iron axe-blade
and the sap of sweet danger ripening within.

Christina Daub@christinadaub· Jan 28

This Friday at the Austrian Embassy in DC: a special evening of Rilke’s #poetry with pianist Senka Brankovic and actor Helmut Mooshammer performing “The Lay of the Love and Death of Cornet Christoph Rilke” by Rainer Maria Rilke and Viktor Ullman. Free. DM for more info.

A photograph of the pianist and actor who will be performing on Friday night at the Austrian Embassy in Washington DC, the special composition by Victor Ullman on a piece written by the poet Rainer Maria Rilke. Jan 30, 7pm.

Christina Daub@christinadaub· Jan 25

To speak one word bright with attention. by Tom Andrews #smallpoemsunday @tomsnarsky.bsky.social #poetry