Thought for the Day

Time is a debt that will never be forgiven us.

~ Wes Matthews 

 

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Quoted from Wes Matthews, "Immortality," from Poem-a-Day, Academy of American Poets, June 13, 2025 (Text and audio can be found at the link.)

 

Wes Matthews, Poet and Essayst; Cave Canem Fellow; Youth Poet Laureate, Philadelphia, 2018-2019 

 

Wes Matthews on FaceBook 

 

Jeffrey Brown, "Mother and son who are both poets laureate work to inspire others," Arts & Culture "CANVAS" Series, PBS NewsHour, December 5, 2022 Arts & Culture "CANVAS" Series,

Thought for the Day

 

[. . .] to match the great things bestowed on you, you must

remind yourself that the blank page will always outnumber

the ones written. 

[. . .]

 

[. . .] Words weigh nothing, and yet they make

everything occur.

 

[. . .]

 

[. . .] To write is to fight against the erosion

and transformation of meaning always,

for better and for worse.

 

~ Ocean Vuong

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Quoted from Ocean Vuong, Keynote Speech, 2025 Whiting Awards Ceremony Note: Ocean Vuong's speech can be found at LitHub, June 4, 2025. Some Keynotes are published on the Whiting Foundation site.

 

Ocean Vuong, Vietnamese-American Poet, Novelist, Essayist; Professor; Photographer

 

Ocean Vuong Whiting Award (2016)

 

Whiting Foundation Whiting Awards

 

Thought for the Day

[. . .] When we experience harmful or destructive actions,

we aren't engaging some dangerous outside force; we are

meeting the shadow of our own humanity. [. . .]

~ Sherri Mitchell

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Quoted from Sherri Mitchell, "Facing Our Collective Shadow" (Week Twenty-Two Summary and Practice, Richard Rohr's Daily Meditations), Center for Action and Contemplation, May 31, 2025 (Online) Note: Mitchell's meditation is excerpted from her book Sacred Instructions: Indigenous Wisdom for Living Spirit-Based Change (North Atlantic Books, 2018), pp 38, 39.

 

Sherri Mitchell (Penobscot), Indigenous Rights Activist, Spiritual Teacher, Transformational Change-Maker, Author; Lawyer; Founding Director, Land Peace Foundation

Thought for the Day

Sharing our stories requires us to believe that we won't be

rejected for them–to believe that when we reveal our whole

selves, including the parts we aren't proud of, we won't be

seen as undeserving of acceptance or love.

~ Suleika Jaouad

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Quoted from Suleika Jaouad, "Fill the House with Light" in The Isolation Journals with Suleika Jaouad, May 25, 2025

 

Suleika Jaouad, Journalist, Author, Artist, Advocate, and Public Speaker

 

Jaouad's books are The Book of Alchemy:A Creative Practice for an Inspired Life (2025) and the memoir Between Two Kingdoms (2022); she also is the creator of the Isolation Journals newsletter. You can find on her Website some of her other writing, including her column for The New York Times and essays and reporting, as well as the trailer for a documentary, American Symphony, about Jaouad and her husband Jon Batiste.

Thought for the Day

[. . .] Imagination creates shared spaces.

 

That makes the arts very, very dangerous to authoritarians.[. . .]

~ Debra Cash

 

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Quoted from Debra Cash, "Arts Commentary: The Battle for Imagination — Unravelling America's Cultural Infrastructure" in The Arts Fuse, May 21, 2025 (Online)

 

Debra Cash, Founding Contributing Writer and Board Member The Arts Fuse; Arts Professional

 

Debra Cash on FaceBook 

The Arts Fuse

 

The Arts Fuse on Substack