The Academy of American Poets published my essay “Slapped in the Face by Walls” this week. In this piece I am talking about the Lifelines Poetry Project and what it means to me, but the highlights of the essay are the snippets of poems that have been given to me over the past year. It was so moving to go through my papers and to reread the work that I have been given. With many of the poems, I can see the face of the person who wrote it. So take a look at the essay for the poetry if nothing else.