The Best of Kindness Anthology

One of my poems is published in a new anthology titled The Best of Kindness 2020. It’s a collection of poems written about Kindness from the Origami Poems Project’s summer 2020 poetry contest.

Cover art by Lauri Burke.

The poems fall into the following categories: Compassion, Constancy, Gratitude, Adversity, Our Muted Brethren and Perspectives. My poem was a finalist. Here’s the verse:

Class Photo

Seeing every person
As a 12-year-old child
Taking a school photo
Eliminates any animosity
You may have for that person.
When you imagine
The awkward kid squinting
At the camera lens—
You discover yourself
Staring back at you.

My sixth-grade class photo.

 

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A Random Act of Kindness

When I headed to my office Thursday morning to go to work, I noticed several small envelopes scattered throughout the Food.com cafeteria area inside the Newhouse Three building. All of the cards read something like, “Open Me! A letter for you.”

No one was around and so I decided to open one. I found a card inside that had a gold design with word “Wassssssup?” written on the front. Inside, this greeting appeared, written with a blue marker:

“never
give up, there
is no such thing
as an ending
just a new
beginning.

Keep smiling!”

A small slip of paper tucked inside the card listed the social media accounts of Campus Cursive at Syracuse University, the SU branch of the national More Love Letters program, “lifting and empowering individuals through tangible acts of love.”

Here is more information about More Love Letters.

The idea of anonymous letters given to strangers is so appealing to me. Someone I’ve never met actually took the time to purchase a card, write a warm greeting, stuff the card in the envelope and then place it in a location where it would be discovered.

I loved the feel of the heavy paper and the handwritten words on the page, and this random, tangible act of kindness is so much more meaningful than a Facebook “like” or a text message. It demonstrates the positive impact of real human connection, and I am happy to know that a bunch of merry well-wishers are spreading joy and love in the universe. No doubt our world needs it!

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