Heartwork with Dale Biron–Poems For Heart and Soul
Episodes
You Must Change Your Life (Now)
10 Apr 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Did the renowned poet Rilke realize by the time he passed away in 1926 that one of his famous poems would be recited a century later and would serve a...
No Kings Means Sniffing Out Tyrants...
03 Apr 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Reclaiming our sanity with humor...
Is Poetry Right For You? (A Self-Guided Test)
27 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
There need not be an exact fit here, with this self-guided poetry test. A partial one will do. The main thing I look for, is what I call poetry’s sm...
When We Were Wolves
20 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Imagine transforming into a wolf for a year, not forever. Your life would become exhilarating yet perilous. Would you endure? And if you did, how migh...
The Market For Love Is A Loser
13 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Not every human need is served by markets and market efficiency. Take love for example...
Honoring A Dear Friend's Passing
06 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
How do you honor the passing of a dear friend, a friend of many years? If you’re a lover of poetry, you’ll likely find a poem that captures the mo...
In the House of Our Blessed Overwhelm
27 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Maybe we ought not fight our overwhelm. At least not so hard. Perhaps it is better to flow with it, ride it, simply let it be. This week’s poem says...
Eight Ways To Sneak Up On Truth (The Poem)
20 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
No not truth with a capital "T" which words can never capture. Rather words that point toward the truth and help us find it more easily. Wor...
How The World Works (To Remind Myself)
13 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Bad Bunny was right about the power of love over hate. But how do we bring that wisdom into our own daily lives? How can we do our own heart work, bri...
Can We Speak Our Truth?
06 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
What Is True Is Already So So Might As Well Speak ItMy heart is a small quivering hand,planting seeds in the dead of winter. My days are an old dog,...
How I Feel About Politics in America These Days...
30 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
How I Feel About Politics in America These Days…OK, I’ll tell you how I feel.I feel as frustrated as Sisyphus carrying that boulder.I feel a fear...
Political Frustration, Fear, and Fatigue
23 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
It’s 2026, and a friend asks how you’re doing with politics these days. You just shake your head, thinking, “Well, maybe, as the poet Wendell Be...
Are You Laboring In Obscurity?
16 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Obscurity is not freedom. Freedom is also no being a slave to attention or fashion. Mostly, freedom is freedom...Laboring In Obscurity In some circl...
The Patient Enemy
09 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
This poem invites us to imagine a different kind of enemy—one that doesn’t oppose or hate us, doesn’t rush us, and doesn’t need to negotiate. ...
The Practice of Just Being
02 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
There’s a strange moment when trying harder actually makes everything worse—and most of us don’t realize we’re in it. What happens when we sto...
A Poet's Stunning Question
26 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Keep this poem for quiet moments of wonder and awe...
QUICK POETRY TAKE: A Beutiful Poem of Healing
20 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
This deceptively brief poem, “Kind” by Leonard Nathan, holds immense depth and healing power.
A Deep Honoring Of Your Dearest Friends
19 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Close friends reveal new worlds within us—more creative, wise, and kind versions of ourselves that might never exist without them. Express your deep...
Thinking Like A Mountain
12 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
One of the most powerful and poetic essays I've ever read. Featured this week, "Thinking Like A Mountain" by Also Leopold. Bukle up i...
3 Things Great Poems Share
05 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Every great poem has many things... It must have these three... Music. Magic. Meaning.
This Poem Will Move You
28 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Poems are not mechanical things. Their math is a math of the heart. However, some poems are built in such a way that they are very likely to move peop...
A Poem You Can Trust
21 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Why trust this poem? It's grounded, honest, humble, no posturing. It's a poem that honors what is true and difficult, yet offers real, simpl...
How Not To Struggle So Much In Dark Times
14 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
How Not To Struggle So Much In Dark TimesFriends, we’re just trying to understand, as one, as many, as Earth.To hold things a little more lightly. S...
"Blessings For A New Leader" For Zohran Mamdani
07 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Here’s a poem for Zohran Mamdani. It’s not about traditional politics, billionaires, or big money. Especially, not about billionaires. It's n...
Poem Inspired by Zohran Mamdani
31 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Zohran Mamdani is modeling a possible future in American politics, that is more wise, just, and affordable. In short, a pro-social vision. A future ce...
When God Speaks Poetically
24 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Listen, if you’ve been waiting for special permission, here it is. If you have longed for your political perspectives to be officially declared, “...
Your Life And Art Are Not Different
17 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Your life cannot be separated from all else, including art and all life for that matter. In this way, each of us is being called to more and deeper co...
Hospice This Dying Story
10 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Stories age out. Their prescribed rituals grow demented and destructive. Stories become untethered from reality, serving no one, including the Earth a...
Poetry, Beauty, And Your Peace of Mind
03 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The 85%/15% Rule Of Effective Citizen Action. It says to marinate your mind and heart in 85% beauty, art, nature, and nurturing relationships to infor...
Euphemism Is A Euphemism For Lying
26 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
"Sorry, but when we said settlement, what we really meant was stolen..."
How Not To Panic In The Storm
19 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
PATHMAKER THERE IS NO PATH WE MAKE THE PATH BY WALKING… –Antonio Machado / Robert Bly Translation
Advice For The Highly Critical (Self and Others)
12 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The practice of unrestrained, uber-criticism towards ourselves and others is almost never helpful. Very often, we are well-oiled machines of criticism...
Interupting Our Increasingly Domesticated Minds
04 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Our minds are increasingly becoming domesticated, taken over by prescribed strategies, markets, algorithms, clocks, bureaucracies, and conformity. Of ...
Rewilding The Human Mind (New Course at Fromm Institute)
29 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
There’s been a palace coup. For fifty years, our logical, linear, analytical selves have been in charge. It’s not wrong or bad in and of itself. A...
ARGUE WITH POEMS NOT PEOPLE
15 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
I say argue with poems not people. First of all, you’ve got to get clear about how you actually think and feel before you go blathering away at othe...
Make This Poem Your Own
08 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
A good poem invites you to walk inside and have your own experience. It becomes a room to wander, feel, and carry with you. Savor that gift—and pass...
Savor The Surprise (To Feel More Fully Alive)
01 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The last few lines are often where poems bloom or detonate. Slow down. Let them land. Even the poet, maybe especially the poet, must be surprised.
Honor The Heartlines (To Feel More Fully Alive)
25 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
These are the lines that shimmer with more-than-words, inviting you to stop, feel, and be changed. Not every poem has a heartline—but the ones that ...
Pause For Poetry Power... The Secret Silence
18 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Silence speaks volumes—before, between, and after words and lines. Listen carefully to what poems don't say, as much as what they do. Sometimes...
How To Read A Poem For Joy, Healing, Delight
11 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Don’t Perform – Speak The Poem… Let the poem live and breathe through you.Speak as if sharing something private and true, not putting on a show.
The Courage Needed To Begin Again
04 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Despair is that feeling of "ending" full stop. As if nothing can, or will ever change again. Cahnge can, and will happen. No feeling is fina...
The First Poem Ever Spoken
16 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Stay tuned for a new format and new episodes beginning July 4, 2025. In the meantime, I'll be giving talks and teaching at The Fromm Institute. M...
A Deliciously Subversive Poem For Our Times
09 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
This poem is wonderfully subversive when it comes to exposing the biggest lie reinforced by our cultural stories...
If A Poem Does Not Move You... Move On!
02 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
A good poem will interest, excite, and move you. You don’t need to “try” to like a good poem. So if a poem does not move you… move on! There i...
A POEM TO HELP BUILD YOUR GRATEFULNESS MUSCLE?
25 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
A greatefulness practice can transform your life. But what happens when feeling grateful seems difficult, or even impossible? Here's a story and ...
Change Your Mind Change Your Mood
18 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Some poems are so good... they can give us a kind of fresh start. Deliver gifts for the head and heart. Help us change our minds and moods...
The Trouble With Heroes
11 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
"Heroes are all about straightening things out.The courageous love the curves as much as the straights..."–Dale Biron
Why Hope 1.0 Is Dying
04 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
That old kind of hope, "hope 1.0" is no longer up to the task. It is being replaced, and not a second too soon...
A "Break Glass" Emergency Poem
28 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Use this poem to regain your center, agency, and way... even in these most difficult times!
A Brief Meditation On These Dark Times
21 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
"Friends, we’re trying to understand, as one, as many, as Mother Earth.And it can be as daunting as catching smoke with our bare hands."–...
Asking Me To "Stand With The Dems"
14 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Asking Me To "Stand With The Dems"You keep asking for more money, and for me to “stand with the Dems.” I’ll stand with the Dems when t...
We Are Helpless Mapmakers...
07 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
We are helpless mapmakers. We can’t stop drawing lines, creating meaning, and shaping stories to explain the world around us. It’s how we navigate...
When Life Overwhelms Us And We Need A Reset
06 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
If we look inside ourselves, each of us has places in our lives of brokenness, sorrow, and grief. Places that have strung us out to dry... What then? ...
What If Our Pricey Eggs Could Talk?
21 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Can a humorous poem make serious points? Yes. Poems can help us make sense of the world. Poems can help us ask new, sometimes uncomfortable questions....
How To Be Less Fearful (to remind myself)
14 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
How To Be Less Fearful (to remind myself) "What if we, are the only Calvary that’s actually coming?What if the kindness we seek, we must bring...
The Aikido Of Poetry... Finding Sanity In The Chaos
07 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Finding moments of sanity, refuge, and even joy, is more critical than ever. This week's special poem is a potent reminder of this...
99% Of People Love This Poem
31 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Listen to one of the most popular poems, from one of the most popular poets in the last 100 years...
The Great Gods of Permission
24 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
"There is no requirement to read, or hear, or write anything! But why not? If I were empowered by The Great Godsof Permission, I would provide...
The Great Los Angeles Fires
17 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Of all the things poems can do, one of them is to help us work with catastrophic loss, to grieve and make sense of the senseless...
I've Never Had A Favorite Song!
10 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
We would be shocked and eventually saddened to hear someone say this to us. Everyone has a favorite song, right? Of course, they do! But today, let&ap...
Keeping It Real... With Poetry
03 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
How can we weave more beauty and meaning into our lives in 2025, in the face of so many profound challenges and difficulties?
A Beautiful Baffled Mind
27 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Thanks so much to each of you who have been on this poetry-based journey during 2024. In case you're in need of a collection of essays that hitch...
This Beauty Inside The House of Injustice
20 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
"The world is not made of atoms but of stories," said poet Muriel Rukeyser. This means good, beautiful, pro-social stories (which are often ...
The West Was Never Won
13 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Perhaps we need to be a bit more humble, more careful, before we declare that we've won or lost. In this cast, the west. Turns out winning and lo...
What Is Your True Story?
06 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Your true story is important. I don’t know its contents and contours, but I’m certain it exists. It reflects the world, and your uniquely entangle...
At The Heart of Politics
29 Nov 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Let's start a small, but significant political revolution with poetry. When someone asks you for your money and support, first give your heartfel...
Declaration To Mother Earth & Your Own Heart
22 Nov 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Write your own special declaration to Mother Earth and to the sanctity of your own interior self, meaning your heart and imagination...
An Exhausted, Down and Dirty, Bruised Hope
15 Nov 2024
Contributed by Lukas
For all those who are hurting, upset, and dismayed after the election...
I Am Tired, Even of Hope
08 Nov 2024
Contributed by Lukas
A Paradox After the ElectionIt is 7:27 PM, Wednesday, November 6th, and I am tired, even of hope.Or maybe it is hope, that’s grown old, and now help...
Trust In A Time of Profound Mistrust
01 Nov 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Could it be we do not trust some things that we should, and do trust other things that we should not?
"It's Them!" The Demagogue's Dangerous Cry
25 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
To scapegoat. To play fast and loose with the truth and especially with blame. To add insult to injury. To ignore any and all logical and systemic con...
There’s Wisdom In Feeling More Fully
18 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
To "know about" something is largely an intelectual endevor. It's helpful, but incomplete. To actually "know" something deep ...
The Secret To Reinventing Yourself
11 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The world is made of stories. You are a story. Everyone you know and love is a story. Let's not accept stories about ourselves, others, or the wo...
Does Mother Earth Need A Restraining Order?
04 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Does Mother Earth need a restraining order? This is one of several questions we tackle in this edition of the Dale Biron On Poetry Podcast. We also wa...
Your Mishaps, Mistakes & Misfortunes
27 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Once you've extracted as much learning as you can from your past mishaps, mistakes, and misfortunes, it’s best to simply let it all go…
Finding Courage In Difficult Times
20 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Courage is to "know" our heart, and to "follow" it. In times of great turmoil and difficulty, it becomes even more important to do...
The Universal Club of Kindness
13 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Once we are part of this mysterious, unfathomable, undefinable, condition we call life, we are in (and within) the universal club of kindness.
Righteous Anger
06 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Can a poem explain the power of anger? Yes, the right poem, and the right kind of anger... Righteous anger.
When Your Soul Needs Nature
30 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
There will be times when you can place your body into the natural world, to walk, see, feel, hear and touch. And there will be times when you can’t....
Can A Critter Help Cure Our Sadness
23 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Might there be a poem equal to a cat video? Can a critter help cure our sadness, even our subtle but irreversible sadness?
The Secret To Reading Poems Out Loud
16 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Here's how to read poems for optimum inspiration, joy, and impact. (Relax. Renew. Repeat...)
Decolonizing Our Minds (and Hearts)
09 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
War is necessary, needed, and natural… Wait, is this actually so? Powerful poems can help us push up against our cultural beliefs and expectations, ...
Giving Up Your Worst Grudge
02 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Our worst grudge is the one we hold, often unwittingly, against ourselves. It's the one that does the greatest damage. Time for forgiveness...
A Poem Encouraging Peace of Mind
26 Jul 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Sometimes increasing our peace of mind becomes our highest priority. This poem may help...
Traveling Through This Darkness
19 Jul 2024
Contributed by Lukas
How might a poem help us with difficult decisions in these dark times?
“With Fear for our Democracy, I Dissent"
05 Jul 2024
Contributed by Lukas
A simple poem about a beautiful, flawed, and precious thing...
How Humans Change… A Pickle Juice Story
28 Jun 2024
Contributed by Lukas
New stories, powerful metaphors, and compelling images, are arriving now daily. And not a moment too soon, because the old narratives have lost virtua...
We Are Each Other's Changes
21 Jun 2024
Contributed by Lukas
We are social beings. We make, consume and live by the stories we share with others. Stories that help us see and feel, think and navigate the world a...
You Can't Get There From Here
14 Jun 2024
Contributed by Lukas
As the extraordinary teacher and public intellectual, Bayo Akomolafe once put it, “The times are urgent: Let’s slow down...” In this episode we ...
Good Friendship... Plain and Simple
07 Jun 2024
Contributed by Lukas
If we really want to have greater "agency" in this world (and at the same time, joy) we're going to need our dear friends by our side. ...
Intro For My New Fall 2024 Course at The Fromm Institute San Francisco, CA
31 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Resistance, Resilience, Renewal: Poetry’s Power in Turbulent Times... In this course, we’ll take a journey through the tumultuous landscapes of c...
Stingy With Our Happiness
24 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
"Look. The poppies they are at it againexploding on thehills with their deepyellow flames and / supple hearts..."Excerpt from "Sun Tra...
No One Chooses To Love Poetry
17 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
If you actually love poetry, it’s not because you chose to do so in any traditional sense. We choose poetry because something mysterious and deep in...
Honoring Both Pain and Joy
10 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Some mornings, despite the catastrophes, we wake up shining...
Ode To A Hungry Raccoon
03 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
If you want to simultaneous enjoy your life, have better relationships, and get more things done, then you'll need to spend more time in your per...
What Is Your Deeper Why?
26 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
We all want to fulfill the "why" of our lives. Therefore, how we "pickle" ourselves matters. Or said another way, the "contex...
In Defense of Unsuccessful Art
19 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The simple, basic, foundational fact we must understand to be successful in any creative (especially artistic) endeavor...
Our Beautiful, Battered, Broken World
12 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
When we create stories about human nature, based upon observing traumatized humans, we get a picture that is both predictable and wrong. –Musings of...
The More Than Human World
05 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
A Post-Humanist world would be one that fully embraced a "more than human world..." This week's episode continues to explore this theme...
A New PostHumanist Manifesto
29 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
"...We must un-humanize our view of the world just a little,make being of service, as needed and as sacred as sunlight.Invite both head and heart...