~ ONE ART’s Top 10 Most-Read Poets of April 2026 ~
Tag: Kelli Russell Agodon
Poem to the Future by Kelli Russell Agodon
Poem to the Future
Future, if you stop by, I promise to open the door.
I know sometimes you arrive in combat boots,
laces braided with bombs and drones, even the way
you cuff your jeans feels like a subtle threat. Future,
if you come inside, I’ll offer you jasmine tea, but know
I have champagne chilling in the fridge as I keep hoping
we’ll get to celebrate you. And my neighbor will come by
with tortilla soup. She makes a hell of a martini. Maybe
we’ll get you a little tipsy so you can calm the fuck down.
Wait, sorry—that’s my anxiety, Future, you don’t even exist
yet, like one of those midnight panics that wakes me when
I’m certain the world has ended (has it ended?) Future,
I promise to treat you well. I’ll show you the faith I had
last fall when I planted daffodils, those van Gogh tulips
I ordered in a frenzy of hope. Future, I believe in spring.
I believe in you too. Come in—but take your shoes off,
leave the dirty parts in the mudroom. I keep telling
everyone you’re coming. Don’t make me a liar.
Sit with me. Show me how we survived this.
*
Kelli Russell Agodon’s most recent book is Accidental Devotions (Copper Canyon Press, 2026). She is the author of five poetry collections. Her work has received numerous honors, including the Dorothy Rosenberg Poetry Prize, a Poetry Society of America Prize, the Foreword INDIES Book of the Year Award in Poetry, and three Washington State Book Award finalist selections. She is the cofounder of Two Sylvias Press, teaches in Pacific Lutheran University’s Rainier Writing Workshop MFA program, and cohosts the poetry series Poems You Need with Melissa Studdard. She lives in a sleepy seaside town in Washington State. www.agodon.com
ONE ART’s Top 10 Most-Read Poets of June 2025
~ ONE ART’s Top 10 Most-Read Poets of June 2025 ~
Two Poems by Kelli Russell Agodon
*
Even the Rain Has a Side Hustle
Every tenth piece of wood on the woodpile
holds a spider. A miracle beetle or bitsy ants.
It’s first light, and robins have their coffeetalk
in a fir tree that looks exhausted. Without
one cloud in the sky, the sun decides
if it’s going to rise—you don’t believe
the rising is certain, right? The sun wakes
each day and then chooses to go to work.
There is a chipmunk that shrieks its demands
at 6:30 a.m. every morning. First shift.
A banana slug slogs across the bumpy path
—an hour later, it’s arrived to the corporation
of grass. The hummingbirds have been whirring
for hours, over the blossoms of poppies, who
finally raise their heads like sleepy rich girls
with nowhere to go.
*
Kelli Russell Agodon is a bi/queer poet from the Seattle area. Her book Accidental Devotions will be published by Copper Canyon Press in 2026. Her previous collection, Dialogues with Rising Tides, was a finalist for the Washington State Book Awards. Kelli is the cofounder of Two Sylvias Press and teaches in Pacific Lutheran University’s low-res MFA program, the Rainier Writing Workshop. She is also the cohost of the poetry series Poems You Need with Melissa Studdard.
www.agodon.com / www.twosylviaspress.com / www.youtube.com/@PoemsYouNeed
Two Poems by Kelli Russell Agodon
Spell to Find Meaning in Life
Stand on a cliff
until a redtail hawk mistakes you
as a friend, but don’t look down.
Trust the sense of heaven
even if you don’t
believe in heaven.
You may die skinny
dipping in the Mediterranean
or be hit in the head
by a loose screw sailing to earth
from above. You might drop dead
doing yoga. Done. Whatever
way, your future corpse awaits you.
Smile at the idea of your skull outside
your skin. Your bones like drumsticks
banging on a tympany. I saw a sweatshirt
that read, I just want my funeral
to sell out—to be that loved.
You are actually standing
on the cliff right now. Look down,
look down, look around.
*
Where I’m from: GenX Version
after George Ella Lyon
I am from a folded note from a friend
passed beneath desks, evenings of talking
on a rotary phone. I am from eating
butter out of the container and always wanting
the cookies to be raw. I am from a paint-by-
number Last Supper in the hallway and
a Harvey Wallbanger god. From sitting
on the mustard-colored couch waiting
for love to drive by. I am from a mercury-
in-the-sink-broken-thermometer childhood,
watching Lawrence Welk with my Nana
while she knits everyone a scarf. I am
from payphones on the sunny side of a road
and the downpour of a neighborhood,
from kickball in the cul-de-sac until 10 pm
and no streetlights except the moon. I am from
children with no curfew, from go-out-and-play,
and popsicles cure split lips. I am from melting
crayons on the sidewalk for fun, ice cream truck
afternoons, skateboard down a hill, banana
bike with a basket and no one in a helmet.
I’m from scarred legs and burying the dead
rabbit we found by the creek of waterbugs.
I am the love letter of a generation who
had parents but weren’t parented, I am
the song who learned who to write herself.
*
Kelli Russell Agodon is a bi/queer poet from the Seattle area. Her book Accidental Devotions will be published by Copper Canyon Press in 2026. Her previous collection, Dialogues with Rising Tides, was a finalist for the Washington State Book Awards. Kelli is the cofounder of Two Sylvias Press and teaches in Pacific Lutheran University’s low-res MFA program, the Rainier Writing Workshop. She is also the cohost of the poetry series Poems You Need with Melissa Studdard.
www.agodon.com / www.twosylviaspress.com / www.youtube.com/@PoemsYouNeed