Yahrtzeit For My Daughter Sarah April 4, 2026 by Merle Heidi Molofsky
Today is the first Yahrzeit for my precious daughter Sarah, And I recited the mourner’s Kaddish for her. She died a year ago, a month before her 59th birthday. She knew she was dying, we knew she was dying, We celebrated her life with her at a gathering at her home. Celebrating her life was joyous, losing her was grievous.
Sarah, my precious child,
I knew you
in utero,
your elbows and knees,
a mix
of your kicks,
and treasured each,
cupping my hands
over your exuberant limbs
within me.
You were the youngest
of my three children,
and we cherished you
as you grew,
as you strived to be
like your sister and brother.
And though they babied you,
they loved to tease,
and you aimed to please.
You were the littlest one,
responsible and kind.
You walked your friend
to school, because he was timid,
and you didn’t mind,
because he needed you. Continue reading Poetry Monday: Merle Heidi Molofsky
Note from Arnold Richards, new editor of Poetry Monday: I am very sad to report that the poetry editor of International psychoanalytic blog, Irene Willis, has died. Irene Willis was a world class poet and for one year the poet laureate of New Jersey. She made a major contribution to this effort and she will be missed very much. We have decided to continue Poetry Monday and I will replace Irene Willis as the editor. We welcome contributions from other poets. Pease send any poems for consideration to Psypsa@aol.com
Below, in keeping with Irene’s Poetry Monday format, are three of Irene’s own poems:
Tornado Watch
I don’t mean to make light of this
but when the first warning came Continue reading Poetry Monday: Irene Willis
Click Here to Read: Edna St. Vincent Millay (February 22, 1892 – October 18, 1950):Lyric fire shaped into disciplined sonnets by Robert Goodman on his Spoken Word Substack on February 27, 2026.
Edna St. Vincent Millay Portrait (c. 1920). Image: Author Unknown. Public Domain via Wkimedia Commons
ClicK Here to Read: Audre Lorde (February 18, 1934 – November 17, 1992): Black, lesbian, mother, warrior, poet of liberation on the Robert Goodman for Spoken Word Poetry Substack on February 18, 2025.
Audre Lorde – American writer and feminist activist (1934–1992), Image: Elsa Dorfman (1937–2020) . Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons
Editor’s Note: Irene Willis, author of our Poetry Monday column for many years, died Jan. 3 of natural causes in Pittsfield, Massachusetts. She was 96.
She will be greatly missed and leaves us with many fond memories. Irene had been editing her latest book, Before We Had Pockets: Uncollected Poems and Essays, which IP Books plans to publish posthumously. Here is a selection from that book, as her final contribution to Poetry Monday:
Time’s A-Wastin’
All the names I know
All the ones I’ve met –
Could any ever serve
As harbingers of regret?
Or the unblemished sense
of time without end
before it rushed on without me?
Click Here to Read All Poetry Monday posts on this website,
Click Here to Purchase: And Another Thing: poems by Irene Willis
Click Here to Purchase: Allow Me: New and Selected Poems: 1975 to 2021 by Irene Willis
Click Here to Purchase: Green Dialogue: poems by Irene Willis
Click Here to Purchase: What They Bring: The Poetry of Migration and Immigration edited by Irene Willis and Jim Haba,
Click Here to Purchase: Rehearsal: Poems by Irene Willis
Click Here to Purchase: Climate of Opinion: Sigmund Freud in Poetry Edited and With an Introduction by Irene Willis.
