Hello! If you’re here because you enjoyed my contribution to the Baltimore Abortion Fund puzzle pack and are curious to see more; Welcome! Uh, most of my puzzles here are a lot harder and weirder than that one. But if that sounds daunting, well, remember that what’s important is that you’re having fun. Solve with a friend, google liberally, reveal a few tricky letters: it’s all good! It doesn’t mean you “lost” the puzzle or “cheated” or whatever. You’re doing great.
April is National Poetry Month, and while this is kind of a silly thing — back when I helped run a poetry reading series, we often took April off, in spite — but anyway, it’s a good excuse to build a puzzle around a few poets I love. And it’s a chance to try out a cluing voice that is really interested in how clues sound, and is not al all interested in the laconic cluing style that the newsprint era normalized. Nothing inherently wrong with short clues (cough), but that’s not all there is.
Annnnnyhoo. Enjoy the puzzle. Check out the poetry, if you don’t know it already. Links for further reading are below the puzzle. And thanks to Brooke and Will for test solving!