Regardless of whether a poem is written with multilayered meaning or simply relates an aspect of real life, I hold poets in very high esteem because I can appreciate, after many failed attempts, just how hard it can be to write a really good poem.

That’s why I’m so delighted to have Esme Devault on The Epic Pencil this week as my guest. Esme is an attorney and poet living in Rhode Island with her husband, son, and dog Charlie. She was previously an English teacher and an academic reference librarian. She’s had poems published in Motherscope, Jonah Magazine, The Big Windows Review, and forthcoming in Inkling Literary Magazine and Kissing Dynamite: A Journal of Poetry.