Looking up lightens

a poem by Nicole Zwolinski + interview + podcast

Gather Poets and Coley

Feb 27, 2026

Bold, gutsy poetry straight to your inbox every Friday morning.

We’re open for submissions right now!

Nicole Zwolinski ( Coley )is the author of the forthcoming poetry collection, Motherhead. This is her first full-length book, and it will be published in summer 2026 by Finishing Line Press. She has been published in the Feminine Collective, Firewords Quarterly, Alternate Routes, Effemera, the first Gather anthology and more. Nicole is an alumna of the Tupelo Press 30/30 Project. She was shortlisted for the Central Avenue Poetry prize and will have two poems featured in their 2026 anthology.

Maria: Nicole! This poem feels almost entirely made of looking. What kind of attention were you practicing when you wrote it? There’s also a strong contrast between “a peaceful escape” and “the chaos below.” How much of that chaos did you intentionally leave off the page?

Nicole: My grandma was getting closer to dying and the world and all the noise in it was feeling so big and so stressful at the moment. Dying can be such a long torturous descent. I was walking on a path near my house and looking up felt like a release of all that stress. I definitely did not want any chaos on the page. It was just one of those moments like at a funeral and you are like how is everyone just going on with life and in this poem, I wanted to focus on simplistic, natural beauty, and escape reality for a moment.

Maria: How important was sound to you—the softness of palm, pine, marble, blue—in shaping the poem’s mood?

Nicole: I love alliteration so that was a definite contributing factor in shaping the poem. But this is also one of the first poems where I explore writing a moment in time versus creating a world inspired by an image or a feeling. This is a new way of writing for me. I have been inspired by Elise Powers and her exploration of ordinary moments. I was on a walk and observing the way the treeline meets the sky. This has become one of my favorite things about Florida. The blue of the sky being scraped by the green trees.

Maria: Poets often talk about poetry being a practice. A way of living. How does that resonate in your daily life?

Nicole: I love this question! The practice of writing recently came back to me. When I was 11 or 12, I started writing a poem a day, if not more. But when I got into college I let that fade away. I would write, but not as frequently. I switched my major to Creative Writing - Poetry and then I was writing a bunch again. It has ebbed and flowed in my life though - I went dormant for a while and maybe wrote a handful of poems yearly instead of daily. However, becoming a mother brought me back to my writing. Not right away, I had to get through the infant toddler preschool age - I am so utterly impressed with women who can write through that stage. Literal rockstars. Once they were both in school and in activities, that was when I reunited with my writing self.

Maria: I always ask this question because I find the answers so interesting. Many poets experience physical feelings when they read a good poem. Emily Dickinson famously said she feels like the top of her head is coming off. What physical sensations happen to you when you read or write a good poem?

Nicole: It’s not as exciting as the top of my head coming off. :D I feel whole. United. Centered. Especially with writing a poem - the years I didn’t write as much I felt so off, fragmented, disjointed, etc… but I didn’t even know why until 2024 when I did NaPoWriMo. Challenging myself to write a poem a day was fun, but I also just felt good.