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Poem-a-day

“I came here to be a poet …”

I like how Stevie Nicks speaks like a Martian sometimes.  

“I came here for a reason,” she said in a 1983 interview. 
As if simply relaying the directive from her mothership.  

“I didn’t come here to be a mother …” Bet that sounded  
pretty alien then. Coming from a young pretty woman.  

Like a Trojan horse. Feminism disguised in a frilly dress.   

It makes me think about my birth mother. Like Stevie, 
she didn’t come here to be a mother. Unlike my mother,  
who couldn’t get pregnant but wouldn’t let that stop her 
from becoming what she came here to be. My mother,  

as passionate about adoption as she was about choice. 

I like how that confuses some—those who like to point 
out that abortion might’ve prevented her from adopting. 
I suppose those dimwits came here to be … well, dimwits.  

Still, bet they can’t help but hum along when they hear 
Stevie Nicks songs. Failing to realize that all those songs  
are her children. That she gave birth to them for us.   

“Because,” she said. “I want to enhance this planet.” 

Copyright © 2026 by Michael Montlack. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on April 17, 2026, by the Academy of American Poets. 

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Michael Montlack

Michael Montlack
Courtesy of Michael Montlack
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About Poem-a-Day

Poem-a-Day is the original and only daily digital poetry series featuring over 250 new, previously unpublished poems by today’s talented poets each year. Dorianne Laux is the Guest Editor for April. Read or listen to a Q&A with Laux about his curatorial process, and learn more about the 2026 Guest Editors. Support Poem-a-Day.  

If you have any questions about Poem-a-Day, visit our Poem-a-Day FAQ.

Previous Poems

Title Author Date
I Don’t Know What Will Kill Us First: The Race War or What We’ve Done to the Earth Fatimah Asghar 05/08/2019
Adjacent, Against, Upon Rick Barot 05/07/2019
Phlebotomy, as Told by the Blood torrin a. greathouse 05/06/2019
Prompts (for High School Teachers Who Write Poetry) Dante Di Stefano 05/04/2019
Magpies Recognize Themselves in the Mirror Kelli Russell Agodon 05/03/2019
Ultrasound Kaveh Akbar 05/02/2019
A Skull Dana Levin 05/01/2019
Miscegenation Nick Laird 04/30/2019
in lieu of a poem, i’d like to say Danez Smith 04/29/2019
An Adieu Florence Earle Coates 04/28/2019

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