My Favourite Poem of the Modern Era

From one of my favourite poets

Andy Murphy
3 min readJun 7, 2024
Photo by Jr Korpa on Unsplash

Stephen King once said, “If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot.”

He’s right. So, one of the best things about being a full-time writer is how much I get to read.

This is how I found John Roedel — a modern poet spreading a beautiful message.

He graciously allowed me to include parts of the poem I’m about to share with you in my new book — The Joy of Breathing.

Here it is in full.

Breath

My brain and
heart divorced
a decade ago
over who was
to blame about
how big of a mess
I have become.

Eventually,
they couldn’t be
in the same room
with each other.

Now my head and heart
share custody of me.
I stay with my brain
during the week
and my heart
gets me on weekends.

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