🇺🇸 Happy 4th of July! Weekend 🇺🇸 This weekend we celebrate freedom, courage, and the people who helped shape this nation. Whether you're spending the day with family, friends, around a campfire, watching fireworks, or simply enjoying a quiet moment, I hope it's filled with laughter, gratitude, and inspiration. And because we're poets... don't forget to look up. Sometimes the brightest fireworks aren't in the sky—they're the words we leave behind. Have a safe and wonderful Independence Day, and thank you for making The Art of Poetry Community such an incredible place to create, encourage, and inspire one another. Happy Independence Day! ❤️🤍💙 — Jason

Independence is not a flag dancing only in the July wind. It is the quiet courage to become the person you were meant to be. It is breaking chains no one else can see fear that whispers, grief that lingers, doubt that builds invisible prisons. It is standing after life has knocked you flat, wiping the dust from your soul, and choosing one more step when every reason says, don't. It is the widow who learns to smile again, the veteran who finds peace, the child who discovers hope, the dreamer who refuses to quit. Freedom is not always won on distant battlefields. Sometimes it is won in hospital rooms, around kitchen tables, or alone at midnight when no one is watching. Every sunrise signs another declaration: I am still here. I will keep loving. I will keep building. I will keep believing. That is independence. Not merely the freedom to choose your path but the strength to keep walking it, even when the road belongs to no one but you.

The world’s on fire in a three piece suit, Smiling on camera while it steals the truth. Kids learn fear before they learn grace, And nobody looks anybody in the face. Bombs fall somewhere every damn day, While strangers online just scroll away. Politicians argue, billionaires grin, And the poor keep paying for all of their sins. The oceans rise while the forests choke, Half the world’s starving, half numb from smoke. Everybody shouting, nobody hears, Drowning in outrage and recycled fears. We traded front porches for glowing screens, Lost ourselves somewhere inside machines. People want love but settle for likes, Building fake kingdoms from hashtags and hype. And still somehow, through all the mess, A tired mother gets her child dressed. A man walks his dog to survive one more day, A poet still sits down with something to say. Because chaos is loud But the human heart is stubborn too. It keeps lighting candles In storms it already knows It cannot control. And maybe that’s the miracle. Not that the world is sane But that some of us Still choose kindness anyway A pause, A breath By Jason Strickland

So I know I said we would be doing a Anthology a month but who am I kidding. There is no way I can do that every month forever I will burn out. So what I have decided is we are going to do Where our Voices Rise and one more after that. Where our Voices Gather. The theme for that is the 🌎 world. I thought that would be perfect way to end the series since we all Gathered from all over the world to The Art of Poetry Community to write these books. If you have not been able to be a part of it you have 2 more chances. Thank you everyone who has participated in these amazing Anthology books. I can't wait for the world to read them.

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