Writer. Educator. Artist.
Over Tea – terri st cloud -2008
A joy to re-read this chapbook that I carried with me many
tmes while sitting in waiting rooms for for appts. Because her
poems are short, I doodled and created my own sketches
around her words.
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Listen Up! Warren Artists Market
This is our first publication, 2013, a chapbook for the Senior Center Poets group.
We have published 7 anthologies since and have our 8th in the making.
One poem featured in this chapbook:
My African Prince, 1972 –by Carlo
Remember,,
when we first met,
on that hot day at the beach?
Boy
were you all wet!
Me,
lying there
in the sun,
playing it cool.
You,
tall,
bronze
beautiful,
emerging
from the sea.
Our eyes met.
I held my breath,
I must be dreaming.
This cannot be happening.
My heart is being captured
by this creature from the sea.
(LaVerne Gardner)
Heartspeak-Ellie’s Group
Art Cover by Lillie Leonardi
The Empty Cathedral-
Joyce Lindenmuth
I look at the cathedral
It’s empty
Once built on the backs of dreamers
Who thought they could capture
The beauty of God within a building.
Instead, they built
A monument to themselves
Their cleverness and facility,
Expecting God to notice.
The empty cathedral
Reminds me of my hopes
Of finding God
Inside a building
Instead, I found not peace but dissent,
Disappointment and despair.
I found God outside the cathedral
Within the souls of people I love
Among the trees and birds
And animals and clouds
That surround me.
I look at the cathedral
It’s empty. Alone.
Unlike me.
Ten Things of Thankfulness
I met Erika DeRuth at IWWG annual writing conference
and bought this chapbook from her in 2000.
A few poem titles with in:
cha cha pinsprites
questions fly
spraypaint on art’
silence
ballet in cowboy boots
apples and underwear
who am i
This is a Rattle Chapbook Prize Winner
That I enjoyed reading more than any other from Rattle.
Falling Off the Empire State Building –Jimmy Pappas
He begins the Title Poem with:
I shared a story with my students
about how construction workers
would fall off the Empire State Building
while another line of workers desperate
for jobs , waited to take their place.
Be’tween You and Me- arlene s bice 2013
I share with you an early attempt at self-publishing and
a sevenling poem; it is split into three stanzas
first is 3 elements connected, 3 lines
second is the same yet opposite
third is a one line zinger which reminds me of NJ irony.
He Loved-arlene s bice
he loved horse races
dog track
casino
he hated reading
theatre
libraries
he married a writer.
Rolling down the interstate on a morning after a heavy rain making the world look like it was scrubbed clean by Mom last night, I stay relaxed but constantly aware of traffic around me, especially the big guys, meaning the tractor trailers that dwarf my little, red Mazda II that I love so much.
They generally tend to be good drivers but still they have to see (meaning me) in order to be road savvy where I’m concerned as I never forgot the time a trucker kept pulling left into my lane as I blew the horn, pffft, his music must have been playing loud and I finally just braked my car rather than run into the center island because I knew he just didn’t see me..
We were slowing down, fortunately, for some kind of trouble ahead or for certain I would have been in trouble, too.
At the time I was clearly alert and on my toes as far as interstate driving goes not allowing random thoughts to run through my mind as I was doing today.
Driving is good for letting ideas spark, ferment and form solid ideas for what I am going to work on in my writing when I arrive home and also for working out knots in a piece of work I have already started, maybe thought was finished until that lightbulb went bing!
That bing let me know it wasn’t as finished as I thought.
Crossings –Jude Dippold
Jude writes of losses, letting go, death, dying, mourning, mostly remembering; bringing remembering to me, though my memories are always there in my shadow even when I have no shadow. I feel the depth in his writing as it encourages me to take time to write a poem for each of my own many losses.
Clearly I see the portrait of his sister he writes about, my dear friend Anne, younger then, with the simple beauty of daisies and the sun lighting her hair. She adored her brother.
Fortunately, each of my lost loves i.e. ancestors, parents, siblings, sons, and friends, has come to me at least once, a few have come often but each time has been comforting. Life after life and all after love. This is a special chapbook that has important insights to give you, written in many different ways.
From the late Judy Beach’s Ritual Writing IWWG
One poem:
Spell For A Desired Position
arlene s bice
Cast a circle
lay a blue cloth in the center
with a blue candle in a blue dish on top
of the blue cloth. Enhance this with a blue
ribbon, let scented citrus oil permeate the air. Be
sure to have blue underwear on. Lay a section of
the newspaper that is desired to be publish in, be-
tween you and the candle. Lay your article on top of
the desired newspaper. Light the blue candle. Begin
speaking gently to Mother Goddess: “Please merge
these two that I may become the writer, published
routinely, desired by many readers, appreciated
by editors. Send the power, wisdom,
make way for my path. My grace
to you with thankfulness.
Blessed be.