Wild Fridays: Roving the Web

 Advance notice – we're going on vacation! (Not immediately, but soon.) 

What that looks like may depend on where one lives.

(First image Public Domain, second mine.)

As usual, we'll take two weeks off over Christmas and New Year.  The Pantry on Sunday the 22nd will be our last post for this year. We'll start 2020 with a new Pantry, on Sunday January 5th.

I hope you'll all be too busy enjoying yourselves to have withdrawal symptoms. But just in case, here are some things that might amuse you during the break:

Inventiveness

My friend Helen Patrice, whom I've featured here a few times, is both poet and storyteller. She has written poems, short stories, novels, articles and memoir, a lot of them published. At her Blog of a Witch, this recent post includes a number of good tips for starting a story and keeping on going with it. Though she refers to prose in this instance, many of them could apply equally well to poetry. You can either skip over the personal stuff they're embedded in, or read it all for the entertainment value. (I always find Helen very readable.)

Many of you are already familiar with Carpe Diem, the site where Dutch haiku poet 'Chevrefeuille' keeps coming up with innovative new ways to approach the writing of haiku and related forms (though he doesn't tamper with the actual form). He provides prompts, and the opportunity to link our responses. I dip in and out of this site, sometimes forgetting all about it – but if I'm stuck, it's a very good place to go for inspiration. Bonus: I always find a few Poets United friends participating too.

Good reading

As I have shared in some previous posts, I like my quick fix of daily poetry in the email inbox – from the sites below in particular.

The first two also take submissions. I keep meaning to send something! If you are not such a procrastinator as me, you might like to give it a try. Or just enjoy reading: a sweet start to the day. (Sometimes familiar names pop up at either of these sites; just recently I was delighted to encounter a one sentence poem by a certain Ron. Lavalette.)  

TINYWORDS haiku and other small poems

One Sentence Poems 

Poem-a-Day

Knopf Poetry also offers a poem a day, but only during the April poetry month – but you could sign up for that now, while you think of it (and I think to suggest it). They are always wonderful, sometimes include free broadsheets to download and/or sound recordings to listen to, as well as referring you to the poet's latest books. Of course, once you click on the site, you can have a good browse right there, right now, of the many poems already shared.

The Morning Porch/Patio A blog of sentences by one Dave Bonta, observing the world around him over his morning coffee, particularly the natural world. I find these snippets entertaining in all sorts of ways. They originate as twitter posts, therefore are 140 characters or fewer (regardless of the fact that twitter has now upped its limit to 280). Some people use them as prompts, so if you're having withdrawal symptoms, there's an idea. This used to be called just The Morning Porch – based in his rural home in America (Pennsylvania) – but he now spends part of the year in England, mainly in London, as he is married to a British woman.

Attending to other aspects of life

(While you've got some extra time to do that.)

Zen Habits is a famous blog by Leo Babauta, on mindfulness and simplifying one's life. He began this years ago, and so many people found it useful that he has now written books on the principles, and also shares them on facebook and twitter, and even offers some courses in acquiring new habits. You can jump in at the latest post, or go back and explore the archives. It's all good value. Do I put all his good advice into practice myself? Well no, but he's easy to read, makes good sense, and some of it sticks.

Dear Earth: free e-course from Satya Robyn (the woman who invented the 'small stones' way of mindful writing). This is a gentle 28-day way to 'make space for grounding and creativity', 'come into a closer relationship with our beautiful earth', and, if you choose, find out more about the environmental crisis and what you might do about it. But it won't tell you what to do. Satya believes 'change is only sustainable when we allow ourselves to be transformed from the inside out, slowly and gently'. Or, if you prefer, you might skip the course and just enjoy reading Satya's own Love Letters to the Planet.

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But we're not quite on holidays yet, so do stick around for the treats still in store right here before the year ends: one more Midweek Motif, one more Wild Friday, and one more Pantry of Poetry and Prose. (And maybe we'll whet your appetites with some hints of what's to come in 2020.)

Material shared here is presented for study and review. Poems, photos, and other writings and images remain the property of the copyright owners, usually the authors.

Note: I've had to belatedly remove the photo of feet toasting by a fire when it suddenly acquired a 'Copyright' mark across it, and replace it with a different fireside image of my own. I thought I'd bought its use but apparently only for a very limited time. I'm annoyed this wasn't made clearer, especially as it was initially listed as Public Domain, but....

Moonlight Musings

How exciting to see the new ‘interactive’ Moonlight Musings hosted by Magaly get such a great response. There will be more!

Meanwhile this is the regular version, where we invite discussion in the comments but don’t ask you to write any creative pieces on the topic (unless you're overwhelmingly inspired to do so – in which case you might care to share them at a future Poetry Pantry).

Today I am wondering: 

What Name Are You Making?

As a writer, do you use your own name?

Or – in some cases – which of your own names do you use?

Do you write under your real name or a pseudonym?

Does every writer face the decision whether to use their own name or a pen-name? Or does it never occur to some of us to be known as anything but ourselves?

I was still a schoolgirl when I started to speak about choosing ’writer’ (or, even more daringly, ‘poet’) as a profession. Some people asked if I was going to take a pen-name. The question surprised me; I hadn’t thought of such a possibility. When I did, I quickly decided that I wanted to stand behind what I wrote, and that seemed to mean using my own name. I wanted to write so honestly that I could face being called on it. (Whilst understanding that truth and fact are not necessarily the same, and aiming for authenticity in my fictions too.)

But I didn’t like the surname I was born with. Luckily, my writings as Rosemary Robinson appeared only in school magazines. By the time I wanted to go more public, I had a married name: Nissen. 

So I did use my own name, legally mine, just not the one I was born with. (I felt a bit sorry sometimes that schoolteachers and classmates who knew me as Rosemary Robinson would never find out I had fulfilled the writerly promise they once saw in me – but not sorry enough to use the old name.)

That was all right until, many years later, I divorced and remarried.

The complications of changing one's name

In a women writers’ group recently, someone asked about the wisdom of hyphenating her name after a forthcoming marriage – her name as a writer, that is – or sticking to a byline she’s already known by, and using different names in public and private. 

‘Stick with what you’re known as,’ most people advised. It did seem like good advice. I’d received the same myself, after remarrying. 

‘You’ve already got a name,’ my poet friends said, meaning a name as a poet. ‘You’d be mad to change it.’ Not only had I been widely published in magazines and anthologies as Rosemary Nissen, and established the name as a performance poet, I’d had two books published with that authorship.

I considered the distinguished Australian poet Judith Rodriguez. As a young woman she started being published, to some notice, as Judith Green. On marrying she changed her name both privately and professionally to Rodriguez, and went on to great acclaim. When she and her first husband divorced after many years of marriage and she married fellow-poet Thomas Shapcott, she continued to write and publish as Judith Rodriguez. I'm sure it never occurred to her to do anything else. It was a very big name by then, very well established.

On the other hand, the younger poet Liz Hall, who had also made a name for herself (if not quite to the same degree) hyphenated her name on marrying and became Liz Hall-Downs. Similarly, poet and children's author Paty Marshall, well-known by that name, on marrying a second time became Paty Marshall-Stace. It seemed to work for them.

Andrew Wade and I moved interstate soon after marrying, where no-one had heard of me as a poet, and everyone knew us as Mr and Mrs Wade. Hyphenating seemed the way to go.

It wasn’t the best idea, professionally. Melbourne people still thought of me as Rosemary Nissen and Murwillumbah people knew me as Rosemary Wade. And, having moved from a major city with a thriving poetry scene to a small country town with none, I embraced the online poetry world instead. That didn’t help. 

I almost disappeared! When I sometimes reconnected with people I’d known previously in literary circles (other than close friends) it wasn’t uncommon for them to say, 

‘Oh – Rosemary NISSEN! NOW I get it.’

Gradually I made a name as Rosemary Nissen-Wade, and there are people now who understand that Rosemary Nissen and Rosemary Nissen-Wade are the same. But it’s taken two decades! Meanwhile some editors who knew me back when, and also know I’m now Rosemary Nissen-Wade, have still published me as Rosemary Nissen (without consultation). Others, who didn’t know me before, have put my name in the index under W instead of N, though I thought the hyphen would have ensured otherwise (so again I disappear).

Perhaps I should have expected it. My husband Andrew was christened Ewart Wade, by which name he was known as a film editor and as a writer and publisher for the Australian film industry. He told me he'd hated his first name and got sick of people spelling it Uitt or pronouncing it ee-wart, so he changed it legally to Andrew (because he had a girlfriend at the time whose children said he looked like an Andrew) – and promptly disappeared for many people. Later, as Andrew E Wade, he was a journalist and a children's author. Because of the name change, it was as if there were not only two different careers but two different people having them.

Embracing the Invention

My friend Helen Patrice (fiction writer, non-fiction writer and poet) published as Helen Sargeant when she was young and single. It was her name, but she didn’t like the surname much. She didn’t particularly care for her married surname either, and it’s lucky she never used it for her writing because that marriage ended early. During the longish period before marrying a second time, she decided to select her own surname. She chose Patrice because (a) many women were choosing women’s names as surnames at the time, and (b) she fell in love with the name after seeing a newsreader whose first name was Patrice. She says she ‘test drove it’ for a couple of years, then adopted it legally.

I asked her what were the ramifications. She said:

‘Basically, having to start over. People not connecting the two identities despite it being no secret. Having someone tell me that I wrote like Helen Sargeant, who suddenly stopped writing, probably died.’ 

Like me, she has now forged her writing identity under the new name – and it’s on the covers of her published books – but it took a while.

Prominent spoken-word poet Tug Dumbly must have taken that name early in his career. In his recent book Son Songs, he describes that name as ‘the pseudonym that swallowed the man formerly – and in some parts still – known as Geoffrey Robert Forrester (which is a better literary name)'. Is there a tinge of regret inside those brackets? Tug Dumbly must have seemed like a great name for a performance poet when he adopted it, and he probably didn’t realise how respected a poet he would become. But he’s earned the acclaim and it’d be crazy to change such a well-known name now.

Blogging names

What of those who use pseudonyms on their blogs? Many who do so still let it be known who they really are. Others have always been more firmly anonymous, or at least pseudonymous, not revealing any personal details. 

I have the impression that most use their real names when they publish a book. I can think of several from this community who have done so.

In conclusion

Yes, I suppose it all comes down to what we intend to do with our writings, both in the short and long term. Yet how can we know from the beginning where this path will take us? 

If we want our work to be remembered, does it even matter what name it is remembered by? It’s Alice in Wonderland we love, whether it’s by Lewis Carol or the Rev Charles Dodgson. We don’t need to know the full name of Dr Seuss to be able to quote from his books. Would John Le Carré’s or George Orwell’s works chill us any more or any less under their authors' real names? There are many such examples. Pablo Neruda, Stendahl, Voltaire, Henry Handel Richardson, Mark Twain, James Herriot, Bob Dylan….

Meanwhile, a new performance venue in my little country town is flourishing. As a regular, I am becoming known simply as Rosemary. People who know me only from that context greet me by name in the street. Rosemary the poet. I love it!

And you?

What name are you making for yourself? What if your writing should achieve lasting fame – who would you want to be remembered as?


Note: I use myself and people I know here because I am familiar with those particular details. (Except for Paty Marshall-Stace, they have all previously been featured at Poets United.)

Moonlight Musings

Which is your greatest love – poetry or prose?

I was going to ask, 'Which is your first love?' But then I realised, the first love is not necessarily the greatest. So I changed it to, 'Which is your true love?' But then I bethought me, all loves are true ... though not necessarily equal.  Then again, they could be equal, so perhaps I should be asking: 'poetry or prose – or both?'

Need I explain, to this audience, that I mean 'Which has your heart as a writer?' (not as a reader)?

When I was younger, and learned that various wonderful novelists had been poets first, I used to smile smugly to myself. Of course they were! Fiction was what they had to do to earn a living by writing, that's all. Not that the fictions weren't brilliant and beautiful, not that they didn't nourish me – but still, it was obvious to me that poetry is really where it's at. After all, I started writing mine when I was seven. I knew in my soul that it was the ultimate gift from God.

Then Australian writer Carmel Bird (whom I knew when were children in Tasmania and again some decades later as rising literary figures in Melbourne) expressed some frustration with me for only writing poems.

'If you can write poetry like that,' she said, 'think what you could do with fiction!'

It took me aback. I already knew that she could write excellent poetry, though she didn't do it very often. And I enjoyed her fiction enormously, partly because of her beautiful and very individual writing style (I recently told her that her prose is poetry) and partly because it was often set where we had both grown up. But it was a revelation to realise, from that exasperated utterance, that she gave fiction priority!

Later I made what was to become a very long and close friendship with a young poet called Helen Patrice. She writes wonderful poems. I envy her talent! And she values poetry. (She's very good at articles and memoir too.) But it has become clear to me – because she often tells me so – that fiction is both her first and greatest love. Not that she has to choose; in fact she might come close to saying 'both' in answer to my question, and is surely not about to stop doing either. Still, I now know that fiction has first place in her heart. It has finally dawned on me that this is a real possibility for many writers. We are not all alike. Just because poetry is MY greatest love....

Carmel was wrong about me. The gift of poetry does not mean I can also write fiction. I am actually pretty hopeless at it! Believe me, I have tried. I do love to read fiction, and have broad, eclectic tastes – from Henry James and George Eliot to Blair Babylon's erotic romances, and everything in between. I do know what things make for good fiction. Both as an editor and a teacher of creative writing, I have to know, so as to steer people aright. It's just that I can't do it myself. 

I can write prose. I know these weekly articles work; people keep telling me so. And I know how they work; after all, I am the one crafting them. (They don't just spill out, higgledy-piggledy.) I even had a couple of short stories published in obscure anthologies a long time ago. But they weren't fiction; they were disguised autobiography, and the writing was kinda 'experimental'. I have twice attempted novels. The first time, I got bored with it pretty quickly, and had enough sense to realise that if it was boring its author it was unlikely to enthral readers. The second was my only NaNoWriMo experience. It was fun to do that, just once, and I did finish it. The trouble is, it's really bad – you can trust me on this; it is not an isolated opinion – and I have no incentive to try and improve it. (But you should see the painstaking patience I have for every detail of a poem.)

People have been asking me for years to write my memoirs, and I have tried. But I'm not thrilled with the way that writing turns out either – and besides, I experience it as a chore. I finally decided I don't have to do that, no matter how much people might want me to. What a relief! What liberation! And I guess that's the crux of it. I just don't want to write stories, whether lived or imagined. Poetry is my passion, my true love, which 'age cannot wither ... nor custom stale'. (It may even include stories sometimes, whether lived or imagined). And I am happy enough to write articles about poetry, too. When I am not with the beloved, it is a pleasure to at least discuss the beloved.

My late friend Philip Martin was like me, as this poem (from his A Flag for the Wind) attests:

Muse

For a whole year
Nothing. You don't come near.
Verse drags its feet, stumbles.

Try prose then, start a novel.
Take out someone else. 
Maybe I'll 'learn to care'.

All at once you return,
And the words dance again
To rhythms not my own.

Ah my true love,
You must have known!
Prose would have been a mere
Casual affair.


Nevertheless I was excited, like the rest of our Poets United team, when Magaly came on board with a monthly Prose Pantry. I knew what poem I would like to retell as a story. I thought I could do it. I thought I'd enjoy it.
Nope! I still have my old problem. My tale dragged on boringly, with no real spark of life – though the poem I was basing it on was full of spark and sparkle. I know what kinds of things might bring it to life; I just find that, when it comes to the crunch, I can't write it that way.

Well, never mind, it's not a major tragedy. I get to do what I love, and not what I don't love. One of the things I love is reading stories which other people have written, so I am in for lots of yummy monthly treats, thanks to all of you who do cook up goodies for the Prose Pantry. Bring it on!

Only it has made me curious. I already know that Magaly, magical poet as she is, loves story-telling even more. We've been discussing all this behind the scenes (and perhaps she will expound further here). What about the rest of you? I am fascinated to know if you fell in love with poetry first, or with story-telling? And did you stay faithful or move from one to the other? Perhaps you share your affections with both? (Is that exacting? Do they get jealous and demanding, and fight for your attention? Or are they content to share, gracefully taking turns?)

Come on – tell me your stories of your relationships with your Muses, do!

Material shared in ‘Moonlight Musings’ is presented for study and review. Poems, photos and other writings remain the property of the copyright owners, usually their authors.

I Wish I'd Written This

Dawn Bursey
(Prose Poem)

Your mild brown hair in a pageboy cut, that you grew out slowly over four years, but never decided on what 70's style suited you next.

Your blue eyes wide, the skin around them older than the rest of you, from books you'd read that no one else on staff had heard of.

Your cheese sandwich every day, and a carton of milk.

You placed books you knew I'd like jutting out from the library bookshelves.

You helped me choose a book prize for being Most Improved Grade 4 Student, and steered me past the cartoons to a book on nature. I read it to this day. You tapped the picture of the bear and cubs. You knew my totem before I did, by a good twenty years.

You read my first stories and said they were good. You said to keep going. You said to keep going.

I kept going.

I file you here, in the library of mind and page, bookmarked and stamped 'Out'. For by now, you would be dead, never knowing you lit a fuse.

– Helen Patrice

'Child  reading in large chair.' Image from public domain

This would have been a school librarian, obviously. I was employed as the other kind, a municipal librarian, many years ago, beginning as a children's librarian. As a child it was the local municipal library which was most magical for me, though I made a lot of use of the school library too. 

I am eternally grateful to my parents for encouraging my use of libraries. They were keen readers and library users themselves – but also, it occurs to me now, they just couldn't have kept up with my reading if they'd had to supply all the books.

I'm also grateful to the head librarian (Walter Sutherland, Launceston City Library, Tasmania; let's honour his name) who granted my parents' request to let me use the adult library before I was officially old enough, when I ran out of things to read in the children's library.

And that's what this poem is about, more than the library itself – the librarian who unobtrusively encouraged a child's passion for reading, to be fully appreciated for it much later. There were various adults who did that for me, very much including parents and grandparents, aunts and uncles. Above all, I recall specific teachers, all the way through from kindergarten to the final year of High School, who fulfilled a similar role to the librarian in this poem. 

How valuable such mentors are, and how good to celebrate them!

So who is Dawn Bursey?  Well, she is the subject of this poem, and not the author as I first posted!

I originally said:

I see poems online and grab them for my PU columns, so I have a stash – although I also slot in anything topical while it still is. As you've observed, as a courtesy I ask living poets' permission to use their work and their photo, and for some biographical details for interest. But this poem in my files has no information except the author's name, and when I Google search her now I can't find her. I can find the name, but clearly not attached to this poet. 

This surprises me, in view of the reference to her 'first stories' and the assertion that she kept on, which suggest some public, adult authorship, as does the very existence of this poem. But there it is.

So I'm sorry: although I can post this legitimately 'for study and review', I can't supply any details about its author. If anyone happens to know her, or how to contact her, I'd appreciate a heads-up. It would have been nice to let her know how her prose poem resonates with another passionate reader – but then, I expect many others have already told her so. I'm sure it will resonate with the passionate readers here at Poets United too.

********************

Now the mystery is cleared up. Read on:

An alert reader on facebook has pointed out:

As to the identity of the author, in your own 2012 interview with Helen Patrice, she says: "By the end of primary school, I was showing my stories to the librarian, Dawn Bursey, who bless her, encouraged me."

OMG!!! I realised this must have been one of Helen's poems, ABOUT the said Dawn Bursey, not by her. When I checked, she confirmed this. Luckily she is more amused than upset by my error.

Helen's a close friend and we sometimes send each other our poems by email. 'Prose poem' must have been the description on this, and 'Dawn Bursey' the title. I must have saved it for future reference some years ago, and by the time I posted it here had forgotten it was Helen's. 

As you see, I have now corrected this post. And if you'd like to know more about Helen, look for the tag on her name on the left-hand side bar for times she's been featured here before, or check out my 2012 interview.

There's a lesson here for me, to be more careful when saving stuff, even if I think I'll never forget the details. And a lesson for us all – ALWAYS sign your work, even when only emailing it privately to a friend. My art teacher Val Anderson taught me that, long ago. 'Claim your work,' she would say to all her students. 'Own it.' It applies just as well to writings as paintings.

However  this is not Helen's fault but mine. Apologies to her and you, and many thanks to 'thylacine'.

Material shared in 'I Wish I'd Written This' is presented for study and review. Poems, photos and other writings remain the property of the copyright owners, usually their authors.

Moonlight Musings

By Helen Patrice

That's right, we have a guest writer today. 

Helen Patrice is a poet, fiction writer, and author of feature articles for various magazines – and my friend. (You may recall seeing her poetry here in 'I Wish I'd Written This'. If not, look here and scroll down.) I read Helen's Live Journal blog and thought this recent post too good not to share with you all. She kindly gave permission.


Writing in Puddles

Copyright © Helen Patrice 2016

Lately, my morning pages (thank you Julia Cameron, and THE ARTIST'S WAY) have been about critical awareness, I think. I've been listening to books by Brené Brown, and in I THOUGHT IT WAS JUST ME, she talks about critical awareness, critical thinking, and shame.

So, I've been exploring, in tiny doses, how I talk to myself about writing, and how I treat myself.

What a harsh task master I am. I may as well be that asshat on the Roman warship in 'Ben Hur', the one who says to Hur: "Row well, and live, 41." The one who, to test Hur, orders battle speed, and ramming speed, as rower slaves die, have heart attacks, and fall from their oars in exhaustion, all while Charlton Heston gives the Roman general filthy looks, and keeps rowing.

"Write well, and live, Helen."

That's how I've treated myself from age 10-52.

Just this morning, I was nagging myself about 'writing to do', and bemoaning that I thought of something I formerly loved unto ramming speed as 'work'. A self-pompous thing. Oh yes, I WORK at my writing. My writing is my life's WORK. I put my bum on seat, and do the WORK.

You know what, I don't even like work that much. Never have, never will. In my early twenties, my only-half-joking goal was to be a kept woman. Now that I'm a kept woman, I tell everyone, and most especially myself that my writing is my work. Just so I can justify not working at anything else while my friends are still employed.

So, I asked myself to reframe the image of being chained to the oars, of trudging off in a grey suit to an office.

I came up with jumping in puddles. Each of my writing projects and ideas is a puddle, and I can choose on any given day which one to leap into and splash about.

That immediately made it feel light, and like play.

I remember being six years old, and being the only one to dare jumping in puddles at school during afternoon playlunch. Sure, the teacher cracked the shits when she saw that I had soaked shoes and socks. I didn't care. My shoes and socks didn't feel wet, I wasn't cold.

And while everyone else had stood on the sidelines, I'd jumped and splashed, dared on by all of them.

We'd been told to keep out of the puddles, like good little children.

But those puddles were deliciously dark, and splashy, and clean, just after rain. 

I am also reminded of the book 'The Magicians'. In it, the protagonist gets to his version of Narnia through an enchanted pool of water. Other pools lead to other worlds. There is an inbetween place where the pools are.

Daily, I go to the inbetween place, choose my pool, and jump in. I rise in the land of memoir, short story, flash fiction, autobiography, blog, poetry, travel writing, or something else entirely.

I'm learning to obey those tiny urges that crop up in morning pages. The small little 'oh, I should write about that', as I grumble my way through three pages of dumping out my brain.

Sometimes, the urge comes to nothing, but sometimes, just sometimes, there's the splash of something, the single drop of water that will become a puddle I can jump into.

*************************

I hope you enjoyed Helen's musings.

How do you approach your poetry? As work, play or a mixture of both? I veer between the two. I think I do better, though, when I am playing.

Do you write 'morning pages'? I read Julia Cameron's The Artist's Way a long time ago. I worked my way through it – it is designed as a 12-week course – and from time to time I return to the practice of morning pages, which is one of its key components. The idea is 'brain drain' – to get rid of the crowd of surface thoughts, and to bypass our internal Censors while we're at it, so as to bring us into our creative space. 

Inspired by this post of Helen's, I recently took up the habit again. I do it sitting in the garden after breakfast, with my cat nearby. I follow the morning pages with a 'small stone' (a short piece of mindful writing focused on the external world). It all makes a lovely way to start my day.

I Wish I'd Written This

...and this, and this, and ...

This is as close as I can get to Christmas for a Friday post, so today is the day I am giving you a treat — a smorgasbord of poems from some of the wonderful people I've already featured before. But the poems are different.

I hope those of you, in any part of the world, who observe a festival around this time are all still having a delightful festive season — and that anyone else is also having a delightful time!

(And sorry, it seems this posted later than usual. I am away from my usual computer and even my usual town, and must have got a bit mixed up.)

Bounty (a remix)

By Jennie Fraine

Thinking of Christmas and the arrivals

with children, I take the camp bed

we no longer need

and come home with two green skirts

(my  favourite colour) and a felted

gumnut hat with stalk.

The very next day I can wear the hat!

The day after, it is warm enough

to wrap a skirt around.

I have drawers full of picture and photo

frames, toys on  shelves in garden,

wooden bowls, Bakelite.

Oh sheds and shops of donated goods

you constantly surprise me, gift me

a sumptuous life.

It Is Cold & Raining in Austin, Texas

By Thom Woodruff

The lights we share are candles and electric bulbs
if we were ancients, there would be fires blazing
to keep us warm and keep out the cold
yet wisdom says to welcome in / all elements challenging
Rain that floods, cold that freezes
Coughs and colds and sneezing allergies
Caught within this web of cities
that look like blazing fires from space
we steal back time, and for a moment
meditate on human fate.
Time's candle flickers in the wind
Night will reclaim us to the cold
We have this moment to reflect
upon the New Year—and the Olde.

The Tree Walks Home with Me

By Donall Dempsey

my uncle Seanie
growing from the soil

my uncle Seanie
a silhouette in sunset as natural as a tree

I climb up
into the branches of his hands and
the tree walks home with me

always in my dreams I am
always climbing up into my uncle
his footsteps falling forever in my mind

The Tree Outside the Yoga Room

By Helen Patrice

The tree outside the yoga room

 takes me through the yearly dance

 from summer to winter and back to heat again.

 We are both in savasana

 as winter blankets us,

 both deep into earth,

 muffled by sky.

 My hands curled soft,

 while outside, the tree stretches out

 and holds the clouds in place

 with bone and twig.

 We wait for Spring,

 for Demeter to cease mourning.

 We shall burst forth

 in joyous tremblings of blossom

 and Salute to the Sun.

 The tree and I,

 we take our yoga slow,

 like sap, like the year.

 There is time and space in both of us.

Elegy for the Not Famous Poet

By Lori Wlliams

Someone, I Tell You, Will Remember Us - Sappho

As we reduce to root and rock,

we speak there, still — recite with dusty breath

food for worms, old lovers, the synchrony in death

look up! at the tree above the stone,

see green turn to brown in a blink,

then blink again, watch peaches grow.

The sun once a sword that flamed our belly

now leaves us to bone. Don't cry,

listen for the poppies that burst

through the earth.  You can remember us,

what we meant. You have that.

Poems and photos used in ‘I Wish I’d Written This’ remain the property of the copyright holders (usually their authors).