Sherry: Susie, it is so nice to be catching up with
you. I love your long hair! Bring us up to date, kiddo. How are you and your family doing?
Susie: We are doing well, so glad to have 2018
behind us. Dawn is doing much better, and our youngest daughter, Carrie, is
busy as ever with her job at The Art Colony.
Charlie and I will have a busy
schedule this summer with my 50th class reunion this month and summer
tours with Mike Zito and his band.
Dawn
Carrie
Me and the Band
Sherry: Touring with a band! What fun! Tell us about that!
Susie: Mike Zito came into our lives late in 2007. Dawn at
that point had already suffered years of autoimmune related illnesses, and it
was taking an emotional and physical toll on my husband and I. We had always
loved live music, so on a whim we decided to attend a local bar to hear Mike
play so we could focus on something other than sickness.
Well, we became instant fans. Shortly after that we became close friends. We now travel across the country with him whenever we can in whatever capacity he needs us. At times it is just as fans/family, but a good part of the time we work for him selling his merchandise.
Although, I don't feel it is work. You can't put a price on joy. We call him our adopted son. His band members are part of our chosen family also. Music is healing. I am so thankful for that first evening we heard Mike. It was life changing.
Well, we became instant fans. Shortly after that we became close friends. We now travel across the country with him whenever we can in whatever capacity he needs us. At times it is just as fans/family, but a good part of the time we work for him selling his merchandise.
Although, I don't feel it is work. You can't put a price on joy. We call him our adopted son. His band members are part of our chosen family also. Music is healing. I am so thankful for that first evening we heard Mike. It was life changing.
Sherry: It sounds joyful indeed. Nothing like being involved in live music, and touring sounds like nothing but fun.
Your latest book, Splinters, has just come out. Congratulations! Would you tell us a bit about it?
Your latest book, Splinters, has just come out. Congratulations! Would you tell us a bit about it?
Susie: The book is co-written with the talented
poet, Ben Ditmars. He approached me with the concept of writing a poetry
collection with a target audience of young adults, but which would also appeal
to readers much older. It is a poetic journey through childhood to adulthood.
There are topics addressed in it from silly to serious. For example some of the
poem titles are, Pimple Popper, Indoor
Boy, Bra Capping, and Confused. There
are some splinters that barely puncture the skin and there are others that go
deep into a lifetime.
Sherry: What a wonderful concept! I hope lots of teens get to read it.
You are recently back from the Lucidity Retreat. Do tell us about it.
You are recently back from the Lucidity Retreat. Do tell us about it.
Susie at Lucidity
Susie: This was my third time to attend the retreat.
Its location in Eureka Springs, Arkansas is the perfect place for it. It has a
strong writing/art community and exquisite scenery. Lucidity’s mission is to
gather poets together to learn, participate in creative critique of their work,
and open themselves to incredible life changing experiences.
This year’s featured lecturers were Nathan Brown and
Dr. Charlotte Renk. Nathan is an author, songwriter, and an award winning poet,
as well as Oklahoma’s Poet Laurette 2013 to 2014. He lives in Wimberley, Texas.
Charlotte is an award winning poet who teaches English and Humanities at
Trinity Valley Community College in Athens Texas.
I can’t properly express the gratitude I feel for
having had the privilege of being able to sit with such talented poets and
leaders, to feel their passion for poetry and gather knowledge on how to become
a better writer.
Susie and Group at Lucidity
Nathan Brown shared he has a ritual when he sits
down to write. It begins with brewing coffee, preparing his mind to be open to
creativity, and when he’s home, writing in the small space he’s personalized
with items that have significant meaning to him. He writes every day. It
doesn’t matter if it is good or not. Poetry won’t come if he hasn’t kept an
open channel for it to speak. Nathan’s latest book is 100
Years, a poem for each year of life from 1 to
100.
An excerpt from 73-
Thumb Twiddling
“So
much time on his hands.
He
doesn’t know what to do
with
all these hours that pile up
like
unanswered letters thrown on
to
a desk where he no longer works.”
Charlotte Renk often writes about nature. She lives
in a house in the woods with windowed walls without curtains. Whether she is
outside or inside nature is always in full display. She is immersed in inspiration. In her latest book, The
Great Turtle Heart (the Tao of Turtlism) she draws on biology,
myth, folklore, history and literature to describe the journey of a box turtle.
An
excerpt from Mobile Home
“When
survival’s frenetic stress is too much,
the
seeking, the getting, the struggle,
she
remains unimpressed by mirages
of
any kind”
Sherry: It all sounds wonderful, Susie. What a privilege, to be there.
I adore a recent poem of yours, “Feathers Wild as Dandelion Seeds”. I would love to share it here, if I may.
I adore a recent poem of yours, “Feathers Wild as Dandelion Seeds”. I would love to share it here, if I may.
I always dream of wings. There is within me the
desire to fly, to feel the wind’s breath guiding me to where dreams roam wild,
where feathers are ink and pen. I believe it is because I carry the weight of
my mother’s lost dreams. I saw them in her eyes as she searched every face to
see if she could find the soul who could read the stars she couldn’t translate
into words. I’m not sure why she left them with me, but I feel them whenever
poetry floats just beyond my reach, in the urgency to find my voice in silence.
Where are my wings,
green feathers wild
as dandelion seeds?
green feathers wild
as dandelion seeds?
Let me climb the tallest oak
so I can hear the sky speak
of the sun’s love of the moon,
and feel the wind teach me
how to fly the grass I walk.
so I can hear the sky speak
of the sun’s love of the moon,
and feel the wind teach me
how to fly the grass I walk.
Take me where poetry nests
in the hungry heart of my muse.
in the hungry heart of my muse.
Sherry: This is so lovely. I love poetry
nesting in the heart of your muse. Are there two more poems you would like to
share?
Too Close to the Edge
The midnight lake puts its
lips
to my eyes and drinks every
starlight wish swimming in
hazel.
Not satisfied with the brew
of visions
it sends watery death into
my lungs
to flood my last breath of
July.
Thrashing in waves of lost I
am tossed
the life preserver of 1:00
am and a cat
purring rescue across my
chest.
Shaken I reach for pen and
paper
beside my bed and pray my
muse
has escaped the drowning
pool of empty.
* * *
* * *
My Chair of Tears
Sunflowers weep brittle
petals
from their frosted death
mask,
and I beg spring to come and
take the funeral from my
garden.
Winter has written so many
entries in its journal of
bone chill
I breathe its story each
morning.
Pain walks through my thighs
on the command of a
barometer,
a stab here, a burn there…
a Pinocchio dance on legs
too stiff to react as human.
In my chair of tears I
wonder
if this petrification will
bring me
closer to humility or will I
merely
live my own wasting one
splinter at a time.
If not for love, I would
make my own
journey to spring, but to
pill myself
into eternity would break
the heart
of a man who would bear my
pain
if the universe would allow
him.
Hope is truly fragile, a
paper thin glass
one demon away from
shattering.
I must have faith I’m a day
closer
to a robin song, and not a
hymn sung
where I am coffined in
silence.
* * *
* * *
Sherry: I love "I'm a day closer to robin song." When did you begin writing poems, Susie?
What do you love about poetry?
Susie: I started writing poetry when I was fifteen.
I love poetry because it helps me write out some of the thoughts that tumble
through my head. My therapist once asked me I kept a journal as part of my
therapy. At first I said no, but then I realized my poetry is my journal. I am
empath and wild weed. Poetry is healing.
Sherry: How has blogging impacted your work and
companioned your muse?
Susie: Blogging has made a huge impact. I came to
the blogging world a stumbling, infant poet, and because of the influence of
talented poets I’ve met here at Poets United and at Real Toads I have learned
to walk with a bit of confidence I have something to say others might like to
read. As far as my muse is concerned, she loves the prompts and images provided
to inspire her to whisper words into my pen. The two things she doesn’t like
are poetry forms and rhymes because she knows I’m not good at either.
Sherry: I beg to differ. But I find forms challenging, too. What other interests do you pursue when you
aren’t writing?
Susie: I began about a year a go designing and
making jewelry pendants as well as sun catchers. I find it calming. I don’t
worry or struggle for words when I am working with wire and beads. It is the
free flow of creating that intrigues me.
Sherry: Your work is beautiful, Susie!
Available here Available here Available here
Susie: Oh, I forgot, I did an author fair May 18, and Carrie Thackeray Van Horn was also there. I am including the photo.
Available here Available here Available here
Susie: Oh, I forgot, I did an author fair May 18, and Carrie Thackeray Van Horn was also there. I am including the photo.
Author Fair
Sherry: It is so cool you and Carrie were at the
same event! How wonderful! Two of our first members!
Confessions of a Laundry Goddess is the grand dame of my work, but I just felt
I needed another one. :) It is brand new with a couple of poems, but it
will be growing.
Sherry: Yay! We'll be watching. Is there anything you’d like to say to Poets United?
Susie: Gratitude, I don’t think I can say it enough.
I came upon Poets United quite by accident. I had written a poetry blog for
over a year with only one man reading it. I knew it wasn’t very good. I wanted
to learn, find better ways to express myself through poetry.
Dear poets, thank you for having patience as I grew, and continue to grow. You have been part of my healing path after a brain injury in 2006. There were parts of my memory erased. I once did scrapbooking. That is what I am told any way. I opened a bedroom closet door where the entire shelf was filled with decorative paper, albums, etc. I turned to Charlie and said, “Who does this?” Poetry returned when I so desperately needed it.
Dear poets, thank you for having patience as I grew, and continue to grow. You have been part of my healing path after a brain injury in 2006. There were parts of my memory erased. I once did scrapbooking. That is what I am told any way. I opened a bedroom closet door where the entire shelf was filled with decorative paper, albums, etc. I turned to Charlie and said, “Who does this?” Poetry returned when I so desperately needed it.
Sherry: We are so happy that it did, and we are the beneficiaries. Thank you, Susie, for this wonderful update. And for your long participation at Poets United.
Well, my friends, wasn't this uplifting? Do come back and see who we talk to next. Who knows? It might be you!
Well, my friends, wasn't this uplifting? Do come back and see who we talk to next. Who knows? It might be you!
