Poet Lisa-Hase Jackson,Visiting Assistant Professor in Writing, Department of English, University of Pittsburgh, is posting daily writing prompts this month. Share with a friend who might in interested.
Tag: writing
Fun to be a Winner
Last month I read e-Books by the author Marie Force at Carnegie Public Library on their Libby app.
Force is the author of the McCarthy Family Saga Series on Gansett Island. A great escape.
Then I watched an Instagram live interview and I heard if you wrote a comment about what you do while reading, you’d be eligible to receive one of two copies of Force’s new book from publisher 1001darknights_blueboxpress.
I wrote that “I knit cozy socks while listening to audiobooks.”
And I won a copy of her new book! thank you Blue Box Press.
Fed Ex delivered it promptly and I’m going to read it this week.
Biscuits for humans
I hosted neighborhood Book Club last Thursday. The book was The Friend by Sigrid Nunez and a dog was an important character in the novel. I baked gingerbread bone biscuits. I haven’t rolled out cookies to bake in a dog’s age.
“The Friend is a novel by the American writer Sigrid Nunez published by Riverhead Books in 2018. The book concerns an unnamed novelist who adopts a Great Dane that belonged to a deceased friend and mentor.”
Personal Poem by Artist Iz Horgan in Response to a Loss
I follow the Instagram account of artist Iz Horgan. She posted this on her link and I filled out the form about an object I’d lost in the late eighties. I wrote and asked for permission to post about her project and she graciously agreed.
And then in my snail mail box I received a personal poem on a postcard in response to my describing my lost object -a gold necklace with a band of tiny pearls holding the two ropes strands together
What a day brightener. Thank you Iz for your thoughtful response and your beautiful art postcard.
Poet Linda Pastan
As I read Linda Pastan’s obituary in the Washington Post I remembered a book of hers on my shelf. When I read The Last Uncle I was so moved by her poetry, I wrote to her. She wrote back. Fortunately I’d tucked the postcard inside the book. Postmarked 2004.
Because I don’t have permission to reprint her poems here today, my wish is you’ll find one, they are out there on the Internet, read her words and know the world will miss her.
A link to Linda Pastan reading three of her poems.
Here’s a link to Kirk Lawrence reading of one of her poems on YouTube titled My Obituary
Cover photograph by Bob Grove of The Artist’s Father by Paul Cezanne from Collection of Mr.and Mrs. Paul Mellon Published by W.W.Norton
Remembering Poet and Friend Dorothy Holley on Her Birthday
Two posts reblogged honoring
Dorothy Holley Poet, Friend post from 2010 click for slideshow
Link to her obituary
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Dorothy Holley’s Iris from her garden are in the photo below replanted by fellow poet and friend Liane Norman, who is the author of I Dug Up the Iris
I Dug Up the Iris
in Dorothy’s garden
to plant in the soaked
soil of mine, memorial
to her each spring
when they’ll open
complicated ruffles
and flourishes, purple
or blue with speckled
throats. They’ll rise
out of rhizomes
sprawling at soil’s
surface like the joints
of my old hands
anchoring the tall
stalks and frilly petals.
This morning
in the brief breath
of cool I dug shallow
trenches for this legacy,
this pantry of pollens
the bees prospect,
insects with lives
beyond what the mere
gardener knows.
Liane Ellison Norman, a Madwoman in the Attic, has published two books of poetry, The Duration of Grief and Keep(www.smokeandmirrorspress.com). She has published poems in 5AM, Kestrel, North American Review, Grasslimb, Rune, Voices from the Attic anthologies and the Pittsburgh Post Gazette. Her poem “What There’d Been” won the Wisteria Prize in 2006 from Paper Journey Press.
reblogged On the occasion of the birthday of poet Dorothy Holley http://rutheh.com/tag/dorothy-holley-poet/
Ground Control Has Been Released
Karen Hough’s first novel Ground Control has been released and my copy arrived in the mail today!
I am looking forward to diving in and devouring it tonight.
Remember the post where Canadian author Karen Hough was introduced? Her Aunt Joanne is my good friend whom you’ve met on the blog before.
Canadian Author Karen Hough residing in LondonHere are links for Book Club discussion guide and the link to purchase a copy. too.
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/56594348-ground-control
Here is the link to subscribe to her mailing list (book club discussion guide): https://www.subscribepage.com/karenhoughwrites
Diane Kerr Poet, Author of PERIGEE
I received a copy of PERIGEE in the mail today. A gift from the poet Diane Kerr.
I had the honor of capturing her author photo which now graces the back cover of her just published poetry book.
Thank you Diane and congratulations on winning the Brittingham Prize in Poetry and having your book published at the University of Wisconsin Press.
To read reviews and/or purchase a copy click here
Release from the University of Wisconsin Press Click link for more information
“Diane Kerr mentors poets through the Madwomen in the Attic Creative Writing Program at Carlow University and is the author of the collection, Butterfly. Her work has appeared in the Alaska Quarterly Review, Mississippi Review, and Pearl, among others. She holds an MFA from the Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College. Kerr’s forthcoming Perigee follows a speaker’s emotional reckoning with a traumatic secret she felt pressured to keep during her girlhood. In varied lyric narratives, these poems reinforce that shock and suffering have no statute of limitations.”
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Perigee.
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the point in the orbit of the moon or a satellite at which it is nearest to the earth.
Storms a Coming by Jane Miller – Guest Blogger
Storms a coming.
by Jane Miller
My husband and I live with his mother in an old farmhouse with parts dating back to 1842. Except for the window lined porch that faces west, the house is structurally the way it was 100 years ago when the third generation of the Hunter family lived here. Their ancestors were a Scottish Presbyterian family who cleared this portion of Depreciation Lands.
Often my thoughts go to life as it may have been stretched out over a nearly 200 year history when the family sustained themselves with their labors in the fields and there were horses in the barn. Now the horses are gone. The farm is in transition. Our work of the day includes for me, the care giving for my mother-in-law, Lois—almost 90—and the patients my husband “sees” on a computer in his office that was at one time our dining room and in generations past, a kitchen. The beauty of the evolving nature is one constant. We especially enjoy our summer evenings.
On one of the first warm nights this year we sat together on the back deck after mom was in bed, I grieved the loss of the horses and a pasture plowed under by Farmer Beahm, who will soon plant field corn. The sun was heading for its sweet spot between the tree-lined hills as clouds gathered bits of gray.
I remembered an evening nearly 35 years ago on May 31, 1985, the evening a 25-mile long twister took out the trees of that hill and my mother and father-in-law, along with our three-year-old son, hit the basement. I think they wanted a room with windows to better see a storm a coming in addition to daily witnessing the beauty of nature.
On this May evening—one of the first ones a coat and blanket not needed—another storm was brewing. It was May 12, just before the world began opening up to our “new normal” and all of the unknowns this will bring. Then in the skies, a real storm collected clouds and we were fascinated as we watched where the sun would soon disappear in the West. Rick had a Scotch in his hand. I had my camera.
The beauty of the moment mesmerized us and we didn’t heed the warnings of the winds. Our eyes were on the skies, when rain pelted us. For the moment we laughed through the winds, making sure my camera was safe and Rick anchored down the furniture we had to evacuate.
I thought of the storms of the past and the ones that are brewing and a word came to my mind about life on the farm. Resilience. Crops fail. You replant. Animals that sustain you will die. It’s not a moment to moment feeling. It’s a joy that doesn’t depend upon what is happening to you. It’s about being grateful for every moment in every time.
Life goes on and it’s always day by day. Farmers look for their rewards at the end of the day.
Storm a ComingSign in Braddock PA
This would have made a good Valentines Post.
Right before you get to A.Boss Optical Shop.