On Sunday, we had our book launch celebration, and we began with……well, what else? Writing! I wrote a 20 Questions Poem, falling short by about 9 questions. Our first 23 minutes includes a writing prompt, and then there is discussion about our books. Enjoy!
How do we celebrate this excitement of our book?
How do we scream and yell loud enough?
How do we jump high enough? Run in place fast enough?
Smile big enough? Laugh loud enough?
How do we let the joy out slowly enough without bursting wide open?
How do we keep our feet on the ground?
How do we remember our names and where we live?
How do we keep our faces from hurting, with these smiles too big
To fit on our faces?
How do we contain all the sugarplums that danced in our heads,
Now here on the pages of our book, our words, our joy, our being?
Join us today for our book launch party, too! September 22, 2024 – we are having an Online Publication Party to celebrate this bounteous time in our poetry community. Please join us for a live event on Zoom/YouTube at 12 PM PST/2 PM CST/3PM EST and bring friends with you…we are going to celebrate!
Mirrors
mirrors of life in art
Picasso exhibit in Nashville with my daughter
we sat admiring wondering taking it all in
then my birthday~ she sent blank journals with Picasso art covers fronts and backs
mirrors
mirrors of life these words
conversations with Fran we chatted on writing on family on pens and pencils
then a Ticonderoga Noir Holographic Hexagon flat sections
Margaret Simon of New Iberia, Louisiana is our host today at http://www.ethicalela.com for Day 2 of the June Open Write. You can read her full prompt here. Margaret inspires us to write Duplex poems in the style of Jericho Brown, using this process:
A duplex poem is 14 lines, 7 couplets, 9-11 syllables per line.
The second line from each stanza repeats as a first line for the next stanza.
The first line is echoed back in the last line.
My poem is inspired by a daughter’s new puppy, a dappled Dachshund named Jackson (after Jackson Pollock, for his spots). I used the Duplex form and thought of one of his famous paintings entitled Convergence and how his abstract art reminds me of things – – like these catastrophic chicken tacos that have no business being served in a shell that is only going to break and create food art under the first bite. Photo of Jackson below.
Catastrophic Chicken Tacos
catastrophic chicken tacos happen
always at lunch on taco Tuesdays
always at lunch on taco Tuesdays
shells break, insides spill onto the plate
shells break, insides spill on to the plate
revealing shredded lettuce, tomatoes, chicken
revealing shredded lettuce, tomatoes, chicken
all my cheese splatters broken taco art
all my cheese splatters broken taco art
like a Jackson Pollock painting: Convergence
like a Jackson Pollock painting: Convergence
a speckled canvas of confetti’ed food
a speckled canvas of confetti’ed food
catastrophic chicken tacos happen
Welcome to the family, dappled Jackson Pollock dachshund! May you paint the world with smiles and laughter and joy and leave your paw prints on every heart you meet!
Amber Harrison of Oklahoma is our host today for the 11th day of #VerseLove. She inspires us to write Surprising Supplies poems, and explains the process. You can read her full prompt here, along with the poems and comments of others.
I want a meadow ~ I think it could supply all the needs a person ever truly has.
Today, Jennifer Jowett of Michigan is our host at http://www.ethicalela.com for our fourth day of #VerseLove 2024. She offers a spectacular Alphabeticals prompt, using letters of the alphabet to create a poem. You can read her full prompt and the poems of others here.
My mind went straight to the farm as I looked at the letters on the keyboard. There’s a whole world of things to see if you let your eyes see what is held in each letter. Donkeys belonging to someone in our area keep getting loose, and my sister in law and I helped some other neighbors for two hours on Tuesday trying to trailer them, finally herding them into another neighbor’s fenced pasture. When they turned up in her yard again Wednesday, we decided to just make friends with them – they’re not halter trained, and we think they are lonely and seeking the companionship of humans.
They know they’ve found folks who are friendly. They’d rather live here on the Funny Farm, where things are amusingly quirky.
RELAXing on the Funny Farm
R hangs out in the barn, his back against the wall relaxing cowboy
E stalls two horses or goats or donkeys or mules safe from elements
L stands firm, holds reins hitching post for keeping us right where we belong
A swing for sweethearts porch side sunset views, sweet tea two-strawed Mason jar
Today’s host at http://www.ethicalela.com for the third day of February’s Open Write is Dr. Sarah Donovan, who inspires us to write poems that experiment with broken lines. You can read her prompt here, along with the poems of others.
I took the ghazal form today of 5 couplets with AA BA CA DA EA rhyme scheme and measured meter, reframed the whole form, relaxed the rules and broke the lines as I thought of my mother’s 81st birthday and the moments I’m so glad my camera captured before she left us in December 2015 with Parkinson’s disease. Above, she reads to her great grandson from The Sneetches by Dr. Seuss.
Shaping Future Tense
when nothing else made any sense
when family strangers made you tense
your lap unfolded picture books
that tore down every guarded fence
great grandson's heart and mind you shaped each page a moment so immense
your fingers curled his eyes unfurled his focus on you so intense
when nothing else made any sense picture books wrote future tense
Fifteen years ago, after we’d just moved into the house we designed during dinnertimes on napkins while we dated, I scoured thrift shops for inexpensive furniture and was surprised to find a little end table in amazing condition for ten dollars. It had a lot of scratches on it, but I figured it would mostly be covered with books and other things, so I scooped it up for my reading room, to sit beside the chair with a lamp – to hold my To Be Read pile and my coffee. 
As I looked at pieces of furniture needing a face lift at the beginning of 2024, this little table made the short list. I moved all of the things it was holding and dusted it off, getting it ready for a couple of coats of paint and a good polishing. 
Table before the refinish, turned with the brass-handled drawer facing the bookshelves
I sanded the top to find a much lighter wood – pine, stained in a rich chestnut color originally. Since I sit in the reading room to watch birds and enjoy the southeasterly views of the farm, I decided on a Sparkling Sage (Valspar) chalk paint for the bottom of the table, keeping the color of grass and life close at hand. Once I discovered the wood was a lighter color, I resisted the urge to whitewash the top and instead keep the natural wood under a coat of clear satin water-based polyurethane. I also decided to do something I haven’t done before – I kept the original hardware and painted it, too. 
Upcycled table iin the morning stream of sunlight
With a few touches of coordinating colors in decor accents, I’m pleased with the way it turned out. Now I’m ready for a new foot pouf to throw up my feet as I read and watch for birds to come to the feeders. 
And I’ve already got my eye on the next project that I want to accomplish as I look to paint and re-create before the annual cycle of deep spring cleaning begins in March. 
Today our host for August’s Open Write, Scott McCloskey of Michigan, encouraged us to write poems from the perspective of someone or something in any painting or its artist. You can read his full prompt here. I chose the Woodstock Festival. Since the photos are copyrighted, I can’t share the actual photo I chose, but it’s available at this link: https://artsandculture.google.com/story/AwUBOlaLnlGyLA
Once you get there, scroll down. It’s about the 14th picture in the collection. There is a woman playing a flute and a man playing a drum. There is a yellowish lab-type dog in the background, mixed in with all the people milling about. My poem is from the perspective of the drum player, clearly lost in the music and, if thinking anything, thinking to his own beat.
Ain't Nobody
Ain't nobody gonna steal my joy,
Ain't nobody gonna steal my song,
Ain't nobody gonna steal my beat,
Ain't nobody gonna steal my drum,
Ain't nobody gonna steal my groove,
Ain't nobody gonna steal my love,
Ain't nobody gonna steal my peace,
Ain't nobody gonna steal my shirt,
Ain't nobody gonna steal my dog,
Ain't nobody gonna steal nothin' of mine
'Cause I'm a sharin' man,
Yeah, I'm a sharin', man.
“Creative living is stranger than other, more worldly pursuits. The usual rules do not apply.” – Elizabeth Gilbert, Big Magic
Eagle in Ketchikan, Alaska
Something about photographs takes me back to the memories I hold dear. That’s why one of my goals this year is having several of my favorite pictures made into 16×20 canvas wood-framed wallhangings. So far, I have had 6 of them created, and I’m loving the feelings that they bring at the start of each day.
The first is an eagle that we watched from a hovercraft in Ketchikan, Alaska swooping down for fish in June 2022. The spectacular show inspired hundreds of photos, and I chose my favorite fraction of a second to place on my bathroom wall so that every morning, I start the day with sheer splendor and the gratefulness to have witnessed the majestic wingspan and precision of these birds.
Another is of our White Christmas on a farm in Kentucky at sunset. The angle and shades of light were mesmerizing, and they blend into the orange pop of energy contained in my walls – chosen specifically to be like a burst of citrus at daybreak ~ awakening me and rejuvenating my senses.
Dowdell’s Knob, Pine Mountain, Georgia
One I haven’t hung yet was taken at Dowdell’s Knob in Pine Mountain, Georgia when my son and his family were visiting with us in one of F. D. Roosevelt’s favorite picnic spots near his home at the Little White House in Warm Springs, Georgia. We had our own picnic, made s’mores, and enjoyed the scenery from atop the mountain. And the hidden secret here is that the newest grandbaby is in the picture – – (arriving in July).
Each adventure brings its own special moments, and Canvas on the Cheap helped me turn these into beautifully preserved photographs that bring me joy and gratefulness!
What is missing from many of our days is a true sense that we are enjoying the lives we are living. It is difficult to experience moments of happiness if we are not aware of what it is we genuinely love. We must learn to savor small, authentic moments that bring us contentment. – Sarah Ban Breathnach, Simple Abundance: A Daybook of Comfort and Joy
Some Saturdays, we get up and head over to the local coffee shop on our town square. My husband orders coffee, a cinnamon roll, and a slice of breakfast casserole. I take my Optavia breakfast fueling along with me and order black coffee. We sit at a table near the fireplace, where we chat and enjoy the meanderings of those, like us, ambling about town on a Saturday morning.
When he has extra errands to run that will take an hour or so, he’ll drop me off at the back door of the bookstore across the square, where the comfy chairs are circled around an oval coffee table, and I’ll gather a handful of books, grab a Cherry Coke Zero from the store fridge, and throw my feet up and read.
The place is magical from the moment you walk into the store. The smell of books greets you, and the floors creak under your feet as you browse the shelves. On the walls, there are watercolors and photographs by local artists for sale, and on the counters there is also handmade jewelry and other gifts. The new books are up front, along with the book club books that are lined up according to the month they’ll be discussed. The heart of the store is the used books – $3 for paperbacks, and $5 for hardbacks. And the lighting is warm and welcoming, giving the perfect ambiance for comfortable reading. Sometimes they play slow jazz.
I go straight to the travel and adventure books to see if there is anything obscure that grabs me, and I begin my book stack there. I mostly hang out in the nonfiction, perusing the shelves and searching the spines for titles that spark my interest. When I have one armful’s stack, I glance at the fiction and keep moving toward my chair – the one with the matching ottoman. I plop down, throw my feet up, pop my Coke top, and take a long swig as I begin with first glances at the books. What’s in the Table of Contents? When was it written? What does the back cover say? What’s the format, and do I like it? Is the print big enough? What do the pages feel like? Does it smell real?
I’m picky.
Two members of my writing group have recently books – Starting From Scratch, about teaching poetry, and Kitchen Table Wisdom, about womens’ wisdom from ancestors with answers. I order these, and then I chat with two of the owners. Karen leads the writing group, and we share what we’re writing. I meet her daughter and grandson. I speak briefly with another owner, Chris, who is headed out for lunch, but always asks what I’m reading – so I tell her I’m reading around the United States, and I’ve just finished Stephen King’s On Writing for the New England states and am narrowing down my choice for the Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, and Wyoming states. I’m leaning towards Midnight at the Bright Ideas Bookstore.
Today, I narrow it down to two books: The Iditarod Fact Book and The Happiness of Pursuit. And then I wonder: How am I going to meet my goal of getting down to two and a half bookcases if I bring more home? I think there is math involved: if I get rid of more than I take in, will it work? Somebody who can do math, please – tell me that it will. These are small, authentic moments that bring me contentment – – and books are what I genuinely love.
Common Threads 