I saw this social media post with a haiku plus 3 syllables, and it inspired me to take action:
Photo taken from a social media post about writing poems
My Response to the Leaf Writer
I did what you said
I found leaves and rocks, penned verse,
left for others to
discover….
We were camping at FD Roosevelt State Park in Pine Mountain, Georgia, and the leaves are starting to change. I found an assortment of leaves and rocks and took the advice from the
post.
Mary Oliver verse on a rock
This writing on the rocks makes me think of my time in Asheville at the Grove Park Inn, which has been fiercely and steadily on my mind over the past week. I’ve heard much about Biltmore House, but very little is out there except for a statement that I could find on the Grove Park Inn’s website. Besides the old caged elevator and the mega-sized fireplaces with rocking chairs lined up in front of them, one of my favorite things to do at the Grove Park Inn during my visit there was walking around and reading the quotes from books etched into the rocks in the lobby. Perhaps this rock with its lines of poetry is one small way to keep the city of Asheville and its devout love of the arts close to my heart as they heal.
I do hope that The Grove Park Inn finds a way to temporarily host the National Gingerbread House Contest in November this year to another location if they are unable to have it there – which I’m sure may be next to impossible. My vote is for Atlanta, and I’d love to buy 15 tickets and bring the children and grandchildren!
August was a month of preparations for the launch of three of the five books that my writing group has written over the past couple of years. Words That Mend: The Transformative Power of Writing Poetry for Teachers, Students, and Community Wellbeing, 90 Ways of Community, and Just YA launched on September 2, and we celebrated the birth of these books via Zoom and Facebook Live a few weeks later.
August was also preparation time for local book events, the first of which was held last night pretty much in the middle of the Upson Lee Homecoming Parade in Thomaston, Georgia on the courthouse square. One week after Hurricane Helene’s blustering of wind and heavy rain that necessitated our one week delay, I arrived on the square two hours ahead of time to seek parking among the throngs of people and the flurry of floats.
Earlier in the day, I’d considered leaving my car parked on the square and getting a ride back, but I’d stopped by Ace Hardware in town looking for a foldable wagon to pull my baskets of books in, even if I ended up having to walk a few blocks. The salesman had one little red wagon left, and he took it to the back, unboxed it, and installed the wheels for me, pulling it right back up to the checkout and wishing me well. (Local small-town shopping is a thing of the past in most places, and I was grateful for his stellar customer service).
Little Red Wagon in my back seat, ready to load up books
The Thomaston Upson Arts Council (TUAC) is an active, thriving group who bring cultural arts and literary events to the forefront of the city of Thomaston. I entered the place I’d been several times before, offering a land honorarium not only for the Native Americans who’d once called it home but also for all people who had ever lived in Thomaston and their stories. This arts council is a model for keeping arts in the spotlight, and I perused the photography exhibit on the walls, spotlighting landscapes of America.
Tomorrow’s blog will feature more of the actual book talk now that the stage of place and arrival has been set. Today, I stand back and take in the whirlwind of life: returning to normal after a storm, traffic, a friendly Ace salesman pulling a little red wagon to me and wishing me well, a passing parade with spectators and a line of Homecoming Court high schoolers waving from the backs of convertibles, the tops of cars, and the beds of trucks. All of this feels like the twirling leaves of fall descending upon us as we think of the cozier days ahead – – hopefully, filled with mugs of cider, cozy blankets, and reading fireside in the early mornings.
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
Background: We are traveling on weekends these days to see my father and help with some household tasks, so we are spending some time in hotels and motels on the road. Sometimes I just like to eavesdrop and take notes about how life happens for other people – which is what I did on Saturday morning as we sipped coffee in the lobby. There’s nothing quite like a little slice of cultural conversation, overheard, to get the mind racing about what life is like in other corners of the world.
“they finally found him in Statesboro in CCU
after he went into Metter and they transported
him to Statesboro then to Augusta who sent him
back and he was lost, nobody knew where
he was at but he was at a dadgum good hospital
in Augusta and either he checked hisself out
or somebody came and picked him up and
took him back to Statesboro…..
I cried all
night because I messed up my baby’s hair
and it looked like a lawnmower done ran
over it and all the kids teased him in school
but the vet showed me how to hold the
clippers and I did it just like that…..
I called Betty Joyce, Maxine, and you do not
understand sometimes I have to talk to her
and I told her I can’t deal with her actin like
a two year old like she done this morning….
now Barri in Laundry don’t want that job
so I better not hear her complainin one more
time cause it’s done been offered but she
says she don’t want lobby…
there’s three types of tacos up there and I
got off the phone with Ashley and asked Mama
if she wants to share a plate of three tacos
but Mama said them tacos won’t be very big
and she got hers with beef and I got mine with
pickles in those torTILLa shells, and we shared
them but she ate two and I ate one and she was
upset so Denise called and asked her if she wanted
Today’s host for Day 4 of the August Open write at http://www.ethicalela.com is Jeanie White of Missouri, who inspires us to write postcard poems. You can read her full prompt here.
Jeania encourages us to think of ourselves as a sock in a suitcase and somewhere we might find ourselves, or to write from a place we have never been. She encourages us to use one of the short forms – a form that would fit on a postcard.
I’m choosing an acrostic, in which the place I most want to visit reads vertically and each letter starts a new line.
Common Threads 