Current projects

I've started two new collections of poetry. The first entitled "In the space we leave behind" contains new and selected poems from the past few years. Many were constructed or started on my recent trips to Lincoln, Nebraska. For some reason, I feel comfortable there and the words just flow.
The second collection "Open Sky" will once again showcase not only nature poems, but also many photographs. If I can just get the formatting right.....it's a bear!
Also, I received news that my poem "Hummingbird Conversations" and a photograph will be featured August 9th on Nature Writing.
Here's a copy of that poem and the photo.

Hummingbird conversations 

Around the feeder ruby throated

hummingbirds swoop flit hover

dance and fight and I wish

I could hear their

wingbeat conversations.

What would they tell me?

Do they discuss the weather

the local nest situation

compare the quality of spider silk

swap migration route stories

or point out their favorite flowers?

Do they have a pecking order

who goes first and why?

Maybe they talk about politics

or health insurance

immigration or crop prices

probably not though.

How would it feel to be

in the tiny jeweled body

buzzing around

unable to be still

always moving

a heart beating

six hundred times a minute.

If I could feel that I’d know

what it feels like to fly across

the Gulf of Mexico

hover swoop dive and

taste the nectar of a

hundred thousand flowers.

When trouble comes

Listening to a story

of muffled drums

while the cedars

collect little birds

I wait for friction’s spark.

Abandoned in winter when

every night is a blues song

I tried to scream but

the moon puts her hand

over my mouth.

I know that when

trouble comes

that I can find solace

in the engineering

of cobwebs

that empty bullets

no longer know

how to kill

that when spring comes

with songbirds and

I can see the stars

I will accept

just a pinch of

the world again.

Rattle Poetry Prize

This morning I entered four poems in the Rattle Poetry Prize contest. The contest costs $20.00, but it gives me a year subscription to the Timothy Green’s fantastic literary journal. So basically, the contest is free, if you look at it that way. I’ve sent a few items to Rattle, but none of them have yet been chosen for inclusion. Darn it! I remain ever hopeful. There’s a weekly prize for Poets Respond(which costs nothing to enter and pays $50.00) and an ekphrastic challenge every month, also no cost and pays $50.00.

We don't want nightmares (new poem)

We don’t want nightmares

bodies piled in ditches

twitching stinking

Yet some prisoners are true

beliefs in blue stripes on long sleeves

We want the soft warm slippers

we want the comfy worn chair

the reminders of horrors

humans on humans seeping

through our fingers.

We’d much rather think

that what was done

half a century ago   

or half a world away

just doesn’t apply to us

tucked into this safe harbor

The knives and nooses

call us into action

in order to prevent them

from holding their children

in filth and chains

down beneath

the stairs

Most pivotal books

I’m taking a different approach to this topic by describing the two very pivotal books in my life. The first one introduced poetry to me and the second one rocketed me into adult reading.

My introduction to poetry began with the book Piper, Pipe that Song Again: Poems for Boys and Girls published by Random House in 1965. This collection of children’s poems included poets Margaret Wise Brown, Lewis Carroll, Carl Sandburg, Robert Louis Stevenson, Langston Hughes, and A.A. Milne among others. It whet my appetite for more and I’ve never looked back. My collection of poetry books grows every year, just recently adding a new book by William Trowbridge called Vanishing Point and one by Mary Oliver entitled Blue Horses.

When I was young and a beginning reader, Nancy Drew mysteries lined my bookcase. One afternoon while searching the basement for something else to read, I came across my father’s collection of James Michener novels. Most of them were hardback and rather heavy, and I was nine or ten at the time. So I settled on the only paperback I could find entitled The Drifters. What an adventure that was! I’d often wished that I could travel around Europe with four young people, exploring historic areas and having all kinds of adventures. From there, I probably read almost everything Michener has written, with Chesapeake Bay and Alaska among my personal favorites.

I can’t really say that I have a favorite author or single favorite book, but these two are the most pivotal for me, my personal literary crossroads.

Why I write poetry

I remember as a teenager finding my path to poetry. My mother, practical woman that she is, said, “What the hell are you going to do with that?” In other words, don’t quit your day job! After that, for many years, I walked away from poetry. Oh I’d write an occasional poem for someone, but mostly it was my own “dirty little secret.”

Not anymore, and frankly, I’m glad. There are three basic reasons I write poetry: to capture moments, to understand the world and relationships, and to feed my soul.

Besides being a poet, I’m also an avid bird lover and amateur nature photographer. Often times, poems come from the photos I’ve taken or tried to capture; or moments with my children and now my grandchildren. The poems follow the seasons, months, special places I’ve been like the Grand Canyon or the Black Hills, or simple moments like watching fireflies or sunsets, or my grandson play with his trains.

Secondly, there are events in this world that affect us deeply and poetry gives me a method for healing, attempting to understand what’s going on covering diverse subjects from Hurricane Katrina to San Bernardino shootings, from Honduran refugees to Sandy Hook and 9/11. Writing poetry also becomes therapeutic when dealing with broken or difficult relationships. It’s tough to go through divorce, miscarriage and heartbreak without having support. And for me, poetry has given me much support, not only through the act of writing, but also networking with other writers.

     Finally, I’ve learned that just the act of writing feeds my soul. Many times I’ll be walking outdoors or sitting by the lake and poems begin to emerge. Often, I’ll usually just get the first or last line (so frustrating!) and work in the rest later. Capturing those moments or thoughts and seeing the world through a different lens just plain delights me. There is real joy in those fleeting moments. I wouldn’t want it any other way.

Poem in Nature Writing

My poem "Early Summer" has been published on Nature Writing, an online journal.

Coneflowers in Sunken Gardens, Lincoln NE