Category Archives: #poetrycommunity

by Luanne | June 9, 2025 · 11:14 am

Sirens to Larks: Interview with Poet Rose Mary Boehm

Please meet the prolific and multidimensional poet, Rose Mary Boehm. She has graciously consented to an interview. I will give you her official bio first, but you’ll discover in her interview replies that there is so much more to Rose and her poetry than what can be discovered in a paragraph.

German-born UK national, Rose Mary Boehm lives and works in Lima, Peru. Author of two novels and ‘Tangents’, a full-length poetry collection published in the UK in 2010/2011, her work has been widely published in US poetry journals (online and print). She was three times winner of the now defunct Goodreads monthly competition and has been nominated for a Pushcart and Best of Net. Her other poetry collections are: ‘From the Ruhr to Somewhere Near Dresden 1939-1949: A Child’s Journey’; ‘Peru Blues or Lady Gaga Won’t Be Back’; ‘The Rain Girl’; ‘Do Oceans Have Underwater Borders?’; ‘Whistling in the Dark’; ‘Saudade’, and ‘Life Stuff’. A new chapbook is about to be published by Kelsay Books. Find out more about the author and her work on her website: https://www.rose-mary-boehm-poet.com/

INTERVIEW OF ROSE MARY BOEHM

I first met Rose in the Verse Virtual poetry community and journal. The journal itself is part of a community of poets that are very supportive of each other.

At the end of the interview I won’t respond because I want to leave you with how Rose ends the interview. Thank you, Rose.

I have a theory that the creative chronology of a poet is more important than the physical chronology; however, the poet is first shaped in childhood experience. Your book From the Ruhr to Somewhere Near Dresden 1939 to 1949: A Child’s Journey, is a witness to those years, but years that were intensely defined by being a German child living in Germany during WWII. The book describes the deprivation of a war fought elsewhere and on the homeland. Please share a poem from the book and tell us what you hope the book accomplishes.

Having been a young child during WWII in Germany (I had just turned seven when the War ended) will forever colour everything I do and think and feel. I have a kind of PTSD which is well controlled (even though I just cannot, CANNOT read stories and see photos of the children of Gaza without despairing completely), but I can’t help referring back to my childhood again and again in many poems.

Now that I am in the last years of my life, I am desperate that my children and their children should not experience war, and this seems increasingly unlikely, the way the wind is blowing all over the world. It makes me scared and sad.

The book, From the Ruhr to Somewhere Near Dresden 1939 to 1949: A Child’s Journey, was a bit of an exorcism, a talk with a therapist perhaps, and hopefully a message to all children who lived either this war or any other. And, if they survive, how they often find (a somewhat troubled) childhood, remember the finer points of a caterpillar rather than the next plane strafing the house, the next bomb killing your neighbours, your parents, or you… if you’ve been small enough not to understand it all. My brother, eight years older, was not so lucky.

The collection is more of a story told in free verse than individual poems, numbered only in the order of telling the story. Seen totally from the child’s point of view, told in the child’s voice. Whatever I remember I remembered in this way – once I started looking.

I think I have to use two poems to give you an idea of the contrasts (‘normal’ childhood versus little-understood horror):

Poem 5

Mother calls them ‘Christmas trees’. My brother calls them flares.

I am wrapped in a blanket, sitting on Mother’s arm.

We are on the balcony. It is nighttime. Danger time.

These ‘Christmas trees’ stay for a while, suspended in the night sky.

Now she runs with me down to the shelter. Moments later

there is the whizz, the rumble. I press my hands to my ears.

In the shelter I always lie on the sofa and trace the pattern

of the velvet cover. Maybe that man with the hoarse, loud voice

comes in these explosions and sweeps through the house,

killing everything with his breath. Black. He wears black

and he has a cape, like on the posters.

The siren won’t sound the ‘all clear’ tonight—that long, long howl

which tells us it’s alright to go back upstairs.

As during thunderstorms, the bangs come closer.

My brother looks as white as a ghost

and holds me tight. Mother comes to my other side

and holds us both. Suddenly the candles die.

Screams.

Silence.

Confusion.

Everyone speaks at once.

‘Where are the matches–must have been next door.

The Brandt’s… Must have been the Brandt’s.’

A light appears from the other side

and a figure in white. It’s Herr Brandt holding a candle.

I can’t help giggling. He’s wearing long, worn-out underpants.

Many houses are still burning.

Burning flesh stinks,

burning rubber stinks.

Death stinks.

Poem 6

I stand on the balcony. On tiptoes.

I’ll see him any minute now. The tram has

turned the corner, and it’s the tram

on which Father usually comes.

It’s a sunny afternoon

and I feel expectant and happy.

I can see his trench-coated figure,

recognize the way he walks, the way

he wears his hat. He carries his leather case

and something wrapped in paper. He probably

bought two of those flat fish with yellow spots

because it’s Friday. We always eat fish on Friday.

I am never quite sure whether it’s Friday

because he brings the fish, or whether

he brings the fish because it’s Friday.

From your poems that I have read and those I have had the pleasure of hearing you read aloud, I have taken away that you have lived through a variety of changes: lovers and husbands, having children, living in various countries, learning many languages. How do you think your “multiple lives” and languages enrich your poetry? It might help if you have a couple of quotes from your poems to illustrate your points.

Yes, Luanne, it’s been a rich and varied life, full of pain, miracles, adventures, more pain, and much, much love. There is no way I can not weave this into my poetry. What am I saying, I am weaving nothing: it ‘weaves’ me. Those memories want out, and most of the time they become poems.

I chose the following poem as an illustration where my travels did not produce ‘place poems’ but a deeply-felt incorporation of history, place, and DNA.

A Pilgrimage

In Rosh HaNicra I look across

to Lebanon. Below me is the sea.

I pick up a stone and let it bounce

against the rocks.

The Sea of Galilee cuts me

with contrition. I want to atone

for sins to which I feel fettered

by blood. The Jordan washes the dusty crust

of the Negev from my skin.

The Dead Sea lifts my burden.

Haifa receives me in a language

I understand, Bethlehem’s brittle

alliances don’t inspire. My friend rejects

the kipah and holds my hand.

And Yom Rishon is the first day.

The languages are an enrichment and sometimes a small-ish problem: with each language you learn so much more than words. You internalise different cultures, customs, religions (or interpretations of it), images, music, rhythms. That’s definitely enriching. What can make you stumble at times are words you know in one language, you can feel what they mean in its totality in your belly, but there is no way they can be directly translated into their complete components in one English word. You have to ‘write around’ that word in order to make its full, round meaning understood in the way you do.

Of course, my travels, my pains, my children have all been sources for poems in many iterations. But instead of a few quotes, I think I’d better use the title poem of my collection ‘Saudade’, a poem that is the perfect example of ‘writing around’ the meaning (as perceive by me) of the word ‘saudade’ which means so many things in Portuguese:

What is Saudade?

A moment that passes like

a paler shade of Spring,

like the knowledge of a certainty,

the vague promise of repeat.

The echo of something

which never was, a butterfly wing

that may have brushed your cheek.

Dreaming of indolence.

Expecting the first rains on dry fields,

not quite hearing the last lark before

the autumn winds, the first smell of snow,

the never-ending final summer dance.

Softest touch of his hand on yours,

the death of an infatuation.

Your evanescent youth.

A strange bliss in your longing,

fear of fulfilment. Praying

for the becalmed sea of inertia.

Celebration of absence.

You carry a sharp, merciless

switchblade made of stainless grief.

If you had to leave quickly and could only take two of your books, which would they be and why? I’m not asking which you think are the technically best collections, but the ones closest to your heart now. Do you think your feelings about any of your poems has changed over the years?

Oh my, that’s the ‘impossible’ question. Each one of my books represents an important part of me, and I can’t leave even one important part of me behind. I’d rather think that I would be allowed to grab’em all. It’s a ‘Sophie’s Choice’, if I may use such a heartrenting example for mere books (but they are my children too, in a way).

If hard-pressed, tortured, threatened with a bucket of maggots, I’d probably choose ‘The Rain Girl’ and ‘Saudade’. Still, just writing this hurts. I also need ‘Life Stuff’. But please, let us keep that very much between us.

Rose, what brought you to Peru and what is your creative life like there? What does Peru add to your poetry?

I was brought to Peru by my Peruvian husband, Luis (a Luis is affectionately known as ‘Lucho’ in Peru). I met Lucho in Madrid, where I had moved to from London, licking my wounds from a previous marriage that hadn’t made it. By the time Lucho and I got together, I was quite ‘together’ again too, or this new love adventure wouldn’t have worked. Take it from Granny: never marry on the rebound!

We stayed in Madrid for 18 years, and then took the plunge. We have now been in Lima for almost 14 years.

Peru was the first time where I lived (not just visited) a completely different planet, new language (even though I was fluent in Spanish – it’s a different Spanish here), poverty, llamas, braids, hats, Andean music, the gentlest of people as well as cheap lives easily taken over a cell phone. My book ‘Peru Blues’ was the result. I couldn’t write it now, I had to write it while I still saw everything with ‘foreign’ eyes. Over the years Peru became home, no longer an unknown country, and many things one no longer ‘sees’.

For example:

At the Seaside in Peru

Houses made from basket weave lean

into the dunes of the desert only a few meters

from the salty dance of the Pacific,

shivering in the stiff breeze.

Sand mixed with plastic and excrement,

small children crawl atop the landfill

with burlap sacks, the odd pig snuffles

between shards and pieces of iron.

A half-dead plant wrenched from the root,

reminder of what once was — unsalvageable.

Here I am, holding a small, brown hand,

sticky and bruised. Her large dark eyes

are those of a cornered deer.

Her mother turns to leave.

Contrasts

I remember lipstick smears on empty wine glasses, kisses

blown into the air, muak, muak, how good to see you,

Dahhling. There were important decisions

to be made. Go for Dior or Cacharel, and the wonder

how some women would never lose that dark-red

which ringed their mouths and made them appear

like fathomless caves, dangerous suction channels

inhaling man and mammal into Dante’s Inferno,

and the whispers behind long-nailed hands, ready

to claw and destroy, freckled breasts arching out

of low-cut silks and cashmeres, gold weighing

on bony hands. ‘Can’t be too rich or too thin,

Honey,’ that’s what the Duchess said. And now

I am watching from afar, on the screens of lies

which used to be the ‘small’ screens, how mudslides

reclaim the riverbed. The poorest build their precarious

homes there every year against all advice and the offer

of other land. My grandfather, some say, my mother, say others.

Tradition meets ignorance, and they tearfully watch again

their houses, children, wives and husbands

disappear under boulders and mud.

Please describe your current project and why it is important to you. Why is it important to readers?

One of my current projects is a chapbook called, ‘The Matter of Words’, that’ll be coming out in the autumn of this year. I LOVE words, and – as I did with ‘Saudade’ – have written poems (short ones and longer ones) around ‘difficult’ words, words that are not used in daily speech as a matter of course.

But there is a full-length manuscript that is now looking for a home. That one – I won’t mention the title or give an example poem, not to discourage potential publishers, you know how iffy they often are about ‘previously’ published or curated – is a collection of all my favourite poems written since the publication of my other books, or those that didn’t quite fit. This may well become another one I’ll sneak into my backpack when I have to leave a lot behind.

And that’s where we are, that backpack. I am 87, and where I am going in the not too distant future I won’t need a backpack, and I can only hope that my writing will not completely disappear but give some meaning, joy (or tears) to those I leave behind.

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Filed under #amreading, #poetrycommunity, #writingcommunity, Interview, Poetry, Poetry book, Poetry Collection

Tagged as #amreading, author interview, Poetry, poetry book, poetry collection, Rose Mary Boehm

by Luanne | April 1, 2025 · 4:05 pm

A Senryu for National Poetry Monthr

HAPPY POETRY MONTH!

This week’s poetry challenge at Tanka Tuesday is The Fool, as in the card in the tarot deck. I got an idea for my senryu from the card from The Wild Unknown which features a baby bird on a twig or branch. I found the image online, but couldn’t find one I felt I had permission to reprint here. I did a marathon this past weekend of taking care of my toddler grandson. My hip is completely shot and otherwise screwed up, and I’m getting a new one in a month and a half,* so this was pretty insane for me to do (The Fool?). The gardener helped though, and the babysitter came for three hours, too.

After viewing the tarot card I thought about how my grandson must feel when he makes some of his dangerous choices. Here’s my poem:

baby climbs on chair

he stands upright, rocks backwards

hope blossoms in him

Of course that’s not how Grandma views the situation, but I do think we’re pretty close so I have him a bit figured out. BTW, he does not speak or say names yet, but he called out to me again, “Grandma!” He’s done that a few times for at least four months. I’ve had witnesses every time, too, so I am NOT imagining it.

*Back to the hip. You might have good stories about how easy the surgery and recovery was for you or a friend, but don’t bother. I have some conditions that makes it scary, and so those stories won’t make me feel better but will probably irritate me. Just sayin. But thanks for the thought. Of course, prayers and vibes accepted and even desired!

In honor of National Poetry Month and the re-opening of Zingara Poetry Review, they are providing prompts each day this month–and then if you like you can submit them in hopes of getting them published. Here’s the link for the first prompt, which I kind of love: ZINGARA PROMPT ONE

Listen to this serendipity! I searched my The Wild Unknown archetype deck to see if it includes The Fool. It does not, but I found a business card for the editor of Zingara. I have no idea how long it’s been in there as I haven’t cracked that deck in awhile. Is that WILD?

Let’s get some poetry going this month! XO

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Filed under #AmWriting, #poetrycommunity, #TankaTuesday, Poetry, Syllabic Poetry, Writing, writing prompt

Tagged as #TankaTuesday, poetry prompts, senryu, syllabic poetry, tarot poetry, Zingara Poetry Review

by Luanne | February 24, 2025 · 4:21 pm

Review of Robert Okaji’s Our Loveliest Bruises

Robert Okaji’s new poetry collection Our Loveliest Bruises can be considered his greatest work, truly a magnum opus. The spare language belies the beautiful compelling imagery as it probes the depths of emotion.

Some of the poems have been published in various literary journals and anthologies, but the book is a tightly woven project of loss and grief. Okaji uses the Japanese bamboo flute shakuhachi as a metaphor for these emotions. Throughout the book, in various poems, the poet breathes his life force into the holes of the instrument, producing notes which are akin to his poems. The holes represent the absences of loss. Eventually, in “Self-Portrait as Shakuhachi,” the poet becomes the flute: “How easy to let air / slide through oneself.”

The poet’s mother’s ghost is a recurring character. She does not communicate, but there is a sense of competition between the two. The imagery in these poems is rough and realistic. There is a sense of profound regret, but also of love. From “Ghost, with a Line from Porchia”:

Your battle with language, with silence, invoked.
I stretch the word and weave this dirge for you.

Some poems address a “you,” and I believe in many cases this person is his mother’s ghost. But it could mean the poet himself. There are instances in some poems that point out the brief nature of life itself or are a merging of mother and self and perhaps even a universal human message. “Each day lived is one less to live,” Okaji writes in “Mother’s Day.”

Robert Okaji has written an extraordinary account of the “loveliest bruises” we experience from the love we have for loved ones, of self, of life itself.

***

Bob Okaji blogs at O at the Edges. If you haven’t read his blog you might not realize that Bob was diagnosed with late stage metastatic lung cancer. He has posted a couple of times on his blog about his illness. He continues to do well, although he doesn’t always feel that great.

Bob is the person who first introduced me to the Tupelo 30/30 poem challenge. I think that challenge really motivated me into writing more and more poetry.

Click the link to Bob’s blog so you can send him some good vibes. And then, if you can, click the link to his gorgeous book.

Our Loveliest Bruises

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Tagged as #bloggingcommunity, #poetrycommunity, book review, grief, loss, Our Loveliest Bruises, poetry collection, poetry review, Robert Okaji

by Luanne | January 13, 2025 · 5:20 am

Three Fairy Tales, Because That’s Where Things Happen in Threes

You might figure that someone who revised the classic tale of Red Riding Hood in her chapbook Our Wolves might be interested in fairy tales. And I am!!! Today I have three fairy tales I’d like to share with you. The first two are new publications, and the third is personal.

This flash story, “The Floromancy of Identification,” in Panoply is in the folk tale style, but puts a new spin on things. The whole issue is wonderful, and I think you can skip around from this link to mine to other poems and stories.

https://shorturl.at/LKk6M

The second is in the new issue of Last Stanza Poetry Journal and responds to the cover image, an illustration by Swedish artist john Bauer and in the tradition of troll literature. The idea of a changeling has long fascinated me. Definition from Oxford: “child believed to have been secretly substituted by fairies for the parents’ real child in infancy.” Trolls are also known for creating changelings by stealing human babies.

You should be able to click on the cover image below to get to Amazon.

Last Stanza Poetry Journal Issue #19: Fable

Now to the third fairy tale. The gardener and I are celebrating our FIFTIETH wedding anniversary this month. I know, wild, huh? And just like in fairy tales, we have had some real curveballs thrown at us by trolls, giants, and monsters (which are sometimes us).

But we prevailed, and here we are: fifty years out. It’s so hard to believe since I can remember all those early days so well.

The “kids” and baby grandson all took us out for a wonderful dinner and gave us a poster montage featuring the legendary (to our family) photo of the Holiday Inn where we had a dinner-dance reception (and even found some vintage postcards of the hotel). The marquee out front has our names on it. The kids love that photo, and my brother resends it to me every year!

Full disclosure: above photo is at the 42nd anniversary point . . . . But I kinda like it.

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Filed under #AmWriting, #OurWolves, #poetrycommunity, #writingcommunity, Fairy Tales, Flash Fiction, Literary Journals, Poetry, Writing

Tagged as fairy tales, Flash Fiction, fractured fairy tales, Last Stanza Poetry Journal, Our Wolves, Panoply Zine, Poetry

by Luanne | December 23, 2024 · 7:35 pm

Buy Yourself a Gift of Sunflower Tanka!!!

Lily is enjoying her new anthology, Sunflower Tanka. These are wonderful examples of tanka and tanka prose. There are even some unusual tanka forms. I’m so blessed to have four tanka prose in the book. A huge thanks to the contributing editors, Colleen Chesebro and Robbie Cheadle.

Isn’t the art on the cover gorgeous? It’s by Robbie.

I sent a copy to my mom and suspect she’s going to love it!

You can pick up your own copy here: https://shorturl.at/XEKLb

You can also purchase a Kindle version.

Blurb

Sunflower Tanka, edited by Robbie Cheadle & Colleen M. Chesebro, is an annual anthology of contemporary tanka, tanka prose, & experimental tanka from a broad mix of new and established poetic voices from across the world.

Our theme, “Into the Light,” draws inspiration from the way a young sunflower bud constantly turns to face the sun. Poets delved into the realms of death, love, and the natural world, capturing their human experiences in the timeless form of syllabic poetry.

Contributors to the first edition of the Sunflower Tanka: Suzanne Brace, Yvette Calleiro, Kay Castenada, Luanne Castle, Robbie Cheadle, Colleen M. Chesebro, E.A. Colquitt, Melissa Davilio, Destiny, Tamiko Dooley, Lisa Fox, Cindy Georgakas, Chris Hall, Franci Hoffman, Marsha Ingrao, Jude Itakali, Jules Paige, Kenneth, MJ Mallon, Brenda Marie, Selma Martin, Michelle Ayon Navajas, Lisa Nelson, D. Wallace Peach, Freya Pickard, Dawn Pisturino, Gwen M. Plano, Jennifer Russo, Aishwarya Saby, Reena Saxena, Merril D. Smith, Nicole Smith, Ivor Steven, Ben Tonkin, Trilce Marsh Vazquez, Cheryl Wood.

Get yourself a holiday gift of Sunflower Tanka!

HAPPY HOLIDAYS TO ALL!!!

Exploring the Ekphrastic Poetry of Hedy Habra

I love the work of Hedy Habra, a fabulous ekphrastic poet and painter. She is originally from Egypt and Lebanon and ended up where I grew up–in Kalamazoo, Michigan–, but I think of Hedy as a citizen of the world. She knows several languages perfectly, including but probably not limited to French, Spanish, English, and Arabic. You can find her bio at the end of this post.

Before I move into her poetry, I’d like to share a couple of her gorgeous paintings: “Dancing Egret” and “Woman & Leopard.”

Hedy and I were in the same MFA program at Western Michigan University, but we don’t think we were ever in the same classes. Part of that is because I didn’t strictly focus on poetry as my MFA coursework was divided between fiction and poetry. But the fun thing is that at the end of the program, we gave our final MFA reading together.

You couldn’t ask for a better example of ekphrastic poetry than Hedy’s new book, Or Did You Ever See the Other Side. It became apparent to me in reading this collection that Hedy and I have something else in common: an obsession with the art of Remedios Varo!

I was blessed to offer a blurb for the back of the book. Here is what I wrote:

In this extraordinary new collection, Hedy Habra weaves a marvelous life tapestry through dreams and the language of memory— “the right words thrown / pell-mell in the folds of memory.” These ekphrastic poems are not content to interpret painting and music but transcend the border between poet and art. Habra explores each piece from multiple angles to discover its locked heart: “See how colors arise from heartbeats.” Then she searches for a key, but there is never only one key. Each poem asks a question that invites the reader to see another perspective, then another. This collection is kaleidoscopic, stunning, and wrings a haunting beauty from every brushstroke and musical note. Or Did You Ever See The Other Side? “soars without wings,” taking the reader on a journey into its breathtaking dreamscape.

You can pick up a copy of the book on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Did-You-Ever-Other-Side/dp/1950413691

I asked Hedy to write about her work for this blog post:

Trajectory and influences.

I have a passion for art and I’m a visual artist, so art has always been an inherent part of my writing whether it is criticism, fiction, or poetry. I love prose poems but enjoy experimenting with forms, such as haikus, anaphoric poems, abecedarians, found sonnets, haibuns, pantoums, and most recently ghazals. The restrictions of a form call for concision and enable me to discard redundancies when I struggle with drafts.

The stories in Flying Carpets and the poems in Tea in Heliopolis and The Taste of the Earth, focus on my countries of origin, Egypt and Lebanon, weaving linguistic, historical, and mythical components with personal memories. I have also lived in Greece and Belgium and developed a sense of belonging encompassing cultural influences.

Even my ‘memoirs in verse’ are instilled with art. My mother was an artist and I grew up surrounded by her artworks. As a child, I imagined stories about the characters in her paintings and lived vicariously within this alternate world. Oftentimes, some elements from a painting would trigger deep emotions and revive memories or lead me to recreate imaginary worlds. For the past fifteen years, I studied Chinese Ink brush painting on rice paper, which enabled me to paint the covers of my poetry collections.

My first ekphrastic poetry collection, Under Brushstrokes (Press 53 2015) was inspired by artists of different genders, styles, and periods, whereas my most recent ekphrastic collection, Or Did You Ever See The Other Side? (Press 53 2023) is mainly inspired by contemporary and surrealist women artists. Spanish-Mexican surrealist, Remedios Varo is a primary influence, but I draw inspiration from other surrealists, such as Juanita Guccione, Leonor Fini, Deborah Tanning, and Leonora Carrington. I love surrealism because of its connection with the world of dreams and the unconscious.

When I write ekphrastic poetry, I don’t aim at depicting a work of art, but rather my response to it. I love to engage in a dialogue with the artwork itself, with one of the characters in the paintings, or at times with the artist. Often verbal images provide a sequel to the scene portrayed or another version of the original, adding a new dynamic life to the artwork. Even when verbal images coincide synchronously with the artwork, words stand on their own, creating a new world. As a result, after having written or read an ekphrastic poem, we can’t look back at the source of inspiration in the same way because the artwork will retain traces of the verbal images projected onto it in an inter-artistic dialogue.

Here are two poems from Or Did You Ever See the Other Side?

Or Can’t You See How We’re Weaving Ourselves Tight?

After Three Women and Three Owls by Juanita Guccione

Didn’t you think you’d soar high up when you wore a miniskirt?

I lowered my hemline, surrendering to ghost owls’ hoots

Following the rhythm of my elder’s everlasting refrains

When she visited the Louvre she wanted to wear her skin bare

I lowered my hemline, surrendering to ghost owls’ hoots

Wore a key chain around my wrist that didn’t open any doors

When she visited the Louvre she wanted to wear her skin bare

Chest open to the drifts of wind as she’d march with Delacroix’s banner

Wore a key chain around my wrist that didn’t open any doors

Afraid to face the black sun of Melancholy sung by Gerard de Nerval

Chest open to the drifts of wind as she’d march with Delacroix’s banner

She enters the triple dance, a sarong loosely wrapped around her hips

Afraid to face the black sun of Melancholy sung by Gerard de Nerval

I conjure my younger self’s steps eager to unlock the darkness

She enters the triple dance, a sarong loosely wrapped around her hips

The three of us dive into the emerald waters under the blackened sun

I conjure my younger self’s steps eager to unlock the darkness

You didn’t soar high up still unable to satisfy your hunger

The three of us dive into the emerald waters under the blackened sun

United at last in our quest for meaning, weaving ourselves tight

First published by SLANT

From Or Did You Ever See The Other Side? (Press 53 2023)

The inspiring art for this poem:

Note for the following poem: WordPress does not allow the longer lines to be all on one line, but the idea is each line gets longer than the one before.

Or How Do You Keep Track of All the Keys You Once Owned?

After Chiharu Shiota’s The Locked Room

keys to unlock one’s buried memories

keys to the family cottage you had to sell

keys that once opened different-sized locks

keys that had to be changed after an effraction

keys that yearn for the doors they used to open

keys thrown into a deep well, still oozing blood

keys to the palaces King Farouk owned in Egypt

keys to learning how to deal with oneself and others

keys to the meaning of feelings that you kept losing

keys to the safes holding papers that ruled your lives

keys kept in a jewelry box that must have mattered once

keys, lost, forgotten or treasured as a possible come back

keys to the wrought-iron patio gate half-covered with jasmine

keys that opened the car door that led you straight to the beach

keys to dream’s horned and ivory gates that keep getting mixed up

keys meant to reach the heart of a man before he’d change the locks

keys you hold in your palm and run your fingers over and over again

keys to an old friend’s house who once relied upon you to water her plants

keys passed on from generation to generation to reclaim the ancestral home

keys that you had to return to the hotel where you wished you’d spend a lifetime

keys to all the cars you’ve ever owned and led you through long-forgotten crossroads

keys to the office you left carrying a cardboard box filled with what seemed important

keys to the wooden-carved secretary your mother handed down to you that held no secret to her

keys to the homes you kept leaving, from country to country, from one neighborhood to the next

First published by MockingHeart Review

From Or Did You Ever See The Other Side? (Press 53 2023)

This is the inspiring art:

Bio

Hedy Habra’s fourth poetry collection, Or Did You Ever See The Other Side? (Press 53 2023), won the 2024 International Poetry Book Awards and was a finalist for the Eric Hoffer Award; The Taste of the Earth won the Silver Nautilus Book Award and Honorable Mention for the Eric Hoffer Award; Tea in Heliopolis won the USA Best Poetry Book Award and Under Brushstrokes was a finalist for the International Book Award. Her story collection, Flying Carpets, won the Arab American Book Award’s Honorable Mention. Her book of criticism, Mundos alternos y artísticos en Vargas Llosa, focuses on the visual aspects of the Peruvian Nobel Laureate’s narrative. She holds a BS in Pharmacy from the French St Joseph University. Habra earned an MA in English, an MFA, and an MA and PhD in Spanish from Western Michigan University where she taught for over three decades. She is a twenty-two-time nominee for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net. https://www.hedyhabra.com/

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Tagged as ekphrastic poetry, Hedy Habra, Or Did You Ever See the Other Side?, Poet, poetry collection

by Luanne | August 26, 2024 · 12:21 pm

Simple Pleasures: My Review of the New Elizabeth Gauffreau Poetry Collection

What a pleasure to open Elizabeth Gauffreau’s new book, Simple Pleasures: Haiku from the Place Just Right. Every page features a beautiful nature photo with an accompanying haiku. Combining poem with image creates a new art genre, one where each component gives more meaning to the other.

The first page displays a peaceful dirt road surrounded by evergreens. The poet invites the reader to accompany her on this trip through the natural beauty of the northeastern United States:

dirt road adventure

washboard, slapping branches, ruts

GPS turned off

I love that the GPS is turned off so that instead of following technology, we—poet and reader—are opening ourselves to the adventure.

Gauffreau directs us to majestic vistas, but she also points out the small or almost unnoticeable, such as a dappled woods image where you must look carefully or be directed by the poem:

new-growth pines, maples

farmer’s forgotten stone wall

a forest reclaimed

I learned things from the poems, which should not be surprising as Gauffreau seems so at home in the region.

stand of white birches

roots entwined canopy shared

indigenous trees

I hadn’t thought of birches as being Indigenous, so that was a bit of defamiliarizing the familiar, I suppose, as it made me take note. And it reminded me of the Robert Frost (another New England poet) poem, “Birches.”

The book is organized by the seasons of the year and makes a full cycle of the beauty of the area. Simple Pleasures: Haiku from the Place Just Right makes a gorgeous addition to my collection of Elizabeth Gauffreau books, Telling Sonny and Grief Songs. Heads up, though, I would recommend purchasing the paperback version because you will want to flip open the book often.

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Author Biography

Elizabeth Gauffreau writes fiction and poetry with a strong connection to family and place. Her work has been widely published in literary magazines, as well as several themed anthologies. Her short story “Henrietta’s Saving Grace” was awarded the 2022 Ben Nyberg prize for fiction by Choeofpleirn Press.

She has published a novel, Telling Sonny, and a collection of photopoetry, Grief Songs: Poems of Love & Remembrance. She is currently working on a novel, The Weight of Snow and Regret, based on the closing of the last poor farm in Vermont in 1968.

Liz’s professional background is in nontraditional higher education, including academic advising, classroom and online teaching, curriculum development, and program administration. She received the Granite State College Distinguished Faculty Award for Excellence in Teaching in 2018. Liz lives in Nottingham, New Hampshire with her husband. Find her online at https://lizgauffreau.com.

Book2Read Purchase Link: https://books2read.com/SimplePleasures

Print & Fixed EPUB for tablets and Kindle Fire

BookFunnel PDF Purchase Link: https://buy.bookfunnel.com/gef1ili6qd

For any device.

Blog Tour Host Links: https://lizgauffreau.com/simple-pleasures-blog-tour-links/

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by Luanne | August 12, 2024 · 5:15 am

Simple Pleasures Blog Tour: Day #7 – August 12 – Luanne Castle

Introduction

Thank you, Luanne, for hosting me on Day #7 of my blog tour for Simple Pleasures: Haiku from the Place Just Right! For this tour stop, I’m going to say a few words about my philosophy of haiku to give readers a sense of what to expect from Simple Pleasures.

I think it’s important for me as a writer of poetry and fiction to understand the literary context in which I’m writing–both the current context of what writers in a particular genre are creating and the literary tradition which brought the genre to this point.

When I first became interested in haiku as syllabic poetry, I was surprised to learn that haiku in English is a very slippery beast to pin down. There are purists who adhere to the 5-7-5 syllable count, the season word (kigo) and the pause that cuts the haiku into two parts (kireji). The Haiku Society of America, on the other hand, espouses the spirit of the Japanese form without trying to replicate the Japanese language-based form in English. (https://www.hsa-haiku.org/hsa-definitions.html)

Then there’s this guy, Vermont poet Geof Hewitt, who decides to make his own rules. (Geof is a performance poet whom I met when he visited my tenth-grade English class in 1971. Then, in the early 2,000s, I took a performance poetry workshop with him, which was great fun. I even got a new poem out of it!)

https://vimeo.com/991080595/fe5211dfc3

Excerpted from: https://www.vermonthumanities.org/words-in-woods-hewitt/

So where does this leave me? I think I’m safe in saying that I follow the Haiku Society of America’s definition of haiku: “A haiku is a short poem that uses imagistic language to convey the essence of an experience of nature or the season intuitively linked to the human condition.”

I adhere to the 5-7-5 syllabic structure because it serves me well as the means by which I discover and express that essence. Any exception I may make to the syllable count is minor, when the poem just doesn’t scan right. Most of my haiku include a kigo, although my interpretation of season may extend to seasons of life.

The simple pleasures of our favorite places in nature are gifts of the spirit to be shared with others. In this collection of 53 haiku, each paired with a photograph, poet Liz Gauffreau invites readers to come with her to some of her favorite places in Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine. Some places are long-time favorites going back years; others have become favorites by virtue of inspiring poetry.

Author Biography

Book2Read Purchase Link: https://books2read.com/SimplePleasures

Print & Fixed EPUB for tablets and Kindle Fire

BookFunnel PDF Purchase Link: https://buy.bookfunnel.com/gef1ili6qd

For any device.

Blog Tour Host Links: https://lizgauffreau.com/simple-pleasures-blog-tour-links/

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Tagged as #thesealeychallenge, book release, Elizabeth Gauffreau, Haiku, Simple Pleasures, syllabic poetry

by Luanne | May 17, 2024 · 2:53 pm

Writing and Grandbaby News

Brand new and familiar poems published today by Editor Sharon Knutson at Storyteller Poetry Review. This journal specializes in narrative poetry–in other words, poetry that tells stories. In this group are new poems about my father and our lake cottage and about driving home from my Chicago grandma’s apartment when I was young.

https://stortellerpoetryreview.blogspot.com/2024/05/storyteller-of-week_17.html

I really hope you enjoy these poems because as a whole they create a little memoir.

In other writing news, Our Wolves moved from the Eric Hoffer Grand Prize Short List to First Runner-up of Chapbooks. Um yay!!!!

This is what the Hoffer judges said about the book:

“Our Wolves, Luanne Castle, Alien Buddha Press – In this bold recasting of the Little Red Riding Hood tale, a traumatic adventure unfolds, and the expectations one has for reality are shattered. An air of mystery pervades each poem, but beneath that mystery, worlds of forced silences exist. Some poems shock. Some poems awe. Some remind readers that the wolves one should fear most are not those roaming the forests.These poems also explore the myths and legends, symbolisms and mysticisms, which comprise the folk tales with which so many are familiar, and breathe new life into these well-worn tales. This retelling forms a narrative for a modern age.”

Additionally, two of my flash stories have been long listed in two different contests. One of them didn’t move beyond and the other hasn’t been announced yet.

And in still further news. I sent a couple stories to a journal yesterday and they came bouncing back, a big fat rejection with the admonition not to send again for another five months. HAHAHAHAHAH.

I have not been able to get over to our blogging community much lately because . . . baby. However, I am working on my songwriting talents as well as new poetry. Here are some samples. The first is a song:

A big tummy is happiness.

And a little tummy is a big tragedy.

And here is a poem:

Those that are really cute

are the ones that toot.

Haha. It won’t be long before he can join me in singing. 3 1/2 months and he’s turning on his tummy and turning on his back already.

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Tagged as #HofferAward, #poetrycommunity, book award, Eric Hoffer First Runner-up, Flash Fiction, grandbaby, Storytelling Poetry Review, writing contests