My poem "Polished Pieces of Eight" and a number of other poems from the OCHO #24 issue, Poets Who Twitter, have been read and recorded by their authors. Take a listen!
This is an eBook and is ready for immediate download. It is a candid examination, through poetry, of those things we struggle to absorb, to get through, and to move on from. It is a 101 Poetry guidebook for coping and healing.
A new slim volume of poetry entitled Holding it Together with Band-Aids and Safety Pins was released as an eBook today! I'm excited about it. It is a different kind of collection; real, probing, and reflective of those of us who populate this first decade of the twenty-first century. Here's an example:
The Queen of Bags
No one comes downtown on Saturday anymore but you encompass all it ever was with your uptown clothes, white gloves, high heels and perfectly tipped hat. How you manage to keep every hair in place may never be known but we all talk about your impeccable style, your regal stride and we wonder why it is your destiny rests nightly under the west end of the Chauteau Bridge.
It's about them, it's about us, because we and they are one in the same. Take a peek! You might enjoy. Click here.
Okay, so I'm writing poetry about women (and men) looking and feeling good about themselves again! It's like Patti LaBelle's classic tune said: "I've Got a New Attitude!" I guess you could say "Long live the Corset!" Look what kind of excitement it's bringing back!
Time to Fall In Love Again...with yourself! Time to celebrate you!
I'm really, really pleased that two of my poems, The Cat on the Short Yellow Bus and Endings, appear in the recently released Spring 2009 issue of Denver Syntax Literary Review! Boy, am I in some good company! Check it out here or you can enter the direct link: http://denversyntax.com/
Saturday, May 16, 2009
TENDER
What lies between a man and his dreams is rarely reality rather the totality of old wounds still too tender to shoulder the cloak of faith.
I witnessed a hand full of miracles over the weekend and I'm still on a high as a result of what I saw take place.
I got an invitation from my niece and sister-in-law to attend an event they were hosting when they came into town for the Mother's Day weekend. My niece sent a couple of intriguing pictures of her mother along with the invitation. (Yes, these are those pictures!) They made me think "hum".
Despite being primed for what we were meeting about I came loaded to the gills with my seasoned, very healthy portion of skepticism! The pictures had piqued my interest, they'd even caused my husband to comment on how impressive the transformation was, but, well, I doubted seriously I'd have more than a passing interest.
How wrong I was! Wrong because I saw a room full of bright, intelligent women who came from numerous walks of life have their lives changed in the twinkling of an eye ... literally. (Sorry for using a cliche.)
When they slipped out of the room where we all were, slipped into a place where they could try on the miracle working garment that was supposed to let you drop two dress sizes in 10 minutes, and came back into the room looking two sizes smaller they simply were not the same women!
It wasn't that suddenly their tummy was tight, they bust high, and their hips firm, it was that they had been given a brand new vision of themselves instantly and they absolutely, unequivocally loved it!
I know. I was one of them that did it!
I told a hand full of people about Body Magic immediately, but then I decided to back off a moment and see how I really, really felt about the product. So here I am, dozens of unsolicited compliments later, still feeling great about myself because I not only want to look how the garment makes me look, but because I like looking like that again so much I'm willing to invest some energy in more exercise and intelligent living to look that way without the help!
I'm vested and invested in sharing the feeling! Just thought you'd like to know!
Whoa Ho! I got a tweet from Didi Menendez letting me know that my poem Pink Chanel was the number one download for the month of April! That was definitely unexpected and a double pleasure since April was National Poetry Month.
It is number 24 on the Miporadio play list when it comes up (you can click here to hear it) and surrounded by some of today's most talented contemporary poets, so I was just happy to be in the neighborhood with such outstanding artist. How nice to discover that it was meaningful enough for poetry lovers who paused to listen to the some or all of the play list to have downloaded it!
The print version of Pink Chanel was included in the Cafe' Cafe' Edition of Mipoesias some time ago. You can see it online by clicking here.
Pink Chanel, like The Knoll Frames, are rooted in the impact the assassination of President John F. Kennedy had on me as a very young girl, and Pink Chanel speaks to the dignity that we witnessed First Lady Jacquelyn Kennedy maintain during that terrible time of national tragedy; a dignity I sought to emulate in a moment when I was faced with a personal tragedy beyond my ability to comprehend.
Today was eventful on many levels. I felt a sense of special favor on my life throughout the day as one wonderful thing manifest into another, and then another, and yet another. I am too grateful for the wealth of blessings not to acknowledge them.
Something that is on my mind though is that I'm trying to figure out what, if anything, I'll do from here as it relates to music. For the past five years I used the Emerging Music column to give exposure whenever and however I could to raw, beautiful talent and talent that just needed one more little push. I truly loved doing that. But as of the early part of this week I ended my tenure as Editor of Emerging Music at Bellaonline.com.
While I don't want the expectation of a weekly column, which is a requirement at Bellaonline of its Editors, I do want to showcase someone extra special when I see them or they are brought to my attention. So, I think I'll start to "Tweet" about Emerging Music talents for a while. See how that feels and how that works for those artist. The challenge is going to be how to whet appetites in 140 characters or less, but I love a challenge. And I guarantee you, if the talent is there I'm going to make sure the world knows it for certain, regardless of the boundaries!
So, that said, I guess I need to go through my latest CD slush pile. There is bound to be something truly powerful and worthy of a Tweet or two in it! Give me a nudge if you, your management team, or your record company sent something to me recently that you think I ought to be on the look out for! I'm ready to try to make it happen for somebody!
I'm just making sure I say this loud, say if far, and say it wide: Take every precaution you can to avoid the Human Swine Flu. This is a very real, very deadly threat to the world as a whole. Do your part to try to keep it from spreading!
It looks like it is time to have a central location for showcasing and introducing new (along with older) creative endeavors I'm engaged in. The beginning of that new spot is a blog entitled "Living on the Edge Creative!" Take a look!
This is the direct link:http://livingontheedgecreative.blogspot.com/
Sometimes it is hard to appreciate the beauty of a rose if it is fully open when you see it for the first time. It is the same way with life, I believe. Some of what we treasure most is sharing those extraordinary, unanticipated moments with someone who knew us when all we were was a pocket full of outrageous dreams, and they still thought we were special, and still believed in us.
I had such a priceless experience a day or so ago. It was truly a Godsend. It put a smile back in my whole person.
When life becomes challenging ... I mean really, really challenging ... I resort to art as a means of coping. Shortly after Christmas a friend (Carol Kariotis at Kaw Valley Arts & Humanities) introduced me to "loom knitting" and it was the best gift she could have given me. Throughout the next few very stressful months I took the basics that she taught me in that two hour session and began to explore its possibilities with a variety of different yarns, including some extremely interesting ribbon yarn. Once I got the hang of it I started to add my own little twists, turns, and accents. It has been wonderful therapy! Here are some of my creations.
This is a double knit created on the knitting board. I just played with the stitches I'd read about and this was the end result. I doubt seriously I could duplicate the pattern! The pink bag below was also made on the knitting board. What you see in the next few photos are a few abbreviated scarfs that I made. These are made on the round loom. I say abbreviated because the first one I was intending to make as a long scarf and my impatience -- my need for more instant gratification -- made me halt in the middle of the process. I wasn't sure what to do with what I had made and then I thought, "hum", and I wrapped it around my neck, found a lovely old rhinestone from my collection of vintage jewelry and was quite pleased.
Note: Okay, yes, if you see something that interests you I will consider making you one. Drop me an email at plovewriter@gmail.com and let's talk about it. :) Thx for asking TL
If you click on their title, you can hear me read a few recorded poems from my original collection of poetry, YOU BECKON. I don't read often, but whenever I have (or do) both Dungeon of My Imaginationand Rhino Rising normally are extremely well received. I guess that's why I selected those two to share.
And the third, Gossip, happens to be one that I really like. I've been asked what in the world it's about, and for a while I was reluctant to try to explain it, but once I did the "ah" factor was so rewarding I became less reluctant.
So, here's the scoop on Gossip: Traveling across country on a train through the southwest there is an area in which there are these enormous rocks and boulders, the kind that you find wherever there are mountains or vast hills, but in this area, for what seems like a hundred miles there is absolutely NOTHING but flat land ... no place for these rocks and boulders to have come from. So that is what sparked my imagination ... the "where" of the origin of these southwestern rocks. The kind of unexplainable occurrence that might even have caused the constellations to resort to "gossip".
PS: If you want a copy of an autographed copy of YOU BECKON send me an email at plovewriter@yahoo.com or you can always purchase a copy from Amazon.com or Barnes & Nobel online.
The last couple of months have been incredibly difficult. I definitely did not think I'd be revisiting such a painful path so quickly, but less than a month ago I lost my only sister. It is still impossible for me to come to grips with the reality of that, and for now not accepting that reality entirely provides just a very small cushion to get me through each day.
I think I decided to make this entry tonight because there have been a series of things - good thing, very positive things - that have occurred over the last week or so that are the types of things that I would have picked up the telephone to share with her. She would have been as excited or thrilled or hopeful about them as I, if not more so, just as I was with all her victories, adventures, and achievements.
There have been a few other things, flashes of frustration, shock at some newsworthy issue, or some stupidly funny circumstance that I could have only gotten the kind of satisfaction or closure I needed by sharing the incident with her that I obviously wasn't able to. The pain of that void defies all words in any earthly language. It was an emotional pain so great my whole body had to get involved to try to handle because my heart and mind simply couldn't absorb the whole assault.
But there is something else that is incredible. It is that as awesome as the pain of losing her is, the pain of having had her in my life, in my world, as my very own big sister is such a thrill that the knowledge and memory of that, of her is so utterly powerful it has had the ability to assuages the pain and return me to a place of endurance washed in thoughts of her.
So, yes, I'd love to tell her about the short play that was published in a literary journal today, or mention the Writer's Digest article that included a little spill from me on my poetry collection, YOU BECKON, or breathlessly tell her blow by blow about the new opportunities to produce my plays, but I can't. As time goes on acceptance of that will take hold, but not just yet. That's why tonight I needed to tell you about her and about this. Tonight missing her feels like fire.
Which of the three possible covers for my next volume of poetry do you respond to best? You can comment here or send me an email with your comments. Thanks!
This has been a remarkable year, a blessed year. I am most grateful. Funny how one simple things can really have a great impact on so much. This time last year I was commenting about 2007, which had been a most challenging year for me. While making note of those things I was grateful for I made mention of something that was to result in a very uncomfortable situation. Perhaps, in retrospect, it was one of the best lessons and experiences of my life.
It was as though that event started a number of chain reactions that resulted in door after door after door swinging open for me. So much so, that on one occasion someone remarked that the way things were unfolding was "synchronicity". Duh?
I believe it really resulted from my need to understand mindsets, to delve deeper into the world of art and its mechanics, and my genuine desire to better comprehend what mattered beyond what just really mattered to me. I find I am ending 2008 light years beyond where I started it and I am absolutely certain I would not have been privy to the strides and quantum leaps of knowledge and wisdom that I believe I have had I not made that faux pas.
