My Week in Review

Well, I am a day late with this blog post, but hope you find time to read it.

The past week has been busy and interesting. It began with my meeting the two pastors of my church. I knew them but we had never met in person. 

I don't go to church for a number of reasons related to my health, but in 1995 when we first moved to this little mountain town and this rural area, we attended different churches all summer hoping to find the right fit.

We had been very involved with our church in Albany, GA, the First Presbyterian Church there. It was an old church downtown. Barry and I sang in the choir and dearly loved being a part of that group. They gave us a party when we moved away and we missed them terribly. We liked this church because the people are open-minded and not biased toward anyone or prejudiced toward anyone. It is an open-arms church, I think.

It was a small presbyterian church here that drew us in. The friendly people and the small congregation seemed to call us. Before long Barry and another new member had decided we needed a choir. Barry just couldn't enjoy a church without a choir because he loved to sing. We formed a small choir and loved singing every Sunday at the service and at rehearsals. Singing makes you feel good and we drove home feeling as high as a kite because our endorphins were soaring.

I miss that feeling and I miss those people I learned to care about back in those days. Most are gone now.

But when Bob and Linda, the co-pastors who are a married couple, called and asked me to meet them at the church because they had something for me, I was happy to go.

Linda had knitted a beautiful prayer shawl for me. She said if I had to have surgery, and I will likely have surgery in a few months, she wanted me to have this shawl to keep me warm and to know I was wrapped in love. Now isn't that the sweetest thing in the world?

Wearing my beautiful, soft prayer shawl

On Thursday evening, I read some of my creative nonfiction at the John C. Campbell Folk School for our Literary Hour. We had a large group come out and one of my stories about my father seemed to resonate with everyone. It was a beautiful evening.

Saturday afternoon we returned to the same place at the folk school, the Open House Pavilion, and held a memorial service for one of our beloved members, Dr. Gene Hirsch. As we shared our thoughts and gratitude for this man, we also felt the joy of being together again since we had not met in person for two years due to the pandemic. 

Yes, last week was a busy week for me and it was filled with kindness, love, and celebration. 

This week has begun with medical issues but I am excited because my sister, Gay, and my niece, Lee are coming to visit. We three have such fun together. 

My dear readers, I hope you all are healthy and safe as we slowly move into fall with all the colors and cool weather.  For you in the southern hemisphere, I wish you good weather as well. 

Now, I am going to read all your Sunday blog posts.

Dana Wildsmith reading and singing - makes you laugh and sing with her

Delightful writer, Dana Wildsmith from Bethlehem, Georgia loves to sing as well as she loves to write. See her on this video. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1jG-fLs0KLY

A reviewer says of her poetry book, A GOOD HAND,
"Great read on simple joys of life including seasons, dogs, and community. Dana has a true voice that sings, on and off the page!"


BACK TO ABNORMAL: SURVIVING WITH AN OLD FARM IN THE NEW SOUTH:

I purchased the book directly from Dana when she read at Writers' Night Out in Blairsville, GA, and I'm so glad I did. While it's true that it's theme is that of preserving, and not destroying, I honed in on Dana's wise advice to aspiring writers like me. I aspire to write about my family history and make it interesting to folks who don't know us. In Dana's words, like, "... Writers write to figure out the why of what is.", I found considerable insight into why I want to write, as well as how to go about it. I recommend the book as a writing handbook as well as a treatise on how to take care of our earth. Thank you to Dana for her sage advice. --- Ellen Schofield

A reviewer says of her poetry book, A GOOD HAND,

"Great read on simple joys of life including seasons, dogs, and community. Dana has a true voice that sings, on and off the page!"

The intertwined essays in BACK TO ABNORMAL: SURVIVING WITH AN OLD FARM IN THE NEW SOUTH spin out from author Dana Wildsmith's daily life on an old farm in the foothills of the north Georgia mountains, to the regional world of the ESL classes she teaches, to the national scope of her work as a writer and a teacher of creative writing.

The chapters read like a string of summer front-porch evenings with the author - talking about her past, her work on the farm, the people she lives among, and the eternal puzzle of how to make sure her time on this spot of earth continues whole, healthy and life-sustaining.

Environmental writer Jeff Biggers calls BACK TO ABNORMAL "a testimony to what we risk to lose."

Philip Lee Williams, a Georgia Author of the Year, says, "The rural world needs all the friends it can get, and it has here found the champion it deserves."

Writer & teacher Darnell Arnoult says BACK TO ABNORMAL is "a sharp and compassionate anthem and prophetic elegy to the pastoral standing ground against the hungry and devouring teeth of suburban sprawl." www.MotesBooks.com ~

Register for Dana's writing class, Words are All We Have, at Writers Circle on April 25, Saturday 10 - 1:00, by calling 828-389-4441 or emailing glendabeall@msn.com

Print the registration form found at www.glendacouncilbeall.blogspot.com 
Mail with your check to address provided.

I am interviewed by Joan Ellen Gage. You can read it online.

I hope you will take a minute and read an interview with me published on Joan Ellen Gage's site.

http://www.joanellengage.com/2015/03/interview-with-glenda-council-beall.html

Thanks so much, Joan, for posting my poem and for the interview. I interview others most of the time, but it was nice to be the interviewee this time. 

A Poet Named Jane Kenyon

I learned of a poet named Jane Kenyon when I first came to the mountains and began studying poetry with Nancy Simpson. I don’t remember where I found the first poem I read by Jane Kenyon, but I know I immediately felt a kinship for this woman. Her poems spoke to me like no other poems I had read. I bought her poetry books, and I read them over and over. That was in 1996. She was my favorite modern poet.

Jane Kenyon

I learned she was married to noted poet, Donald Hall, and then I learned a terrible fact. I learned she was dead. She died from leukemia in April, 1995, the year before I discovered her. I felt as though I had lost a dear friend, and no one had told me about it. Jane was too young to die, only 47 years old. I realize now that her poems reflected her feelings about her illness. I sensed the depressed woman she was when I read her poems, and I felt such empathy for her.

Donald Hall has written many poems about his wife. He published a collection about her after her death. I hated it. He seemed to be angry, a common emotion after losing a loved one, and I didn't like the foul language he used or the mood he was in when he wrote that book. I felt Jane deserved better. I know from losing my own beloved, that fresh grief doesn't make one the best writer, only a writer who needs to  pour out his pain on paper.

When I discovered the following poem by Hall in a book of  poems collected by GarrisonKeillor, Good Poems, as heard on TheWriter’s Almanac, my displeasure at Donald Hall and his book I had hated, dissipated like early morning fog. I hope you like it.

Her Long Illness

        By Donald Hall

Daybreak until nightfall,

he sat by his wife at the hospital

while chemotherapy dripped

through the catheter into her heart.

He drank coffee and read

the Globe. He paced. He worked

on poems; he rubbed her back

and read aloud. Overcome with dread,

they wept and affirmed

their love for each other, witlessly,

over and over again.

When it snowed one morning, Jane gazed

at the darkness blurred

with flakes. They pushed the IV pump

which she called Igor

slowly past the nurses’ pods, as far

as the outside door

so that she could smell the snowy air.

Poetry Month - Get Your Daily Poem

During Poetry Month, April, Jayne Jaudon Ferrer, of your daily poem, sends a poem a day through email. I will receive a poem, usually one I really enjoy, because Jayne chooses poems that are accessible but interesting, touching and thought-provoking.

If you'd like to receive a poem each day in your inbox, click on Jayne's site, http://www.yourdailypoem.com/ and put in your email address which is not shared with anyone. You will enjoy the poems during the poetry month of April.

Books I'm Giving for Christmas

I imagine most writers give books as Christmas gifts. I know I do.

This year I am giving Maren Mitchell's non-fiction book, Beat Chronic Pain, An Insider's Guide. So many people I know live with chronic pain of one sort or another. I have lived with pain for years, and have tried a number of the techniques used by Maren, and found them successful. She has done the research for those who deal with daily pain and presents the results in her book. Go to Amazon.com to order it.

I am also giving a delightful memoir by Nadine Justice, I'm a Coal Miner's Daughter, But I Cain't Sang. This author writes with humor and with authenticity. Poppy George, her grandfather really did ride his horse into the church and up to the altar. She discovered her Aunt Becky's store in a little town in Turkey where she lived for several years. 

To order copies of this memoir, email: nadine@unitedwriterspress.com
I'm a Coal Miner's Daughter, But I Cain't Sang
by Nadine Justice
United Writers Press
ISBN 978-1-934216-83-5

I will give the latest anthology edited by Robert S. King and published by FutureCycle Press, American Society:

What Poets See. I am impressed by the quality of work in this book which deserves accolades and I plan to write a review of it and hope others will take the time to do the same. Read the excellent review on Amazon.com.

I dearly love For One Who Knows How to Own Land, poetry collection by Scott Owens. I will likely leave this in someones's stocking as well. 

My friend, Celia Miles, has a new book that will be out soon,  Sarranda's Heart, that is a sequel to Sarranda. Both books are historical fiction and women’s fiction—novels of a strong woman enduring and surviving the cruelties behind the battlefields, the home scene during devastatingly hard times of defeat and afterwards. Readers of Sarranda say they can't wait to read Sarranda's Heart. Give a copy of Sarranda this Christmas and follow with the sequel next year.

I recommend my poetry book, Now Might as Well be Then, and the anthology, On our Own, Widowhood for Smarties, which anyone will find to be eye-opening and should read even if they have not met yet with grieving the loss of a spouse or child. Read this anthology and be prepared.

What books are on your gift list? Which are on your wish list?