Poets and Poetry

We have a great time at Writers Night Out in Young Harris, GA on the second Friday of each month. Karen Holmes hosts this event and has been doing a great job of bringing excellent writers to our area for a number of years now.

If you live in the surrounding area - Cherokee, Clay, Towns, Union or Fannin Counties - be sure you drop in this Friday night to hear two poets from the Atlanta area.

Well, just click Here and read all about them.

Everyone is welcome. Come early and have dinner. Bring a poem or short prose piece to share. You will find a warm and friendly group. 

I am sharing a poem from my book, Now Might as Well be Then, published by Finishing Line Press. Hope you enjoy it. 

Listening for the Rain

The leaves lose their chlorophyll

slowly brown and curl,

then drift like flying birds

to nestle on the ground.

The grass that once was springy

underfoot, now crackles when I walk.

Blades break and lie in shattered shreds

on barren ground.

Last night brought rain.

I woke to hear it tapping

on parched leaves, gently at first,

then a steady pouring stream

rushing through the trees.

Too late for the corn, my father says

across the bridge of time.

Maybe it will save the pasture,

give us one more haying

before summer ends. 

SIX YEARS OF BLOGGING - SIX YEARS OF MY LIFE ONLINE WITH YOU

May, 2007 - I began this blog. More than 50,000 page views later, I am still here. I learned about blogging for the first time at a North Carolina Writers' Network Conference. I decided at that time to make a blog for our writers group, NCWN West. For six years I kept two blogs going and later three. Now I am back to two.

It's been six years since I jumped into blogging knowing little to nothing about what I was doing. But I learned. What a lifetime has happened in those six years.

You, my readers, have been with me here through some of the most painful events of my life. You have encouraged me when times were the darkest. You have supported me when I needed you. 

You are strangers I have never met, some I will never meet, and some of you are my family and my friends. Many of my readers visit here from other countries - Australia, England, Canada, Germany, France and Indonesia. 

You have blogs that I visit and enjoy. Some of you are my students from over the years, and some are visitors who happened upon my poetry book one day or read one of my stories online. 

Some of my readers began their own blogs when I held a class at our local library, and they got the bug. Some of them have made blogging friends all over the world. 

One of you used my poems along with beautiful paintings to make a most spectacular post. I was touched. 

My readers include those who are researching their family, working on their genealogy and have some of the same lines I have. Some of you are family I've never met and don't even know. Some of you are family that I met through this blog. That is so, so special!

It is because of you that I appreciate the Internet instead of hating the time I spend online when I could be writing stories, poems or personal essays. I don't care for Facebook and Twitter, but blogging is an excellent way to communicate, and as a writer, that is what I want to do - speak to people through writing.

Thanks for your time which I know is the most valuable commodity any of us have. I hope you will stay with me, and if you are not a subscriber, please take a look at the sidebar and sign on. It is free and easy. You are the best!

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?