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. 

Online Promotion of Your Book

http://onlinepromotionmadeeasy.blogspot.com/

The above is a good article on marketing your book online. The way my life has been turned upside down, I will follow the advice here and see if I can promote my poetry collection, Now Might As Well Be Then, online.

I hope by November I can read from the book without weeping. I would like to visit bookstores or any gathering where talking about my book and reading a few poems from it will be welcome.

On page 28 in my poetry chapbook, Now Might as Well Be Then

Blue Moon Every Twenty Years
for Barry

Blue Moon was not my favorite song
until the night you sang to me,
the night before our wedding day in 1964.

You were a student of the forties music,
played it with your band when you were
just a high school lad in nineteen fifty-five.

On the Love Boat with orchestra in eighty-four,
microphone in hand, you owned the stage,
like you were born to be the rage. Like Frank,
you melted hearts when you sang for me.

Aboard a river boat in Ottawa, in two thousand six,
silver-haired peers applauded when you sang
Blue Moon in October, on my birthday.

Suddenly, I was twenty-four once more,
adoring you and longing to spend my life

with you. Years flew past on wings so soft

I hardly noticed.

As you returned to sit beside me, smiling at your new
found fame in Canada, you whispered a promise.
I’ll sing your song for you again in twenty years.