Jun.
01
2021
I am so honored to have my poem “The Found Bone” in Volume VI 2021 of Crosswinds Poetry Journal. It is written around an experience I had beachcombing on our beautiful Cape George shoreline. When I go walking I often ask the Universe for a poem. One might come in a word, a line, an image — or an actual object like the vertebra I found at the tideline that day. I am so thankful for this gift I received and was able to gift back re-purposed into words!
Jan.
27
2021
The literary publication of the University of Iowa Carver College of Medicine, “The Examined Life Journal,” has published my poem “PQRST” in the Fall 2020 issue. This poem features the acronym I used as a Hospice RN to assess pain in my patients. Pain control was most often my primary goal in Hospice situations and fortunately I had many tools at my disposal to keep patients comfortable in their final days. A thorough assessment was the foundation and these letters helped me to accomplish this and then choose the correct treatments to put into place. Many thanks to the editors and readers of this journal which has wonderful stories, poems and nonfiction pieces relating to the health continuum.
Jan.
12
2021
My poem, “Teaching My Granddaughter to Read: an Ecology Poem” is up today, January 12, 2021, on www.autumnskypoetrydaily.com. It was such a pleasant surprise to get up this morning and find it there! I have 3 little granddaughters and each learns a different way. We each, of course, read the world a different way. This is a ‘true’ poem in that it actually happened.
This is a very cool zine, since submission is simple and within a week the submitted poem either appears or is assumed rejected. The editor chooses many different voices. You can subscribe and find it in your email each day!
Jan.
04
2021
My poem, The Simian Line, is in the Winter 2021 issue of the excellent Panoply Zine www.panoplyzine.com. Thank you, Editors! This poem is one that I wrote during a workshop at Imprint Books led by poet Lauren Davis. I have been creating a series of poems about my fortune telling practice including palmistry, Tarot and of course my grandmother, psychic Esther Monson.
Dec.
14
2020
My poem, “When the Saints” is in the Winter 2020 ‘Sound and Silence’ issue of Snapdragon, a journal of art and healing. This is a beautiful online journal which includes not only poetry but essays about healing as well. This is another of my utterly true poems about a courageous Hospice patient and her family. This one features a young girl and her trumpet.
Dec.
01
2020
My poem, “Blue Bicycle Fortune Deck” is in the Fall issue of Sheila-Na-Gig online journal. It is a description of my psychic Grandmother, Esther Monson Erdman, through images of the deck she used. You can read the piece at www.sheilanagigblog.com.
Instead of Tarot cards, Esther preferred regular playing cards for her psychic work. The deck she usually worked with is the traditional 52 card solitaire that commonly featured either a blue or red cherub riding a bicycle on the back. She was superstitious about everything, most especially her cards.
I prefer Tarot because I believe the art adds versatility. I am able to invite my client to look at the images with me to find answers and meaning. But Grandma was a whiz with her Queens and 9s and aces. She always told family fortunes over the Holidays and thus I am especially reminded of her this time of year.
Oct.
21
2020
When we were visiting Victoria BC last year, we went into Murchie’s Tea Shop which we always visit when we take the ferry to Canada. Besides buying tea to bring home, we had a fresh brewed cup and pastry. Then I went downstairs to the washroom. As I looking down at my hands as I washed them, the woman next to be exclaimed, “Barbara!” I knew immediately she had mistaken me for someone very dear to her. When I looked up and she saw I was not her Barbara, her expression was so shattered. I knew this moment was a poem. My poem, “Being Barbara in the Women’s Washroom,” is now in the Fall 2020 online Crone issue of Gyroscope, “fine poetry to turn your world around.” Go to www.gyroscopereview.com where you can download the free PDF version. My poem is in the second section, pg. 41.
Oct.
20
2020
Each year in August our Northwind Art Gallery invites poets to come in, select a painting and write a poem about it. Previously the gallery then hosted a evening of Ekphrastic readings. This year, however, due to the pandemic, poets were asked to peruse the paintings on the gallery’s website to chose one to write about. We could also visit during weekend open hours to see the work in person. The poems were then posted on the website next to the art they addressed. This is kind of cool since now anyone anywhere can see both painting and poetry! I chose Wanda Mawhinney’s beautiful “The Leafless Trees” as my inspiration for a poem of the same name. You can view the painting and read my work by going to www.northwindarts.org. Click on Literary Arts at the top of the page, then Northwind Reading Series. Under that you will find a button called Ekphrasitic Poetry for Autumn. After you click on this, scroll down through the beautiful art to find mine and Wanda’s leafless trees.