Dec.
25
2023
My poem, “Joseph,” is in the online issue of Literary Mama this December. You can find it at Http://literarymama.com. This is such a lovely journal, one of my favorites. The work captures such a range of parenting experiences as well relationships to parents past. This poem of mine describes a heart-breaking experience, but one that also includes a miracle of the kindness of strangers. I haven’t written about this very much before. One day when I was sitting at my writing/meditation table, it came through me. This version has been through some revision but not much. When we are ready to write about an experience, the words appear. Thank you, Muse! And I love you, tiny Joseph.
Dec.
06
2023
Blue Heron Review has nominated my poem, “The Library on Market Street,” for a Pushcart Prize. Many thanks to founding editor Cristina Norcross for selecting my poem.
I included the poem in the post in October when it appeared on the Blue Heron website. I am proud of this one since it speaks to the importance of libraries in our society today. The mission of the public library has changed over recent years but its qualities of inclusion, open access to materials and its role as a haven for those needing a place to feel safe and learn, grow and enjoy life is as relevant as ever. Thank you to all the brave librarians defending free speech.
Nov.
29
2023
MoonPath press has nominated the poem “Phases of Mourning” from my book Hospice House for a Pushcart Prize. I have had poems nominated before, but it has been several years. This poem was one of the last ones to go into the book. I wrote it about my friend and neighbor Mardella who lost her beloved husband Bryan. When I walk to the mailboxes here in Cape George I pass her house. That day I saw her placing a geranium on her porch. It seemed a tribute to how we all have to go on after terrible loss. Thank you to Lana for this honor for me, Mardella and Bryan!
Nov.
27
2023
I am so proud to have my poem “Lucky” included in the rich and diverse collection, Purr and Yowl,” about all aspects of human’s relationship to felines. It just appeared this Fall 2023. The Anthology is published by World Enough Writers and edited by David D. Horowitz. Many of my poet friends also have work included. Most of the poems are about house cats, but other wild variations are here too. There are kittens and mature cats at the end of their lives. Many poems are about adopting cats, like our Lucky. Anyone who has any relationship to cats at all will really enjoy reading this excellent gracing of poems which are as contrary, attractive and independent as the animal itself.
Nov.
02
2023
Blue Heron Review’s Fall 2023 edition themed ‘Heart Source and Haven’ includes my poem “The Library on Market Street.” It is the true story of many children who came to the Aberdeen Timberland Library when I served as Youth Services Librarian there. My co-workers and I worked very hard to be sure that all children and families felt welcome. In a community ravaged by unemployment and other negative effects of downturns in the forestry and fishing industries, many children lived in unstable situations. We always wanted the library to be a bright and cheerful place with lots of fun programs and also independent ways to pass the time. I hope we engendered a love of reading and made each and every young patron feel honored and valued. Here is my poem:
The Library on Market Street
Child with no address finds herself
in an adventure with the dog
she always wanted. It is afternoon
and she is locked out again.
But this place is always open
when it says it will be.
She found the library when she
visited with her fourth grade class.
Was allowed to check out a book
to take home. A book about
Egypt. But they moved from the car
to the shelter and she couldn’t find
Egypt to return. The librarian said
she would save books behind the desk
so the girl could read on weekends
or after school. Like the one called
How to Draw Horses she could use
to create her own mustang and a mare.
Then the librarian gathered the class
for a story, a silly story about magic
animals and when the children joined
in the refrain the girl laughed
for the first time in this town. She
has never been to Disneyland or Six Flags
or Yellowstone, but she comes
to the public library all summer. Scratch
paper and pencils wait on a shelf
and a new paperback about a girl
and a puppy. No one else has read it
yet. The pages smell like clean sheets.
They welcome her within them.
Oct.
25
2023
My poem, “Colours of Memory,” is in the 2023 Issue #15 of the wonderful Canadian journal “The Fieldstone Review.” This magazine is published by the English Graduate Department of the University of Saskatchewan. Since it is an online publication, the entire issue can be read by going to Https://thefieldstonereview.ca.
The theme is Reversals and my poem is about a ‘psychic trick’ a fellow fortune teller taught me about how to find lost items using a ‘golden thread’ that the mind unwinds until the missing object is located. But, alas, this method never worked for me – which is the point of the poem and its ‘reversal.’ Partly it is the color – when I went to imagine an unspooling thread I got all sorts of shades but never that one. However, my colored filaments did inspire worthwhile memories….
Sep.
25
2023
I am so fortunate to have two of my poems included in the Wild Crone Wisdom Anthology released this Fall 2023 by Wild Librarian Press. My friend Linda Strever also has one of her beautiful Agnes poems in this book.
My first poem is called “The Art of Chickens” and honors my paternal Grandmother Veronica Mokosh who raised chickens and sold eggs on a little farm in the hills of Wheeling, West Virginia. She was a loving person despite terrible hardships and was completely in tune with Earth and innocent living things. I have always felt so blessed she was my grandma.
My second poem about a relic I found on the beach north of Cape George where erosion has eaten away a cliffside and debris from a long ago landfill has fallen under the spell of the Salish sea. I discovered an old spoon there one day with its bowl twisted as if looking backwards. My other grandmother collected spoons.
Aug.
07
2023
Two of my poems appear in Volume 10, the 2023 issue of Clockhouse Review, the literary journal of the Clockhouse Writers’ Conference of Goddard College. One is about love and the other about fashion and color. Both are true stories. The journal is beautiful and contains fiction, non-fiction and even drama selections besides poetry.
The first poem tells the story of my first boyfriend, Lester, based on a single incident that all these years later, I remember well. The other is about the many nuances of black. This occasion also really happened. I had dressed to go somewhere and my young adult daughter pointed out that my blacks didn’t match. I never knew until then that blacks could clash!!!
Tuna Sandwiches
I thought we were poor until the Saturday
my new boyfriend’s mother invited me
to go with their family to the beach. I was
fourteen, her son sixteen. We were so shy,
meeting at a Catholic school dance,
we moved together without touching.
He had gentle eyes; didn’t talk much
into my chatter. It was a month before
our sweaty hands met in a dark theater,
the intensity of nearness the film’s only plot.
That Saturday, his mother gave me a can
of tuna and a loaf of white bread and told me
to make ten sandwiches. I blushed for her,
her face stiff and dry-eyed, and mashed the tuna
thin, spread a bit between bargain slices.
I don’t remember what we did that day
although we probably played softball,
the family’s favorite pastime. And that boy
probably found me a heart-shaped shell.
I do still recall the chipped Formica
of the kitchen counter, and how the bread
sprang back with the pressure of my knife.
His mother testing me, wanting for her son
respect as much as love, unable to mask
her envy for the bliss of my first crush.