Aug.
28
2021
My poem, “Hospice Swans,” is now available to read on the Months to Years journal website www.monthstoyears.org. To see it now, click on New Work, and then on the photo of swans. In about a month, it will appear in the online and print versions of the Fall 2021 issue.
It took me years to compose this poem and polish it to get it right. It is, of course, a true story from my Hospice days. I really did arrive for each of my nursing visits hoping to see the swans that the patient and her husband talked so much about. The land they owned was beautiful, as was their loving devotion to each other. The swans, obviously, became a metaphor for approaching death.
In crafting this poem I wanted to capture what it is like to wait for something unknown that was bound to arrive. And the swans that never came seemed like how quietly, beyond all our efforts, death descends, but unseen. I am so grateful to the editors of Months to Years for giving this poem a home — and for all the wonderful work they do to help others express the experience of passing in the ways most important and personal to them.
Jul.
21
2021
My poem “Twenty Minutes” is in the 50th issue of Talking River Review, the literary journal of Lewis-Clark State College. The poem is about a young man that I admired a great deal who died a tragic death. What is commemorated, however, is his courageous life. I feel so honored to have my poem included in this dynamic, beautifully printed publication. And I hope my words do some measure of justice to all Travis contributed during his brief lifetime.
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.