Showing posts with label Brenda Kay Ledford. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Brenda Kay Ledford. Show all posts

Saturday, September 20, 2008

AFTER A WEEK OF HEARING THE WORD







Hello Friends of Netwest,
Something is happening. The seasons are changing. It's difficult to keep my feet on the ground. I'm telling you. I'm flying off the earth. It started last Sunday at Koneheta Park in Cherokee County at our 17th annual picnic. There have been a lot of good Netwest picnics over the years.

I've missed only one. The Cherokee County members out-did themselves. They welcomed writers as far away as Jackson and Haywood. There were also writers from Clay,Cherokee and some from Georgia. The food was the best ever. I didn't see one Ingles cake on the table.
Playwright, Gary Carden was the featured writer. He was born to entertain. He paid homage to Appalachian poet, Jim Wayne Miller who exhorted in his poem: "Come home to your father's house."
There were at the same time, near us, some boys practicing baseball with their coach. The boys could not keep their minds on the game. Every time Gary Carden raised his voice, shouting, "Come home to your father's house," a boy would miss hitting the ball or would miss the catch. The louder Gary Carden read Jim Wayne Miller's famous words, the more the boys missed the ball and the louder and the meaner their coach yelled insulting words at them.
Sitting between Gary Carden, who was telling his heart out and between the boys who wanted to drop the ball and come over to see who was talking, drawn to poetry I believe, and sitting there in hearing distance of their mean-mouthed coach, who needed someone to gag him, I almost lost my way for a moment. What a presentation from our special guest! The readings continued with old favorites such as poets Brenda Kay Ledford and Mary Ricketson reading their newest poems. You must know, my ears also love to hear those new and younger voices and there were some of those. As it turned out, it was the best NCWN West annual picnic ever.
Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, I tried to get my feet back on Terra Firma. On Thursday evening I went to John C. Campbell Folk School to our scheduled monthly reading. Each month two of our members read there to a captive audience. By that I mean, they read to the folk school students who have come from all over America to learn a craft. In the audience we also have local writers and Netwest members who come to support the program.
The featured writers were two of Netwest's most accomplished: fiction writer Jo Carolyn Beebe from Hiawassee, Georgia and poet, Michael Beadle from Canton, N.C. Oops. I started losing traction, floating. What a show! I enjoyed Jo Carolyn's stories. They were filled with vivid imagery. As she read, I felt as if I were turning the pages of a book with colorful illustrations.
Michael Beadle is a performance poet. He started reciting loudly, pacing, looking at me. I lost myself. What a joy to remember that there are different kinds of poetry. He recited free verse and read haiku to the beat of a drum. It was inspiring. His best was a free verse poem about a boy wanting his estranged parents to kiss again, so he creates a kiss by taking his father's coffee mug and without washing it, pours his mother a drink. Where their lips touched the mug, he had their kiss. It's the kind of lyric poem I long to hear.
On Friday, (just yesterday) all I wanted to do all day was write. I wondered if my life could get better. I reheard poems and phrases in my head. I floated on joy.
But the week wasn't over yet. Netwest had scheduled the award winning play, Birdell, by Gary Carden. Gary had donated the play to Netwest for a fundraiser. It was to be performed in Murphy. I went out into my garden to gather flowers to be used as props, got dressed and went to help set up for the play.
I knew I would enjoy this play written my our own Gary Carden. But, I was not prepared for this moving story, set in Appalachia long ago. I was not prepared for the professional, outstanding performance of Bobbie Curtis, who took me back to that time in the mountains. She made me laugh and she made me cry, the emotions that remind me I am human. Oops.

Up, up again.
Yes, after a full week of taking in the word, the word itself, I am still floating. My thanks to all of you who are responsible for my elevated condition. Don't worry about me. Don't call my doctor. I'm fine. I'm alive, healthy and happy.
Nancy Simpson
Consultant, NCWN West







Friday, July 4, 2008

Glenda Barrett Publishes Poetry Chapbook



By Brenda Kay Ledford
Like peeling an apple and slicing it, Glenda Barrett gets to the core in her poetry chapbook, WHEN THE SAP RISES. Finishing Line Press in Georgetown, KY published the book.
Barrett describes with her Southern voice hardships, heartaches, health issues, family, farming and fishing. She writes the way she lives—unpretentious. There’s a reverence for the land and her ancestors. She says in her poem, “Echoes”:
…I can follow in the footsteps
of my ancestors,
people who were truthful,
who held firm to their beliefs
and rose above their hardships.
People whose voices still echo
across these Blue Ridge Mountains.
“I was born here, and I’ll die here!”
Her ancestors worked hard on the farm to feed their family. They hoed the fields in the hot sun, but loved the land. In the poem, “Southern Soil,” they proudly said, “I own this land all the way to the top of the mountain. I’ll not sell one piece of this land the longest day that I live.”
A native of Hiawassee, Georgia, Barrett recalls hoeing the cornfield as a teenager. In her imagination, she can still hear the sharp click of her hoe hitting the hard, stony ground.
Her father was a farmer. He plowed gardens for neighbors, didn’t charge a dime. When Barrett sees corn ripening and bales of hay scattered across a pasture, she thinks of him.
Barrett has fond memories of her grandma. They fished together, had picnics of Vienna Sausage and soda crackers. She recalls walking barefoot as a girl over the dirt road to her grandmother’s house. It was a place filled with unconditional love.
It’s no wonder Barrett dedicated her poetry chapbook to her grandmother, Hattie Foster. She told Barrett wonderful stories and inspired her to become a writer.
The title of her book, WHEN THE SAP RISES, came from her grandmother’s sayings. She predicted the weather by observing nature. Barrett writes in her poem, “When the Sap Rises”:
... “See those thick corn shucks.
We can be on the lookout
for a rough winter.”
One day when I visited, she said,
“In the spring of the year, when the sap
rises is a hard time for sick folks,
another time is in the fall,
when the sap goes down.”
The sap seems to rise on the cover of Barrett’s poetry chapbook. She painted an old-time house including a rock chimney, tin roof, a giant tree in the yard, a front porch, and greens in the garden. A dirt road circles the farmhouse and merges with a lavender sunset over the misty mountains. It’s serene and flows with an undercurrent of faith.
Barrett took an oil painting class at Young Harris College and received an Associate of Arts Degree in 1969. She’s painted over thirty years and her art is displayed on the online art gallery, Yessy.com.
She also studied at North Georgia College and took creative writing under Nancy Simpson at Tri-County Community College. Barrett worked twenty years in the health care profession before she developed a neuromuscular disease.
The doctors echoed words like heredity and genetics before giving her the diagnosis. “At times, I am silent, stare into space, and retreat to a place no one else can go,” she says in her poem, “Family Ties”. It’s a place where she no longer wonders what her father thought.
Her poem, “Kindred Spirit,” describes a cardinal at the feeder. Barrett feels a deep connection with the bird because it is blind in one eye. She expresses her health issues in this verse:
…A feeling of knowing,
no matter what happens,
there will always be hope
and endless possibilities.
The moisture from my breath
leaves a circle on the windowpane,
and I watch from my scooter,
until the cardinal flies out of sight.
Barrett is recovering from a recent surgery on her foot. She’s in a scooter now, but hopes to walk soon. She finds comfort in her family and talking with friends on the telephone. She also enjoys reading and crafting poetry.
A member of North Carolina Writers’ Network-West, Barrett’s work has appeared in many magazines and five anthologies. Her poetry has been published in Kaleidoscope, Nostalgia, Wellspring, Hard Row to Hoe, Living with Loss Magazine, A Time of Singing, Mindprints Journal, Wordgathering Journal, Farming Magazine, Artists Against Domestic Violence, and Nantahala Review. She has poetry upcoming in Breath and Shadow.
According to Nancy Simpson, “Glenda Barrett gives us the most authentic Appalachian voice to rise out of the southern mountains in years. Whether she is eating an apple with a knife or if she is knee deep fishing in Owl Creek, here is a woman who is as immersed in her environment as in her daily existence. Barrett’s concerns for family and heritage go beyond what happened, for her poems celebrate life, transcend sorrow, and show the reader what was learned.”
Barrett’s books are available locally at Mary Ann’s Restaurant in Young Harris, Georgia. You may also order online at: http://www.amazon.com/ and http://www.finishinglinepress.com/ .
This article first appeared in the Smoky Mountain Sentinel newspaper.

Friday, March 28, 2008

COFFEE WITH THE POETS


Coffee with the Poets is held in Hayesville, NC
the 4th Wednesday of each month, on the town square
at Phillips and Lloyd’s Book Store.

On March 26th, Linda M. Smith was the featured reader.
Michelle Keller coordinated the event. The audience was
made of Hayesville folks and some visitors from
Andrews and from across the Georgia line. Coffee,
tea, pastry, and poems --all delicious.

During the open mic session, award winning poet
Brenda Kay Ledford read a newly completed poem.

NCWN West Consultant, Nancy Simpson
read her most recently published poem,
“ The Ghost of Candide” which is dedicated to former
Georgia Poet Laureate, Bettie M. Sellers. Simpson
said the poem was written in 1978 and finally, after
30 years, it has found it’s home in print at
Cooweescoowee Review at Will Rogers University
in Oklahoma.

Glenda Barrett, whose chapbook, WHEN THE SAP RISES,
is forthcoming in June 2008 from Finishing Line Press,
also read one poem in the open mic reading,
as did Maren O. Mitchell and others.

Mark your calendar on the 4th Wednesday in April,
and come enjoy Coffee with the Poets. All practicing poets
are welcome to read a poem in the open mic reading.
Glenda Beall. NCWN West Program Coordinator is the
founder of this innovative program.

Sunday, February 24, 2008

Give a Good Reading, But First Sell Yourself

Like many writers, I was shy and self-conscious the first time I read my poetry to strangers. I felt as though I were splitting my chest and handing my heart to those people. I was terrified they would throw it on the ground, stamp on it and kick it around. So frightened was I that I wrote down every single word I planned to say when I stood before this small crowd, even to “good evening, I’m so glad you are here tonight” to “thank you all for coming.” I rehearsed this reading at least ten times and still my hands were sweaty and my heart racing when I stood behind the podium. That was ten years ago. I was on the right track and didn’t know it. Planning is the key to being self assured and being comfortable in front of a group.
A professional writer knows the value of planning a performance of his work. A reading is a performance. As Tom Bradley says in “How to Give a Rousing Reading” from The practical Writer, “Literary events are theater, not literature per se.” Vocal quality is about 82% of everything. Some writers study drama to better project their voices. Bradley insists the writer should always stand but not behind a lectern, and never let anyone hand you a microphone without a stand. He says it is best to avoid a microphone entirely, even if your vocal ability is not the best. Personally I like a lectern to hold my script, especially when I’m reading poetry from different collections, but I enjoy moving away from it at times to be closer to my audience.
Brenda Kay Ledford, award winning poet and writer, is also a storyteller. Her southern mountain accent suits her tales of life in Appalachia. At a recent gathering she read a couple of poems from her chapbook, Shew Bird Mountain. She then stepped from behind the podium to dramatize a story of her childhood using all her storytelling skills. No minds ever wander during this woman’s readings.
An author who decides to read a chapter from his novel has the most difficult task. He must do an outstanding job of setting the scene, making the audience care about what he is going to tell them before he reads the first word. This kind of reading is hardest for a new, unknown author. His audience has not read any of his work; therefore, his job is to sell them on himself and his words. At a recent reading, I looked around at the group, mostly writers, as a long-winded fellow read chapter after chapter of dialogue between his fictional characters. His audience had no idea who these characters were or why they were important in this story. I was not surprised to see lots of heads bowed and eyelids drooping, nearly closed.
Carole L. Kelley, author of two books, And Now Hello, and its sequel, And Now Goodby, part of a trilogy, was in our town, reading and signing her first book. She began by telling how she, the owner of her own company, a business woman who had never written a book, made the decision to choose the setting of Brazil where she had never been, for her story. She told us how she developed the characters, and a brief synopsis of the entire book without giving away the ending. By the time she finished this buildup, we could hardly wait to hear her share parts, not complete chapters, but selected parts that sparked the curiosity of those present. This reading was designed purposely to draw the audience into the story, a little at a time, until we were totally hooked.
In all the years I’ve observed writers promote, read and sign books, I’ve learned one thing. Most Americans have and enjoy a sense of humor. You can’t fail if you begin and end with something humorous. Sandwich the most serious subjects in the middle. Just as a story needs a good beginning to entice an editor to turn the pages, you want the first words of your reading to intrigue your audience.
Some writers end their readings with a section from the book that stimulates extreme curiosity in the audience. This motivates the crowd to make an immediate bee line for the book table. Thomas A. Williams tells us in his book, Poet Power, how he prepares his audience before he reads. He encourages them to applaud whenever they feel they want to, not wait until the very last poem has been read. Williams even tells them to stamp their feet, call encouragement or do whatever the work inspires them to do. He makes friends with those eager faces who are expecting him to “entertain” them with his work. The smiling face and personal attitude of the poet or writer is often the first step to breaking the ice and winning over the crowd. Follow these suggestions to enhance your performance:
• Tell an anecdote about yourself or your writing.
• Read sure-fire work from other outstanding poets or writers, and tell stories about their struggles.
• Ask questions. Do anything to get your listeners involved.
• Introduce each poem or story before you read it.
• Lighten up the crowd with humor.

When you deliver an outstanding presentation or performance, your audience loves you and wants to read your book, and you will not have to wake them up when you finish.