Netwest Author, Jerry Hobbs, has a secret desire

LATER
'Live for today.’ ‘Take that special trip while you can.’ ‘Stop saving the good china, crystal or silverware until later.’ We’ve all heard that advice, especially how we shouldn’t put things off until it’s too late. The problem is, when is later? Now is easy, but it’s a little more difficult to decide when later finally arrives.
Even though I’ve often tried to bring my ‘laters’ and my ‘nows’ closer together, some things just aren’t that simple. To illustrate, let me go back a few years.
Actually, it’s more that a few, since I was sixteen when I first realized I wanted a motorcycle. At the time, dealing with the desire was simple because there was no way I could afford one. There just weren’t that many yards to mow, snow to shovel or tobacco plants to house. But that was okay, I told myself the time would come after I was out of school, had a job and could afford one. Which would, of course, occur – later.
Well, later brought the job all right, but it also brought a wife, children, car payments and a mortgaged home. But, hey, that was okay. I was young, happy with my life and there was always…later. One day the children would move out, have families of their own, the car would be paid off and maybe even the mortgage.
As expected, later became the present, and it was time to do what I’d waited all those years for. Only, now there were grandkids to baby sit and play with. Somehow the image of this kind old grandfather rocking the little ones to sleep or reading a bedtime story and then going out to fire up the old Harley Davidson and race up and down Main Street while spitting bugs from between my teeth just didn’t seem appropriate. Later would have to wait awhile longer.
Not surprising, later came around again. The kids went in one direction, the grandkids in another, and we moved here to the beautiful mountains of North Carolina. In case you aren’t aware, this area is a motorcyclist’s dream come true. A Mecca for motorized two-wheelers. What person could deny themselves the thrill of leaning a powerful, 1200CC beauty at an impossible angle while speeding through the banked curves of one of those seldom traveled mountain roads, listening to the exhilarating roar of those twin exhausts as they shout, “FREEDOM” in a way no enclosed vehicle will ever know or understand? Listen. Can’t you hear that message as thunder echoes back from the mountainside that flashes by faster and faster in a blur of living proof that man and machine can unite their spirits and conquer anything that…
Well, maybe you get the idea. In my mind, the ultimate later had finally arrived, and it was time to fulfill a dream born all those years ago. A dream kept alive by hope. Hope and the belief that later would one day become…now.
Only now, there was a problem. When I was sixteen, all the money I earned from my part time jobs put together wasn’t enough to purchase, much less maintain a motorcycle or pay the insurance. Not surprising, it appears the decision my wife and I made to retire and live our lives together in this land of beauty also didn’t include a budget that stretched far enough to provide for that teenagers dream.
Don’t get me wrong. There aren’t any regrets, because we certainly enjoy our retirement. It has given us a chance to appreciate the things in life that are really important, such as spending time with good friends. The truth is, we take a great deal of pride and pleasure to invite people over to share a meal served on fine china, crystal and silverware handed down from our parents. It’s also a good feeling to know that someday the same dinnerware will be passed down to our children. And to their children. As far as my childhood dream is concerned, well, maybe later wasn’t all that important after all.
But you know, we really don’t have people over that often. Plus there’s nothing wrong with our everyday dishes. I wonder how much money a person could get for all that fancy stuff. Probably enough to put a down payment on a used Harley or Kawasaki. The problem is I don’t know how long it would take before my wife noticed something was missing. Maybe I should discuss it with her first. And that’s exactly what I will do. But not right now. Maybe Later.


Jerry Hobbs is the author of two novels and a book of short stories published by Lulu.com. Click on Jerry Hobbs to see his books. He writes to entertain and has a good bit of humor in his work.

Gary Carden, storyteller and folklorist

Gary Carden graduated from Western Carolina University near Sylva, NC. He taught literature and drama for fifteen years, worked for the Cherokee Indians for fifteen years and has become well-known as a playwright.
His popular play "The Prince of Dark Corners" has been made into a movie and has received high ratings from around the state. To learn more about Gary Carden, see his website, www.tannerywhistle.net.



WHAT THIS HOUSE REMEMBERS
By Gary Carden

I live in an old farmhouse that is literally falling apart. Each spring, clouds of termites rise in the bathroom and the bedroom, coating the windows and covering the kitchen stove and the mirrors in the bathroom with tiny wings – wings that clog my vacuum cleaner for weeks. In the winter, the wind woofs in the eaves, pours through the attic and seeps into my bedroom like an ice-laden river. All of the doors hang off-balance and a tennis ball, dropped in the living room will roll slowly from room to room – like a cue ball looking for a pocket – until, eventually, it find its way to the kitchen, always coming to rest behind the sink.
But, with each passing year, my affection for these canted floors and leaning walls deepens. I came to live here when I was two years old, and now, seventy years later, I still sleep in the same bedroom – the one my Uncle Albert dubbed “the North Pole.” The entire house bears testimony to the lives of my grandparents, and when I walk from room to room, I hear lost voices and sense fading warmth.
Just here, beneath this old flue, my grandmother tended her Home Comfort stove. And over there, on that cracked cement hearthstone, that once fronted a fireplace, I used to lie whimpering on winter nights – my cheek pressed against the warm hearthstone (I was plagued with chronics earaches) while my grandmother poured warm cod liver oil from a tablespoon into my ear. There, where my computer now sets, my grandfather used to tune the old Silvertone radio, listening to “Renfro Valley” on Sunday mornings. It is also where his coffin rested (for I lived in a time in which the dead came home for a final farewell).

The old house seems to be slowly sinking into the earth, dragging with it a roofless canning house and a derelict barn. Yet, there are brief moments – usually in the morning – when this dim space seems filled with a kind of tangible energy. There are mornings when I wake in the chilled air of my bedroom, sensing that I am not alone -that this empty shell has become an echo chamber. In the kitchen, my grandmother’s Home Comfort radiates warmth while she conjures red-eye gravy from a black skillet; cathead biscuits bloom in the oven and a tin coffee pot chuckles on the back burner. I feel my Uncle Albert’s discontent (he suffered from migraines) as he sits leaning back in a cane-bottomed chair at the dining room table, his chair legs gouging little half-moons in the linoleum. My grandfather is milking the cow, and any minute now, he will stomp into the kitchen with a bucket of steaming milk. From the living room comes the strains of Jo Stafford’s “You Belong to Me,” followed by the banter of Reed Wilson, WWNC’s popular early morning d. j.

Fly the ocean in a silver plane,
See the jungle when its wet with rain.

But when my foot touches the floor, it all vanishes … recedes like an ocean tide withdrawing down the corridors of the years; carrying away warmth, biscuits and my grandmother’s hands through the draft of a broken window. Sometimes, I move quickly to the barren kitchen, hoping to capture a belated fragment of what was here a moment ago – perhaps the last vestiges of Albert’s complaint lingers. (“Ahhh, God! I didn’t sleep a wink,” he says, as he massages his head). And here…who is this tow-headed creature in his peppermint striped pajamas? My God, it’s me! I’m on my way to Albert’s bedroom, where I will find a stack of lurid magazines beneath his pillow…Captain Marvel, Plastic Man, Black Hawk and The Blue Beetle.

Is it possible that there are past moments that have taken refuge in these rooms? Are there moments that were fueled by such intense emotion, they hang suspended like banks of summer clouds, waiting for an alignment of hours, months and memory? My mother’s grief for my father’s murder is somewhere in this bedroom; my grandmother’s loss of a “blue baby;” the return of two sons from WW II haunts the front porch; an old, broken fiddle that played “The Waltz You Saved for Me” resonates faintly in the attic – are they all here like eavesdroppers in the next room, waiting for their cue to enter?

Perhaps a night will come when moonlight will penetrate the cobwebs on the attic window, touching the faded portrait of my father’s face; and he will turn to my mother, whispering – and the two of them will laugh. Then, a dozen specters will awake causing this old house to shudder as music, heat and the smell of red-eye gravy
floats in the summer darkness. Then, children’s footsteps will mingle with the slow trudge of the elderly, and blasts of snow, wind and heat will batter these walls as spring and winter collide and this old house finally explodes leaving nothing behind but the buzz of a solitary wasp freed from its prison behind an attic window.

Finally, this old house will mingle with fog and moonlight, drifting through the stand of hemlocks that encircles this dim cove where my homeless spirit will rise to meet the morning sun.

Self Publishing

Self Publishing

Many writers in the Netwest area have indicated they would like to self-publish their work, but don’t really know how to do this. If you start searching the internet, you can find many self-publishing sites. But when you look at their sites, you will find a vast array of services and costs. It can be very confusing. What will it cost me per book? That is the question.

Here is a way to get a close approximation of what your book will cost. Go to:

www.morrispublishing.com. Morris is one of the major POD publishing houses in the US.

Click on Download Center, then click on Download Order Form PDF. This file is 4 pages long, so you may want to just view it on the screen rather than print it out.

Answer the following questions:

Production Time: normal

Book Specifications: 5 ½ by 8 ½ .

Number of books: 200 (Note. This is the minimum order for this size book, with perfect binding.

(Note 2: The actual contract specifies 200 books with up to a 10% overrun. This is common in the printing business. They print more than required to cover for any glitches. There were none in my case, so they shipped and billed me for 220 books.)

Number of Pages: 70 (From this you can calculate the cost from their publishing guide)

Technical Details:

“I have filed for the following items:”

LCCN

ISBN

Create the following items for me:

Create a bar code with ISBN#

Print bar code: with price bar

Print bar code on: outside back cover

Binding Style: Perfect Binding

Cover Design Assistance Needed:

Full-Color Stock Cover: CJ2 (They have 18 stock covers available at no cost)

Cover Information: Title and Author’s name

Text on back cover: Included as a separate attachment

Cover Inks: black

From all this, you can calculate the price per book, including shipping, in this format. Other POD houses will have different costs and fees, but this will put you in the ballpark.

For poetry chapbooks, there are different costs. For this, I suggest you contact Tom Davis at Old Mountain Press in Fayetteville. The number is 910-484-5887.

Tom Davis was a presenter at our conference at Hinton Center in the Spring of 2006. OMP can do much shorter runs for very short works, like chap books. These will be set up to be saddle stitched, which you can then take to Kinko’s or similar to be finished. Call Tom or see the Oldmountainpress.com website for details.

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.

WRITING HOMEWORK ASSIGNMENT

Writing Lesson and Homework Assignment:

Nancy Simpson: Instructor
Write a Persona Poem

The word persona comes from the greek language. Persona means mask.

A persona poem is a poem written in the voice of someone other than the poet. It is written in first person. The I speaker is not the poet. In practice, a poet takes on the identity of someone real or imagined, and talks as they would talk, sees what they see, hears what they hear. When the Persona Poem is spoken aloud, it is dramatic monologue.

Why would anyone want to write a poem presenting themselves as someone else? It is an exercise in walking a mile in someone else’s shoes, and when you do that, you learn something you did not know before, or you remember, with a thump in the chest, some truth you knew, but suppressed it so deeply you almost forgot it.

It is wise to choose to write about a critical moment in the person’s life. The classic example is Elizabeth Bishop’s “Caruso in England”. Kathryn Stripling Byer, our NC Poet Laureate, made much of her early fame in writing the Alma poems, in which she speaks as a woman who lived in the mountains long ago.

Is persona the same as personification? No, don’t get sidetracked. Personification is a poetic device in which the poet gives animals or objects characteristics of a person. Stay with the person I give you:

Assignment: Write a persona poem in the voice of Christopher Columbus in present time, returning to San Salvador, the place where he first landed in 1492.

or

Write a poem in the voice of a man or a woman who is hunting ginseng in a mountain forest in Appalachia, who finds something else instead.

Send me a copy, if you want my comments.
nance@dnet.net. Cut and paste please.

DO ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES HAVE A PLACE IN FREE VERSE POETRY?

I believe concerns for the environment have a place
in literature, but apprehension for our planet is seldom voiced
in poetry. The poems may be written, but they aren’t often
published. With subjects of science, a poet must tread lightly.
Poets are not allowed to preach the world a sermon. Like most
practicing poets, I write what comes to me. When environmental
concerns grow in my poems, I think, this poem will never get
published. I work harder on these than on my others. Here are three
that slipped passed the editors.

Three Environmental Poems by Nancy Simpson

WHAT SHE SAW AND WHAT SHE HEARD

On the mountain a woman saw
the road bank caved in
from winter’s freeze-thaw
and April rain erosion.

Trees leaned over the road the way
strands of hair hung on her forehead.
She gaped, her face as tortured
as the face she saw engraved in dirt.

Roots growing sideways shaped brows,
two eyes. Humus washed
down the bank like a nose.
Lower down, where a rock

was shoved out by weathering,
a hole formed the shape of a mouth.
The woman groaned, Agh!
Her spirit toppled

to the ground, slithered
under the roots of an oak.
She stood there as if lost, asking
What? Who?

Back to reason, back home
she finishes her questions:
What can one make of the vision, that face
on the north side of the mountain?

Reckoning comes, a thought:
It is not the image of a witch nor a god,
but Earth’s face, mouth open saying,
Save me.

First published in Pembroke Magazine
and featured on the NC Poet Laureate’s Web site,
ncac.org.




ACCOUNTING

The green ghost in me is the land
I sold to the land developers.
They wanted money. I wanted time
that money can buy, but got
a kind of poverty. They cut trees,
dug deep septic tanks, and paved
a road across the highest ridge.
I sold my spring branch,
gave up my bloodroot.
Twenty houses line the ridge
where trees stood. Men who live
in the houses take out their trash.
They bring in wood for their fires.
In summer women sunbathe on wide decks
that extend out over the mountainsides.
Barking dogs frighten fox kits.
The old bear is gone,
and squirrels are settling down ridge.
I got cash from people who want to live
at the top, who feel transcendent viewing
the blue lake that glistens in the distance.
They are exalted looking down on
the slow mob that moves through the valley.
I have some money now, but I am poor,
leaving with a green ghost in me.

First published in The Georgia Journal
and reprinted in State Street Reader



WALKING AROUND LAKE KNOWLES WITH SARAH

The plan was to turn left
at the corner, go home,
but I took her hand,
went right instead because
there was a turtle in distress.

The turtle was large,
with a scarred shell
and seemed confused,
moving from the sidewalk
into rush hour traffic.

I said “Mother Earth is calling,”
and my granddaughter, not five,
believed and followed me.
She asked, “How did you hear
Mother Earth calling?”

The turtle pulled in its head.
I said, “I didn’t hear with my ears.”
“Uh huh,” Sarah nodded. She spoke
the way one speaks to a pet,
said, “Come out.”

The turtle stuck out its head.
I turned it toward the lake.
It left the sidewalk,
slid across the grass, down the bank,
and splashed with gusto into the water.

We cheered. I said, “Turtles
are old, best loved creatures.”
“Shhhhh,” Sarah hissed, said, “I know”.
We walked a second time
around Lake Knowles, then home.

Previously published in Prairie Schooner


Nancy Simpson is the author of ACROSS WATER and NIGHT STUDENT
(State Street Press), and editor of LIGHTS IN THE MOUNTAINS, Stories,
Essays, and Poems by Writers Living in or Inspired by the Southern Appalachian
Mountains. Her poems were published in The Georgia Review, Prairie Schooner,
Indiana Review and other literary magazines. Most recently she had poems in
Southern Poetry Review, Journal of Kentucky Studies and Cooweescoowee
Review from Will Rogers University in Oklahoma. Poems were reprinted
in anthologies: WORD and WITNESS, 100 Years of North Carolina Poetry,
Literary Trails of N.C. and seven poems will be included in Southern Appalachian
Poetry forthcoming from McFarland Press.

Shirley Uphouse, past Program Coordinator and present Yahoo e-group moderator for Netwest, has been published in numerous magazines. Shirley is a professional dog show judge and spent many years flying around the country judging the top breeds. Presently she is working on a book about all the wonderful dogs who played a part in her life. The following non-fiction piece takes us back to her childhood growing up in the finger lakes region of New York state.



River Cane Walk and Memories
by Shirley Uphouse
While, on a lovely fall day, I walked through fields and along a creek lined by river cane, I plucked a variety of small, low growing delicate plants and dried weeds of interesting color or shape. And as I did I remembered when I was a young girl during WWII. With the attack on Pearl Harbor on Sunday, December 7, 1941 we were at war. I was six- years- old. I attended a one room country school in upstate New York in a farming community. During the war, in the fall, our teacher took us into the fields around the school where milkweed pods had dried and popped open. We pulled the white, silk-like bolls from the pod and put them in sacks. It was a fun respite from the three R’s.
The military used the silkweed bolls to fill life jackets. A pound and a half of milkweed floss would keep a 150 pound sailor afloat for ten hours. During 1944 and 1945, throughout North America, more than twenty-five million pounds of milkweed silk, enough to fill 700 freight train cars, was collected.
During these years the home front supported our men and women overseas in every possible way. Everyone who could, grew Victory gardens because so much grown commercially was needed for our troops. It was my sister’s and my job to squash potato bugs between two rocks in our vegetable garden. They were big, green and juicy. We tried to do it with eyes closed, but when we hit our fingers we gave that up.
Uncle Lawrence was called to service. Because of his experience as a contractor, he served with the Navy Sea Bees. The Sea Bees played a critical role during World War II in all theaters of battle. They built hundreds of advance bases, roads, bridges, their most famous being their participation during the D-Day invasion of Normandy on June 6, 1944.
Most Sea Bees were the first ones to come ashore, so they suffered heavy casualties from German fire. Uncle Lawrence was in that bloody invasion. My Aunt Thelma heard nothing from him for months. But he came home safe. He rarely spoke of the atrocities he saw while there.
Looking back on those years, when the whole country pulled together to support our home land, I feel a sense of pride for helping by collecting those fluffy bits of silken boll. It mattered not that what I collected may not have weighed enough to move a fraction of a mark on a scale, it mattered that I did what a young school girl could do to end that awful war.

Valentine's Day or is it Valentine Day?

I have a tendency to forget this day set aside to tell loved ones how I feel about them. However, my sweetheart of many years never forgets. I learned a long time ago how easy it is to say I love you. But I wish I had learned much sooner. In my childhood home, no one said those words. It was just too, too embarrassing to express that kind of emotion. Now I make up for those years. If I love you, you know it! And I don't wait until Valentine's Day to say it.

Valentines are important to my family history. When my mother was in fourth grade she received a beautiful hand-made valentine from the boy who would grow up and be the man she married. Before that day, she never knew he noticed her. He quietly admired her from afar. The letters he wrote her in later years express so well his deep and abiding love which bound them together for sixty-two years. I see it in his letters, and she always knew he loved her, but I never heard him say those words out loud to anyone.

Perhaps it is good to have a day set aside to say I love you. Today I saw a young man with his girl friend in an upscale restaurant in Atlanta. He carried a wrapped present tied with a ribbon attached to a red balloon. The girl was all smiles. He had taken her out for a special Valentine lunch, and the box contained a certain dessert he bought for another special lady - his mother. A young man who is not afraid to show his love for his girl and for his mother, now he's a keeper.

Suspense from Richard Argo

Richard Argo is a teacher of writing and he facilitates the Netwest Prose group in Murphy, NC. He is a strong part of Netwest and has been for many years. His commitment to help other writers and support Netwest is recognized and greatly appreciated. This short story grabs you immediately and you won't stop reading until you reach the end. Richard reads at the John C. Campbell Folk School in Brasstown, NC on Thursday evening, February 21 at 7:00 p.m.



Amen

I stand in the shadows at the rear door of the church and pull the slide back on the nine-millimeter pistol. The recoil spring strains to close the slide, but I let it ease forward slowly and watch the cartridge, the lead bullet and shiny brass casing disappear into the firing chamber. There are eight more rounds in the magazine, but it will take only one. One round will end the miserable life that has made my life miserable. Pray hard sinner because I’m sending your rotten soul to hell. I open the door and slip in.
Inside the temperature is ten degrees hotter. I can feel sweat bead on my upper lip and soak into my collar. It is near noon and sunny outside, but heavy curtains make the room early-morning gray. The musty smell says the Ladies’ Auxiliary has not cleaned in several months. The voices of the choir are plain and clear, “Praise God from Whom All Blessings Flow.” Blessings will flow like blood, today – like the pure blood of Jesus. I walk forward.
I move like a cat – a large cat – each step placed softly and firmly ahead of the last, through a series of adjoined rooms. The choir has finished and the preaching has begun, an inaudible murmur punctuated by “Amen” and “praise the Lord.” I pause at the narrow steps that lead to the choir loft. Lord, still my hand and quieten my heart that I might not falter when I send that son-of-a-bitch to judgment. I ascend the first step.
It is thirteen steps to the small landing and door at the rear of the choir loft. I open the door a crack. Choir, preacher, and congregation lay in my view, even to the ushers at the heavy double-door in back. Before me is the center aisle between the altos and the basses, between the sopranos and the tenors, down between the deacons and the Minister of Music, right on down between the Jones’s and the Browns, the Smiths and the Johnsons, all the way to the back. The only person between me and freedom is the man at the podium. He stands there, broad-backed and tall, stripped of his coat. His white shirt and snowy hair make him look like a polar bear. His right arm, with Bible in hand, extended as if he will use it to beat the congregation into remission. “All have sinned and come short of the glory of God-uh. No one can come to the Father except through the Son-uh.” Yeah, you showed my mother the glory of the father and now this son is going to send you to glory. I raise the pistol.
I see his head on the sights like a gourd on a spike. No body shot for me. I want to blow his righteous brains across the first three rows of the faithful. I want his life to go out like a light, no chance for confession, no chance for redemption. “The Lord says, ‘Judge not lest ye be judged-uh.’ He who call another ‘fool’ is in danger of Hell fire-uh.” I may go to Hell, fool, but you’ll be there first and stay longer. I squeeze the slack out of the trigger.
His head dances on the sights like a drop of water on a hot skillet. I open the door. Just one step closer will make it easier.
“Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death-uh.”
Just one more step closer and I can’t miss. One more “Amen” and you are history.
“Fear not. Lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the Earth-uh.”
Another step closer and the next “Amen” will be your last.
“And now, we will sing our hymn of invitation-uh, ‘Just As I Am.’”
The church is silent. He is standing not three feet from the barrel in my outstretched hand. He turns to face me. His eyes show fear – no, not fear, surprise. His eyes show surprise and a touch of sadness.
Can I get an “Amen?”

Poetry by Robert Kimsey

Robert W. Kimsey, a retired Technical Writer/Illustrator lives in the north Georgia mountains where he writes. He is a member of the Kentucky Poetry Society, the Blue Ridge Poets and Writers, and the North Carolina Writers' Network West. His chapbook, Paths From the Shawnee Spring, was published in 2005. In 2007, he led a workshop at the Blue Ridge Writer's Conference. Robert was also a participant at the Georgia Literary Festival that same year. His poems have won numerous awards. When he isn't writing poetry, Robert volunteers to teach poetry to middle and high school students in local schools. His poetry has a deep sense of place, his Kentucky landscape, and the characters he shares with deep insight, stay with me long after I close the book. The following are a few of my favorite Robert Kimsey poems.

Old Soldier

Sitting on the loading dock,
some damn fool would always say
something to get him started.
A word or phrase, a headline or jab
would send him down that road.

It was never those of us
who had been in the service.
When it started we’d look away,
down at our feet,
zone out to another place.

His face would go gray, he’d shake
and look across the years and
even in January the sweat
would drip from his nose
along with the tears.
And he’d tell the story again.

You could almost see him in that foxhole,
back in France, fighting for his breath.
The German tank above him,
his guys down the road firing everything
they had at it and him screaming
every time the tank shelled their position.

The dirt in his mouth,
the smell of gunpowder and urine all around.
All day buried until the tank moved off
and his pals came and dug him out.

It always ended the same,
him wiping the tears on his sleeve,
embarrassed, gathering his lunch box,
limping back to the storeroom.

The damn fools who started it all
headed back to work, laughing and giggling.
Those of us who avoided crowds,
always faced the door,
flinched at loud noises,
just sat there
struggling for breath.

Riding Shanks Mare

We never worried about miles.
Two miles, four miles, any miles.
We rode shanks mare more times as not,
and along the way visited with the porch
rockers, the fence leaners, the hat wavers.
Brogans or bare feet told the season.

If we had to go, we just up and started out.
Sometimes we’d catch a ride with someone
going our way, and if we was lucky we’d meet
them coming back, and they’d drop us at the mailbox.

If we wasn’t having a lucky day
we’d have to hold our pokes hard against our coat
so they didn’t blow off the bridge and into the river.
I always feared I’d slip on the ice,
slide right off that bridge.

Some days we didn’t have the toll,
then we had to go another way.
Daddy always said they ought to be horse whipped
for charging a body to walk a bridge.


Kentuckians

How many of us crossed the Ohio for jobs and education,
ate in diners and beer joints while searching for our
own people; making little Kentucky communities
wherever we could? Always living in
South something,
West End something,
Lower something.

How many of us sat and told stories about home after
working double shifts at the shoe factories, or sweated
on assembly lines; used our last dollars for gas so we
could spend a few hours smelling honeysuckle and
visiting around the Sunday table,
before heading back north?

How many of us died in coal mines or driving
gravel trucks down snake-back roads so we could
hang onto a small piece of sacred mountain land
that our kin had fought to keep, after riding flat boats
down a river into the unknown?

How many of us would push the dirt off our faces,
stand up out of our graves, put on our boots and
do it all over again?

All of us who call ourselves Kentuckians would.

Leave the Egos at the door

Recently while advising a member on starting a reading in her town, I said the most important thing about holding any event in an effort to further writing in the community is for the leadership to leave egos at the door. I and other members of netwest will tell anyone that the reason our groups in Murphy and Hayesville have been so successful is that we don't have room for those who are competitive with other members or our guests who come to observe and/or participate. Our members want to help each other, as well as help themselves to learn to be a better writer.

I took the position of Program Coordinator because I wanted to further the work done by Nancy Simpson in bringing such encouragement to those who want to write. I was welcomed into the poetry group in 1996 and for the first time in my life felt I had a safe place to read my work. That doesn't mean that my work was not critiqued. But we always look first for the good in each poem. We talk to the group, not to the poet who has just read. We discuss the poem, bring up things we'd like to know more about or things we feel would make the poem stronger or clearer. When we have had our say, the poet gets a chance to tell anything he wants to tell us about the poem. No one feels threatened or hurt but everyone gets the advantage of good peer advice.

The prose group is handled in the same way. When we have had a person come who does not understand our way, that person usually doesn't last long. We have no room for egos that try to overpower any one of our group. It is amazing that we meet month after month, men and womem, who love poetry and have come to love each other as dear friends. The secret is that we care about the spirits of our fellow poets. We want all our members to be successful.

Any group can have this if the members want it, and the leaders care enough to make sure it stays on tract. That is what has made our Netwest critique groups successful.

FORMS OF FREE VERSE POETRY Part III

Hello Fellow Netwest Writers. This is the final part of the talk I gave Oct. 21, 2007 at Young harris College at the state meeting of the Georgia Poetry Society. For the sake of learning, the speech was adapted and is presented in three parts. Please feel free to share this with others, but do not reprint or publish without my permission. Some have asked to print a copy for study. Yes to that. -- Positively, Nancy Simpson

Forms of Free Verse Poetry Part III

I believe you can look in any poetry book and identify a fee verse poem without reading it. If there is an absence of regular stanzas, and if end words do not have a rhyme scheme, it is free verse. I believe not only can you tell at a glance that a poem is written in free verse form, you can guess whether it is a meditative poem, a narrative poem or a lyric poem.

If the poem has questions marks, it is meditative, the mind in the act of thinking, driven by an idea.

If it is a long poem, more than one page, with the name of character and maybe some dialogue, without reading, you can guess that it is a narrative poem, driven by the poet’s desire to tell a story.

If the poem is a short, first person, and if it snags your interest with images of a place, you can guess it might be a lyric poem.

What difference does it make? First and foremost a poet must write, but once there are words on a page, a poet will ask, sometimes somewhat surprised, “What do I have here?”

If your words show the mind in the act of thinking, with one or more questions, or if you have used the phrase, “I Know” or “I think”, for certain, you are writing in meditative form.

If you have a story with all its components: character, setting, plot and theme, you are working
in narrative form. Perhaps you have dialogue between a married couple as Robert Frost did in his great narrative poem, “The Death of the Hired Hand.” Or you may only have a narrator’s voice describing and telling what happened.

For me, the lyric poem is the most fascinating free verse form. The lyric poem has been around since ancient days. It changed its focus in different ages. Its definition has evolved. Today, the lyric poem is one of the most prized forms of free verse poetry among literary editors, perhaps because the lyric tightly compresses language, it is more brief, and it never covers more than a page.

In my years of study, practicing, publishing and teaching poetry, this is how I came to identify and define the lyric form: A lyric poem has three components. It must have all three.

1) A lyric poem is a moment in time, a frozen moment, a scene, or something like a short video blip, not the whole story. The reader will always know where and when the poem takes place.

2) A lyric poem is a personal experience, driven by emotion, with words drenched in emotion.

3) A lyric poem has a moment of knowing something not known before or a moment of remembering truth known but forgotten.

The poet who understands the difference in free verse forms, I believe, would be a poet who could more skillfully bring a new poem to completion.

A meditative poem is driven by intelligence. The poet must find a way to hook the reader. “Moon” and “The Death of the Hat” by Billy Collins are good examples of the meditative poem.

The narrative poem is driven by the poet’s desire to tell a story. In writing a narrative poem, the poet must work the lines more carefully than any other form, cut, cut, and prune away all the dead wood, to avoid the relentless impulse of prose.

The lyric poem is driven by emotion, with the poet’s main responsibility being to to lead the reader to the moment of knowing. If there is no moment of knowing, it is not a lyric poem.

Your best poems may have elements of all three forms, for the best poems connect with the reader on a sensory level, an emotional level and on an intellectual level.

Here at the end, I must say writing free verse poetry does not end here. There is more, more
free verse forms, more topics to discuss, such as “Where do I break the line”? More for future study.

Meanwhile, pull out your writing folder , write, study, revise and write some more. Present yourself as a practicing poet, and keep practicing poetry.

Nancy Simpson

Any Questions?

Darnell Arnoult Workshop in Hayesville, NC

Author of Sufficient Grace, Darnell Arnoult, is making a stop on her way to the Duke Writers Workshop in Hendersonville to offer Netwest members and others a workshop at the Clay County Senior Center in Hayesville, NC on Saturday, May 3, 2008,9:30-4:30. Having enjoyed one of Darnell's classes at John Campbell Folk School, I know this will be a class filled with fun and crammed full of good advice and information for all writers.
Writers may join Darnell for dinner in Murphy NC on Friday night, May 2 at 6:00 at the Downtown Pizza where she will read for us.
If you have studied writing with Darnell, I'd like to hear your thoughts. writerlady21@yahoo.com or comment on this blog.

MORE ON WRITING FREE VERSE POETRY Part II

Hello fellow Netwest Writers. Below is part of a talk I gave Oct. 21, 2007, Young Harris College, at the state meeting of the Georgia Poetry Society. Please feel free to share this with others, but do not reprint or publish without my permission. 2-4-08, Nancy Simpson

continued Part II

4) Master poets from the past fine-tuned the sound of their poems. Free verse poets now have a hard job. After avoiding meter and rhyme, we still have to make our poems sing with sound. Our poems must be pleasing to the ear.

Sound in free verse is accomplished with different techniques. We use of alliteration. Our best alliteration is welcome, but again, alliteration seems to be not favored by the Literary Magazine editors of today. What is more popular today is the use of consonance, where you repeat the consonant sound in the middle or at the end of the word. Assonance, much appreciated now, is a more subtle way to build sound. Assonance is the repetition of vowel sounds such as (this example using long i sound)
like a line of white mice.

Another way free verse poets build cadence into their poems is to prefer and to use one syllable words. When you use one syllable words, each syllable gets a beat. Beat is the foundation of music. The use of multi syllabic words in the same line can ruin a good poem fast. If you have a beautiful word you cannot part with, try using it as a title. If you insist on using multi syllabic words in the body of the poem, go back and hone the poem to mostly one and two syllable words. Do this to secure the sound.

5) The poets of old connected with their reader on a sensory level. There is no better way to hook your reader then to use sensory images. Why does it work now the same as it worked then? Think of it. A
new born human has no other way to learn, for years, except to take in information through the senses - sight, sound, smell, touch, taste. As a human, if nothing terrible happens, we use our senses every day
of our lives, until the moment we die. There is no better, no faster way to connect with your reader than through sensory images.

6. The poets of old connected with their reader on an emotional level? Free verse poets must also make that connection. How is it done? Choice of words, words drenched in emotion: When the reader reads these words, they feel emotionally connected. “family”, “mother”, “frown”, “mock”, “smack”, “nothing remains”, “wreck”, “battered on one knuckle”, “prison,” “divorce papers”, Word choice. That is how you put emotion into your poems.

7. The poets of old connected with their reader on an intellectual level. Free verse poets must also make that intellectual connection. The best way is not to tell the reader everything. What keeps people reading poetry today is the joy they find in being able to use their own intelligence, to be able fill in the gaps of what is not said, and to be able to say, “Yes. I know.”

--Nancy Simpson Part III will be posted 2-5-08 on this site

What is Free Verse Poetry? Part I

Hello fellow Netwest Writers. Below is part of a talk I gave Oct. 21, 2007 at Young Harris College at the state meeting of the Georgia Poetry Society. I am happy to share it with you. Please feel free to share this with others, but do not reprint or publish without my permission. For the sake of learning, the speech has been adapted and presented here in three parts. Positively, Nancy Simpson 2-3-08

WHAT IS FREE VERSE PORTRY? Part I

The best “What is Poetry” definition yet known to me is Laurence Perrine’s definition (from the Sound and Sense textbook) in which Perrine said, “Poetry is language that says more and says it with more intensity than ordinary language.” Perrine also said, “ Poetry is as universal as language and almost as ancient.” He said, “The most primitive people have used poetry and the most civilized have cultivated it.” I celebrate Perrine's understanding. I celebrate being among fellow poets who are practicing and cultivating poetry.

In all ages and in all countries and even now, this day, poetry is being written. The most popular form of poetry being written throughout the world today is free verse. As someone who has studied, practiced, published and taught poetry for thirty years, I will do my best to share what I understand about free verse. Free Verse has been a recognizable form since Walt Whitman, called the Father of Free Vese, published Leaves of Grass in 1855, 153 years ago.

Free verse is a poetic form in which the line does not conform to rules of meter and rhyme. The purpose of free verse is to break with tradition and that means to shun meter and rhyme. After saying that, we still have to ask the question, What is free verse?

I stongly believe the writer of free verse has much freedom, but it is a misconception to think that the poet can write with total abandon of rules. From study, practice and a publishing career, I am certain that except for breaking with traditional meter and rhyme, and a few other minor changes, the other guidelines that poets of old followed are the guidelines we must follow today. Here they are:

1) A poem is made of tightly compressed language. This has been true since the beginning of written poetry. As free verse poets, we must practice economy of words. If you can’t cut, if you can’t
prune, as they say, if you cannot joyfully and willfully give up your words, my advice to you must be, go no farther in writing poetry, for economy of words is poetry’s first rule.

2) Poetry is written in sentences and lines. The master poets practiced this. It is a guideline we must follow. The Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetics says “Poetry is cast in sentences and lines. Prose is written in sentences and paragraphs.” Why is writing in sentences essential? Syntax, for it is syntax of sentence that gives our poems their meaning. If you want your reader to understand, write in sentences.

3) Traditional poets made poems with comparisons, using figures of speech such as metaphor, simile, understatement, and hyperbole. Free verse poets must make fresh metaphors. Similes do not seem to be appreciated by poetry editors these days, but the task for poets is still the same: Use metaphorical language in your poems.

--Nancy Simpson (Part II More Guidelines For Writing Free Verse will be posted here tomorrow.)

When the Sap Rises

I love the title of Glenda Barrett's chapbook now available from Finishing Line Press, P.O. Box 1626, Georgetown KY 40324 or www.finishinglinepress.com. I've just returned from out of town and found the announcement of her publication in my mail.

The cover is perfect for Glenda's poetry book. The rustic cabin set against a mountain sunset was painted by the poet. Glenda Barrett writes poetry the same way she lives -- simply, quietly and with deep contemplation and compassion.

She and I began with NCWN West about the same time when we met in one of Nancy Simpson's classes. Glenda is a regular member of the Poetry Critique group sponsored by Netwest.
If you enjoy accessible poetry that celebrates life with all its sorrows and joys, you will want to read When the Sap Rises. I can't wait to read my copy.