A Good NIght at Writers' Night Out

We were fortunate to have Dana Wildsmith as our featured guest for Writers' Night Out on Zoom. 

She writes poetry and prose and I enjoy all of her books. The memoir, Back to Abnormal, begins with her stepping on a rattlesnake and being bitten. Tonight she told us how upsetting it was for her when people took it so lightly and made it seem to be her fault. Most of us think it just takes a shot of anti-venom and you are fine, but she explains in her book just how painful the whole thing is and that it continues for days and weeks. And she said you take many anti-venom shots, not just one. But, she didn't take the anti-venom shots because she was told that if she was allergic she could die from the shots. It was a horrible experience.

Dana lives on an old family farm in Bethlehem, Georgia, a town where people come at Christmas to have their holiday cards stamped. 

Dana's newest book is One Light, a book of poems that centers on the caregiving of a loved one.

Her mother, Grace, probably saved Dana's life when she was fourteen and her nightgown caught fire as she stood too close to the fireplace. The child had massive burns all over her body and needed extensive care as she recovered. But her mother never left her side. In the book, One Light, Dana writes poetry about her mother's care. But she also writes poems about caring for Grace in later life who developed a terrible form of dementia. 

Anyone who has cared for a loved one with any kind of brain disorder knows the sorrow and frustration that occurs. I found it enlightening when Dana wrote poems in her mother's voice and in her own voice exploring the situation. 

Dana teaches often at the John C. Campbell Folk School online and in person. She will be teaching a class in person in January 2023.

https://folkschool.configio.com/pd/809/writing-in-a-changing-world?st_t=2077&st_ti=2516&cid=2527&returncom=productlist&source=search

Register early to be sure you can get in. If you live in local surrounding counties, you may get a discount on the price.

We thank Dana for being our guest at WNO and look forward to reading her books which are available at City Lights Books in Sylva, NC, and can be purchased at most local bookstores. You can also order them from the publishers. Go to Amazon.com to learn more.

We welcome you to join us for Writers' Night Out no matter where you live. Writers from Florida, Wyoming, and distant counties in North Carolina attend each month. They often read at Open Mic. Contact Karen Paul Holmes or Glenda Beall if you don't receive an invitation with the link to the Zoom meeting. 

 

Dana Wildsmith author of new book, One Light, will teach at John C. Campbell Folk School

I just received Dana’s new poetry book, One Light, published by Texas Review Press, a memoir in poetry. It seems that she and I have walked the same path in life. She was burned terribly as a fourteen year old and writes about the anguish of almost losing her hand, and describes the pain. She sings and has a poem on page 30 titled Hymns.

I watched my husband’s face and listened to him sing hymns while nurses pulled off the layers of dead skin from his cancer-ridden leg. I felt his pain as she described the painful scraping of dead skin from her burned arms and hands.  

Read the title poem below.

A single light can lead you home. One light

is all you need to break the back of night

when darkness seems to weigh  more than it has

on all the nights before, and nothing’s as

it was. Bit by bit, the lighter shades

of night you used to trust have faded as

you stopped believing in relief. The dark

goes on forever, and begins right where you are.

But when your eyes can’t guide your steps, you learn

to trust your heart instead. You rise and turn

toward where you need to go, and in the dark

you think you see a glimmer like a star

that wasn’t there until you headed home

through darkness, trusting that a light would come.

In the poem, Hospital Days, Dana writes about a few good memories she had from those weeks in the hospital; hot dogs from the deli, her friends who came to see her and to sing with her. Her mother took care of her through this time knowing her daughter could lose her hands. She was Dana’s rock, always. You can’t read Dana’s work without knowing her Mama.  Sadly the time came when Dana became the care-giver when her mother’s mind began to fade. Her Mama died from an aneurysm. 

Balancing on the precarious rock trying not to do or say too much, but needing to say and do so much. The poems about her mother at ninety broke my heart, and filled me with memories as I thought about my mother who lost her short term memory after an aneurysm damaged a part of her brain.

As Fred Chappell said, “Here are some of the strongest poems I have ever read. I am grateful for this truest of books.” I am grateful, too.

Dana will be teaching “What’s in Your Writing Folder?” Sunday, September 8 – Saturday September 14.

Dana has been a Folk School instructor since 2004. Her environmental memoir, "Back to Abnormal: Surviving with an Old Farm in the New South," was finalist for Georgia Author of the Year. She is also the author of five collections of poetry, including "Christmas in Bethlehem." Her newest collection of poems, "One Light," is a memoir in poetry. Dana has served as artist-in-residence for Grand Canyon National Park and Everglades National Park; as writer-in-residence for the Island Institute in Sitka, Alaska; and she is a fellow of the Hambidge Center for Creative Arts and Sciences. She teaches English Literacy through Lanier Technical College.

Visit Dana's website