Kudos to Mary Ricketson

Mary Ricketson's poem, “Lost in the Roar of Big Santeetlah” was published in Your Daily Poem, June 2. “Building the House on Hanging Dog Creek, “ was published in Wild Goose Poetry Review in May.  “Ten O'Clock,”  won the silver medal in the Cherokee County Senior Games/Silver Arts, 2012, and  “To My Only Child,” and “Born to Walk,” were published in Future Cycle Press earlier this year.

Kudos to Deanna Klingel

Good news from Deanna Klingel: On Sunday at Canton Arts Festival in Canton, Georgia, Tracy Ruckman of Write Integrity Publishing, presented me with a contract for Cracks in the Ice.Today it is official. Cracks in the Ice, YA Fiction, is the story of the niece of a mafia boss whose dream of Olympic skating stardom is shattered by mafia war and by her own poor judgement. After spiraling into depression and alcoholism, God's love comes to her through those who still love her, and help her to find forgiveness, repentance, and a victory other than the gold she'd envisioned years earlier. The book will be out in the fall.

June Folk School Readings DATE CHANGE

Netwest is always pleased to be able to have member readings at the John C. Campbell Folk School.  Due to a schedule change at the Folk School, please mark your calendar accordingly: the date of the reading at the John C. Campbell Folk School in June is Thursday, June 28 (no longer the 21st), 7pm, Keith House.  Linda Smith and Brenda Kay Ledford will be the featured readers. 

Netwest News Kudos

Thanks goes to our great newsletter editor, Karen Paul Holmes.  She will be relinquishing her volunteer role as editor (but staying with us!), and while the newsletter is in transition, I am posting information recently submitted.  So read about your fellow writers below and celebrate with them.  If you are interested in taking over the duty of the newsletter please contact me at rosemary28rr@gmail.com.  Thanks, Karen, for years of great work!! 

JC Walkup, Penny Morse, and Buffy Queen, co-publishers and editors of fresh...stories, poems, ideas, a twice-yearly published literary magazine distributed throughout Western NC, want to let all Netwest authors know that they are seeking short stories, poems and commentaries loosely relating to the theme "the elements: wind, water, air, earth and fire". If anyone wishes more information, contact JC at jcwalkup@bellsouth.net or Penny at fairlight_inc@hotmail.com or Buffy at jafrabq@aol.com. The next issue of fresh will be published in late spring/ early summer.

Brenda Kay Ledford’s poem, “Art Quilting,” appeared in Wild Goose Poetry Review, winter issue, 2012.  Her poem, "The Rock," was published in fresh magazine (issue IV).  Brenda Kay Ledford was the featured poet in The Poets Art Issue #45.

Janice Moore’s manuscript titled “Windows Filled with Gifts” was selected as a semifinalist for the Miller Williams Arkansas Poetry Prize presented by the University of Arkansas Press. Moore appeared as one of three featured poets reading original works at the Poetry Road Show presented by the Georgia Poetry Society and the University Press of North Georgia in Dahlonega, April 14.

Jack J. Prather announces his new book, Twelve Notables in Western North Carolina. Visit www.futurenowpublishing.com to view the book cover and photos of the 12 Notables, who are:

 

• Rev. Dr. Dan Matthews, O.B.E. - Waynesville

Priest at Ground Zero on 9-11 / Recipient Order of the British Empire

• Musician David Holt - Fairview

Grammy winning Musician-Storyteller / PBS-TV and NPR-Radio Hostf

• Captain Ray F. West, Jr., USNR, Ret. - Flat Rock

Moldova World Childrens Fund Founder / UNCA Distinguished Alumnus

• Judge Harry C. Martin – Biltmore Forest

Former NC and Cherokee Supreme Court Justice / Honorary Cherokee

• Olson Huff, MD, FAAP - Black Mountain

Founding Medical Director of Mission Children’s Hospital, Asheville

• Glenis Redmond – Asheville

Hall of Fame Performance Poet / Kennedy Center Teaching Artist

• Douglas M. Orr, Ph.D. – Black Mountain

President Emeritus Warren Wilson College / Author / Musician

Billie Ruth Sudduth – Bakersville

Basket Artist / Smithsonian Collection / 1st Female NC Living Treasure

• Matthew J. Hayes, M.D. - Hendersonville

Pioneer of National Emergency Medical Services / ACEP Fellow

• Joe Epley, APR - Tryon

Global Public Relations Leader / UNC Journalism School Hall of Fame

• Richard Ritter – Bakersville

Glass Artist / NC Living Treasure 2011 / Governor’s Award as Fire Chief

• Julyan Davis - Asheville

Southern Art Oil Painter / Galleries on East-West Coasts and Europe

Prather is donating a portion of book proceeds to the new Young Writers Scholarship he founded at Warren Wilson College scholarship.

To e-mail Jack J. Prather: prathergroup@aol.com

Betty Reed’s “Grandmother’s Pattern” was published in the winter 2011 of Lucidity Poetry Journal.

Martha O. Adams presented It’s Your Resume’ Caves; 18 Wheelers; Beetles & the Blues on April 16 at the Henderson County Library. In advertising She her program, she said, “I’ve been digging deep this year for poems that will resonate in your bones. I promise new poems that fly like bats from great grandmother’s cave; poems that capture events and sounds like July 4th fireworks; poems that finger the pain of impending loss, and make acquaintance with wee spiders in my garden. I’ll be bringing back a strong favorite; the poem “Tommy and the Generals” from my collection What Your Heart Needs to Know. A new major poem “I Am the Great Granddaughter of the Kansas Soddy and Thundering Buffalo” will come even more alive for you through family treasures that will be on display.

From Robert S. King:

I thought you might like to know about a free Amazon service of benefit to writers.

If you have books for sale on Amazon, you can take advantage of Author Central, authorcentral.amazon.com. This allows you to set up an author page that links to all books you sell on Amazon. In addition, you can link to your blog posts easily; e.g., Blogspot articles. A nice bonus feature is the ability to post a public calendar of your events.It's a nice, neat package and is free. Simply go to the link above and create an author account, then follow the easy instructions to add content to your author page.

If you'd like to see an author page in action, please go to my shameless, self-promotion at http://www.amazon.com/Robert-S.-King/e/B00724NI3I.

A little free advertising never hurts!

 May 17 Liars Bench show Osley Bird Saunooke: "Colorful Chief of the

Cherokee" had a full house at Mountain Heritage Center.

http://theliarsbenchgazette.blogspot.com/More here: http://theliarsbenchgazette.blogspot.com/

WRGC morning personality Roy Burnette did a great interview with Gary Carden on May 11. They talked about everything from Gary's new play "Outlander" (opens Saturday June 2 at the Parkway Playhouse in Burnsville) to the next Liars Bench show about former Cherokee Chief Osley Saunooke, Thursday May 17 at 7:00 pm at WCUs Mountain Heritage Center. The Liars Bench Bunch looks forward to seeing you at the Liars Bench  in Burnsville Saturday June 2 at the Parkway Playhouse. Recently, The Liars Bench, in conjunction with the Mountain Heritage

Center, developed a grant proposal that was funded by the Jackson County Arts Council.  The North Carolina Arts Council works to make North Carolina The Creative State where a robust arts industry produces a creative economy, vibrant communities, children prepared for the 21st century and lives filled with discovery and learning. The Arts Council accomplishes this in partnership with artists and arts organizations, other organizations that use the arts to make their communities stronger and North Carolinians-young and old-who enjoy and participate in the arts. The Arts Council is a division of the Department of Cultural Resources.

Thank you Liars Bench fans for your continuing support. We couldn't do

it without you!

http://theliarsbenchgazette.blogspot.com/

http://hollernotes.blogspot.com/

http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Liars-Bench/205980006131269

http://twitter.com/#!/TheLiarsBench

https://plus.google.com/LiarsBench

The Mountain Heritage Center at WCU: 828.227.7129

OMP ANTHOLOGY CONTRIBUTORS RECOGNIZED IN FIELDS OF EARTH POETRY COMPETITION

Previous contributors to the Old Mountain Press Anthology Series who submitted winning poetry to the "Fields of the Earth" Writer's Ink Guild's 30th Anniversary Poetry Competition include the following:

Sandra Ervin Adams
Ruth Moose
Catherine Murphy Haymore
C. Pleasants York
Dorothea Spiegel
Brenda Kay Ledford
Sarah S. Edwards
Martha O'Quinn

An awards ceremony will be held at Methodist University in Fayetteville, NC on May 20 in the Alumni Dining Hall located in Bern's Student Center.

For more information, contact:  http://www.writersinkguild.aol.com/
                                                http://www.oldmountainpress.com/

Writers' Night Out a Big Hit

There were over 30 of us -- members and potential new members -- at Brother's Restaurant in Young Harris, GA on Friday, May 11th.  Scott Owens was the featured speaker, and he was prompted to do an encore, reading before and after open mike!  Scott claimed he could not write funny poems, but that turned out not to be true at all, as he read a couple which had many of us laughing out loud.  Thank you, Scott, for heading our way to share your poetry and to teach a class at Writers Circle!

To learn more about Scott, check out his website.  His book, Something Knows the Moment has been named 1 of 5 finalists for the 2012 Next Generation Indie Book Awards, and his poem, "Rails" from his new book For One Who Knows How to Own Land was featured on Garrison Keillor's NPR show The Writers Almanac on April 29.  

I WONDER WHY BOOK REVIEW

Davis, Tom. I WONDER WHY. Webster, NC: Old Mountain Press, Inc., 2012. 93 pages, trade paperback. $15.00. www.oldmountainpress.com.

I WONDER WHY, published by Old Mountain Press, includes 72 international writers. Michael Ashley of West Yorkshire, England, and Rishan Singh, a poet residing in Durban, South Africa; contributed work to this anthology.

Publisher Tom Davis dedicated this anthology to those children who try our patience and make life so worth living.

The cover photo : Lewis “The Frogman” Dunn, the publisher’s (AKA PaPa Trouble) grandson looking out at the geese in the Tuckaseigee River in Dillsboro, NC wondering why they don’t get cold, captures the theme of I WONDER WHY. It impels the readers to open the anthology and savor the poetry and prose. Pollyanna Dunn took the photo and Tom Davis designed the cover.

Marian Kaplun Shapiro’s poem, “Bah,” kicks off the book. She has published a professional book, SECOND CHILDHOOD.

Because educators play an important role in the development of children, many teachers contributed work to this anthology.

Dr. Jim Clark’s poem, “Harvest Moon,” describes his parents working as the day fades: My father up there/with a pitchfork/golden/in attics of hay
My mother on the porch/her yarn flying through the needle’s door/into another world…

Dr. Shelby Stephenson recalls shooting at birds in his poem, “My Red Ryder,” and working in the tobacco field all summer.

Celia Miles contributed the story, “What’s a Witling?” She describes attending school in Dillsboro, NC during the mid-1940’s.

Polly Davis, ED.D., tells a humorous story about “Long Tall Sally,” and her coming of age in the seventh grade.

C. Pleasants York’s delightful poem, “The Storybook Shuffle,” marches across the page with literary characters. There’s Sherlock Holmes, Piglet, Tiger, Winnie the Pooh, and Peter Pan swooping on stage. Dr. Seuss and the Velveteen Rabbit enter with a hop and other storybook characters.

Other educators appearing in this anthology are Barbara Ledford Wright and Brenda Kay Ledford. Their humorous stories, “The Greatest Goof,” and “Cycle of Life,” describe teaching under difficult circumstances.

Another humorous story, “Boiled Okra and Me,” was written by Tom Davis. It’s a funny account of the new preacher and his wife eating with a family and how much the author hates okra.

Another outstanding poet, Jerry Bradley, contributed his poem, “First Day”:
Cradled in her mother’s arms/she awakens/to a serenade/sung just for her.

I will bring joy of nature/to her someday/as she has brought the joy/of life, to my heart.

Another heart-warming poem, “The Soldiers’ Son,” by Joseph J. Youngblood, tells about a child who salutes his dad as the soldier loads his gear for another deployment.

Charles F. “Hawk” Weyant also contributed an outstanding poem. “Keeping Secrets,” is about taking an oath to never tell another living soul a secret.

Vickie Collins’ poem, “The Gray Wool Coat,” describes a child who needed a new coat for winter. The poem will bring tears to your eyes.

Blanche L. Ledford also tells about the hardships of poverty in her poem, “Ogden School.”

But Terri Kirby Erickson captures the wonder of childhood in her poem, “Ants”:

…Fascinated/my eight-year old/self wondered/what it must/be like/to navigate/that narrow passage…

“A Duet for Old MacDonald,” by Sarah S. Edwards describes a three-year-old child playing the piano at a program: Piano bench pulled up as close as could be/Extra books helped her sit high/enough to see over the music rack…

Finally, an 8th grade student, Cooper Meyer, best summarizes childhood excitement in his poem, “The Last Day of School”:

…As I pull up to school, I know that it’s done/Kids are jumping with excitement/Everything is perfect/my body is light as a lemon seed/My bones feel like spaghetti noodles…The final bell rings.

I WONDER WHY is one of the best books published by Old Mountain Press. It’s a page turner.

For ordering information, contact: www.OldMountainPress.com

Reviewed by: Brenda Kay Ledford

http://blueridgepoet.blogspot.com

http://historicalhayesville.blogspot.com/

CONTINUING NED CONDINI'S STORY

II THE SHIP OF FIRE

I guess my second death occurred on December 24, 2009. It was just into midnight and I was sleeping-raving after a tumor operation on the left side of my face. “Not enough,” an evil genie snarled. “You must crave something stronger. You need death by fire if you really want to be purified.” There was something like an explosion, my right eye ached viciously and my vision fizzed off. So long, island of light! The million stars that made up the constellation of my brain dissolved into a globe of flames. All I could see out of my right eye was a spectacular incandescence. Cascades of red embers rolled around me. Clearly, it was the end. The ship of fire had arrived and unloaded, the fire had departed.

Hard to describe what you see when you don’t see. I mean, I kept my left eye closed for the fun of it, hoping the right one would again disclose to me the supposed wonders of the night. I was never much interested in the night. If I ever was, the night to me loomed like an echo to battles and dreams I had witnessed in my youth (or in my old age, it didn’t make any difference): in particular I often thought of German poet Heine’s black, phantom ship; or of French Bardamu’s accursed galleon on his first trip to Africa; or of Jenny the Pirate’s “Black Freighter” in Brecht’s chilling song. Otherwise, I slept.

My mother, when alive, insisted that the poor were born to suffer, like me in my dreadful night. Why? I would ask. Why this dark all of a sudden? “Because you did something against the light that you don’t even remember, and now you have to pay a price.” The destitution in which she had lived for years had not daunted her soul. Her dread, on the contrary, was the outside world, as though cold, fear, and death could come to her only from that direction, never from within. So I finally got it. A sacrifice was needed, and I was the designated victim, with the sacrificial bit too a part of my nocturnal trip to Africa.

I sailed there on nothing less than the Consolidated Corsairs and soon realized that sultry wetness and heat make white men beasts. Céline is right. On the spot I agreed with the crazy Frenchman that it might be a good idea to stop being young this minute, to wait for youth to break away from me and pass me by, and then calmly, all by myself, cross to the other side of Time to see what people and things really look like.

Most look like the dead, I sadly reasoned. That was the purpose of losing my right eye’s sight. To see myself as if I were partially dead, half-way dead! As a matter of fact, during those dreadful nights at the hospital, I realized that my person and the objects around me had become unreal and slow moving, losing their importance and even the colors they had formerly worn for me, and taking on a dreamlike, ambivalent softness… I was reading historian Macaulay at the time, when defeat rises before his hero, Baryton, in the pale dawn, and the unfair sea sweeps his last ships away. Face to face with his monstrous misadventure, where all the wantonness of our puerile and tragic nature discloses itself in the mirror of eternity, like Baryton I was seized with vertigo. Only the thinnest thread had attached me to our common lot, and now that thread snapped.

My mate is watching me lose my eyesight and realizing how powerless she is in trying to help someone dear being chucked off. I was like a stranger in the room, someone who had come from a dismal country and you wouldn’t have dared to speak to…

III TOTAL NIGHT

The third night was definitely the most abominable, fearsome and challenging of them all. Picture yourself locked up in a cube that has only a few shafts of light filtering to its core. I’m losing my left eye’s sight. After that, I won’t see any more. Good-bye, rich tapestries. Good-bye, redwood sunsets. Good-bye, visages of Botticellian ladies. From now on I’ll be confined to my computer (after mastering it without my eyes) and to one of those Braille machines for the blind. Some time ago, when I lost my right eye, I started living in a world of shadows and reflections; but I could still exchange understanding glances with my wife, enjoy the secret geometry of the skies, soak in the green wonders around my house. Now day by day I’m losing them, reverting to a world of fragments that’s at the antipodes of my former vision. I like the world to have a meaningful unity. I want to believe that God made it such. Or did God want me to look for Him in this chaos? Did He want me to be shattered like an atom, and go looking for particles of light everywhere until I found the first electron of love? What is love that I have to look for it? Do we need love, or is this dark enough to act as a protective, merciful shield--something I’d wear to war to save my life?
"you’re talking like a student of divinity, darling," my wife would say.

"What would I do without your love, or you without mine? Don’t you understand I’m already losing you?" I would insist. "Look, my left pupil is practically dead."

"I’ll love you so much that it will resurrect."

In the meantime, the lightless days go by. Days when my back hurts, my neck is half paralyzed, my will constantly bombarded by attacks of inaction, fatigue, despondency. I try to find something nice and cozy in this cube of darkness. Every now and then I seem to be able to collect one ray, one line, one dot of light that will help me recover the galactic universe that made up my eyesight. But it’s only a pitiful glimmer. The gigantic, propitious fire that lived in my brain is gone. I look at these silent, black, crude walls, on my knees asking for a rivulet of hope, a coal of friendship, a spark of pity. Oh gods, some compassion! For the few days I was an angel, not a sinner. The walls do not answer. They are God’s mute, unappeasable messengers.

Ah, Hölderlin: the nocturnal landscape, the hallowed, terrified landscape which one feels in departures. No one gave it away more sublimely, gave it back more fully to the universe, without any need to hold on, free of desire, stone upon stone till it stood. And when it collapsed you were not bewildered. We don’t have any right to our possessions. The rose on my desk shouldn’t be there. And the bear etched on the retina of my eye, he too should go forever free. I would lie down, in my encountering him, on my face, and just pray to be spared.

I’m starting to see, now that I am blind, surrounded all around by a black wall, now that I am naked, helpless like a poor worm fated to be hooked. Is this what Jesus meant when he said, When you put down your life in front of you, and let it be something that anybody can take away, only then are you worthy of salvation. They say He sacrificed Himself for the whole world, so that the world could be saved. Do I have that kind of courage? The long night of the soul--that’s what John of the Cross had in mind. You pray until you get out of your puny, miserable self, and become available for others. You accept your sentence to the darkness of blindness, so that others may find light in your loss.

Perhaps that was what I wanted from the beginning. My trip to Alaska, too, was a way of finding the light in the composure of death, the silence of ice, the dignity of my passing. The cross of blindness was sent me as a special grace. Embrace it with all your heart, a voice said. Don’t you remember Mom’s ever forgiving face, Dad slowly burning his right hand over the fire? How beautiful that was. How beautiful it is.



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HERE, WHERE I AM: MOTHER'S DAY MORNING

HERE, WHERE I AM: MOTHER'S DAY MORNING