Lindsey Dodge, a sixth grader at Macon Middle School in Franklin, has written a touching poem about the loss of her grandmother.
(Blue Bottle in my kitchen window) 
I'm trying a new feature on the blog today, one tentatively called Conversations, in which a writer's offering is posted for comments and responses. These need not be "critiques," as such, though I think most writers would welcome intelligent suggestions. Rather, this is to be a way for authors here in the mountains and elsewhere to engage each other in lively discussions of their work. The first feature is a poem by William Everett, novelist, essayist, scholar and poet. His website is www.williameverett.com. PLEASE LEAVE YOUR COMMENTS. LET'S SEE IF WE CAN GET A CONVERSATION GOING ACROSS THESE RIDGES!
She is ready,
purse packed,
hands pocketed in resolution,
standing by her charge.
Will she fly through puffball clouds,
piercing azure heavens like a needle?
Or will she cruise majestically across the land,
blowing tumbleweeds and sagebrush in her wake?
Perhaps the sea shall feel the power of her legs,
the undulations of her mermaid form.
For she is ready,
her glowing hair pinned sleekly back,
the keys clutched in her hand.
She is the girl with the ’55 Plymouth fins.
---William Everett
Glenda Council Beall's new chapbook, Now Might As Well Be Then, from Finishing Line Press (http://www.finishinglinepress.com/) deserves many readers. I was honored to write a blurb for it. Glenda has worked wonders for NETWEST as Program Director and deserves our thanks for supporting the literary arts in Western North Carolina. Her new book would make a wonderful Christmas gift for family members. Several in my family will have this chapbook in their stockings!
Often those "supporters" are so busy making sure other writers find what they need to become better at the writer's craft that they don't have time for their own work. That's why I'm so pleased to honor Glenda as Poet of the Week. She's a great SW Georgia girl, and, naturally, I believe those girls have a leg up when it comes to writing poetry!
Here are a few of my favorite poems from her new chapbook.
Woman in the Mirror
What happened to seventeen,
when I rode my mare
free as the river flows,
jumped over downed trees
splashed through narrow streams?
What happened to twenty
when I danced in the moonlight,
my slender form dressed in a gown
white and shimmery as pearl?
What happened to thirty
when I rode my Yamaha
down fire roads, mountain trails,
long black hair flying free?
What happened to those days
I ask the woman in the mirror.
Gone, she says, all gone, unless
you remember it.
In The Dark
Lying in bed, my cheek against your shoulder,
I remember a night, long ago, on your boat.
I was afraid. I felt too much, too fast.
But love crept over us that summer
like silver fog, silent on the lake.
We were never again the same.
We stepped like children through that door that led
to long passages unknown, holding hands, wide-eyed, but brave.
Here I am years later, listening to your soft breath
and feeling your warm smooth skin.
In the dark, now might as well be then.
My Father's Horse
Stickers tear my legs, bare and tan
from South Georgia sun. Long black braids
fly behind me as I sprint like a Derby winner
down the path.
Harnessed with hames, bridle
and blinders, Charlie plods down
the farm road. Tired and wet from sweat,
he is perfume to my nostrils.
My father swings me up. I bury
my hands in tangled mane. My thighs
stick to leather and damp white hair
high above the ground.
I want to sing in glorious joy,
but only croon a child's nonsensical
words, grinning for a hundred yards
between field and barn.
My father's arms are strong.
His hands are gentle. The horse
is all we ever share. For he has sons
and I am just a daughter.
A Long Lost Year
Music making was his talent
taken for granted like water
gushing from our well until
the surgeon’s knife nicked a nerve.
The purple wreath of grief hung
over us until one day above the strum
of his guitar, his notes rang true ?
a lovely instrument restored.
We wept with joy.
His voice is who he is,
has
always been.
He sings to me again, that same
rich baritone that won me on that first
day we met. I listen with a new ear,
and like a Sinatra fan,
I mellow out.
>From July 23–25, the North Carolina Writers’ Network will offer the 2010 Squire Summer Writing Residency, a full weekend of intensive workshops at Peace College in downtown Raleigh. The Residency is an intimate, affordable alternative to large conferences, and a rare opportunity to create bonds within the writing community.
Sam Ragan Award-winner David Rigsbee, a prolific and erudite NC poet and professor who has been mentored by such luminaries as Carolyn Kizer and U.S. poet laureate Joseph Brodsky, will work with poetry registrants on the problems of “Passion and Restraint in the First-Person Poem,” using examples of persona, authenticity, form, and authority from contemporary poets. This workshop gives registrants the time and focus to pay attention to the details in their work and to stay concrete and clear with language.
Past attendees have said the following about the Residency:
"The entire group brought a sense of community to my writing that I hadn't had before."—Ivy Rutledge
"I found an open, welcoming community of people who immediately accept anyone who has a desire to write."—Karen Price
More information about the Squire Summer Writing Residency can be found at www.ncwriters.org or by calling 336-293-8844.
