Summer of Floods

Tourists flock to Vermont in summertime, seeking cool mountain air, green vistas, photogenic barns & cows. This has been a part of the country where change comes slowly. Those nostalgia moments are clearly at risk, thanks to climate change. July has been the wettest season on record, and dozens of towns and residents are still digging out from catastrophic flooding.

As a poet, I’m still sorting out a creative response to toxic rivers, closed beaches, piles of debris & ruined belongings lining the streets of our state capital of Montpelier. Attending fund-raising concerts feels woefully lame, but I’ve done that a few times. Sent donations to local public health groups. My immediate surroundings are soggy but safe. I have family responsibilities that limit my volunteer hours. Today I’m choosing to work where I feel called — updating my author website, featuring the PoemCity haibun that was delightfully displayed in Minikin toy shop in Montpelier for the month of April. Which is supposed to be the rainiest month.

Who Could Imagine?

There was no predicting how life would turn upside down & inside out in March 2020. I’m back at my blog after being in that mental/emotional fog for almost two years. This version of me has new hygiene & social distancing habits, gratitude for science keeping me vaccinated, boosted & free of the virus so far. We also clawed through a nasty 2020 election, welcomed a new, more compassionate US president, and predictably were hit with anti-democracy beliefs from a powerful minority threatening civil rights.

Spring 2021 cycling on the Colchester (VT) Causeway (Island Line Trail)

Of all the challenges, I feel the greatest longing for human contact, to have our grown daughters, friends and family around a table, sharing food and stories, hugs and airspace. We talk about “back to normal” as if there is such a thing. My timeline is divided between then and now, the same way we recall events depending on which decade, house or city we were living in. There’s a new B.C. in our lexicon: Before Coronavirus (aka Covid-19).

Did I publish a poetry collection or write the great American novel while in isolation? No. But I did find a guitar teacher in early 2021 & finally got some training in technique, rhythm and music theory. Love the Zoom lessons! Even though my teacher Gregg Jordan lives nearby, I record the exercises he suggests for chord-changing, keeping the beat, etc. to review during my practices. I play every day & despite my old fingers & self-doubts, I’ve slowly made progress!

Other wins: I published a few poems in a local anthology, found a poetry partner for regular sharing of our new pieces, attended Zoom poetry workshops & Master Classes hosted by the Burlington Writers Workshop. The silver lining with Zoom is meeting poets, artists, songwriters from everywhere: Mexico, Australia, London, Austria, Canada and every time zone in the US. I hope this continues, and am grateful for the technology that brought new friends my way.

I also closed my Marketing/Communications business after 7 years, freeing up time for more writing, music, cooking and outdoor life! We welcomed a beautiful granddaughter in August 2021 & I have the joy of caring for her twice a week while our daughter works as a nurse. Shared fun biking & road trips with my sweet husband George. We cycled rail trails in New Hampshire, the Finger Lakes in upstate New York, the Jersey shore, Philly and of course, our beloved Vermont trails and country roads.

Getting words onto my blog is my way of re-committing to my writing practice. I have a musical play in the works, a whole binder full of poems that need more revising, and at least 100 more songs to learn on the guitar. My daily gratitude list overflows with blessings. If I meditate and pray daily, I can stay in the present moment, express myself with joy & freedom—appreciate all that I have.

Loss and Comforts

This has been a summer of many adventures, family reunions and unforgettable trips. But also deep sadness due to the loss of family members. Our 46 year-old niece Kim Thabault, a gifted equine veterinarian in Costa Rica, passed away on June 21st after 18-months staving off an aggressive glioblastoma brain cancer. Five weeks later, on August 1st, my beloved sister Karen Ariel Wahl succumbed in her sleep to complications from kidney cancer. I was able to be at her side for her last two weeks, where she received wonderful care in a skilled nursing facility run by Lacoba Homes, near her home in (the aptly-named) town of Rocky Comfort, MO.

My heavy heart does take comfort in other memories from the summer of 2019. I flash back to a sunny Memorial Day weekend on Cape Cod; our 5-day cycling trip on the Great Allegheny Passage from Pittsburgh to Cumberland, MD; a week in Cape May, NJ at our bi-annual Dunham family reunion. Perhaps the most “bucket-list” thrill was a return to my maternal family’s roots in Alberta, Canada. There, under the wide blue skies in the farm town of Coaldale (6 miles from Lethbridge), I stood in the wheat field where my grandparents homesteaded on 1100 acres back in 1909. These are all balms for my soul - reminders of my large extended family, the inspiring blue-collar history of the Eastern US, and the breath-taking beauty of southern Alberta.

But for now, I do the work of grief.

When the well is dry...

I recently bumped into a Twitter post, asking the writing community for suggestions on getting unstuck. Since my writing was somewhat stuck in potholes of busy-ness and avoidance myself, I was glad for some new inspiration. The clip above is a sampler of comments, plus wisdom below from a writer who is so generous in sharing her craft @ANNELAMOTT.

“This quote is about writers block: ie, it’s not some impediment to creativity, but an emptiness. When you’re “blocked,” it means it’s time to fill back up. Stop trying, & go wander. Gather some rags—sightings, imaginings, memories —to give to the Dr Seuss Rag Bag guy inside you.”

— https://twitter.com/ANNELAMOTT/status/1110783769009516545

Celebrating Stonecoast Review Issue #9

October was Poetry month for me! Thanks to four soul-quenching days at Kripalu in Western Massachusetts, I recharged my creative batteries and started filling my poetry notebook again. Then on Oct. 27, I headed over to Boston for a fun & mind-blowing evening of Poetry. I was invited, along with other New England contributors, to the launch party of Stonecoast Review’s Fall Issue #9. We braved torrential rainstorms to umbrella ourselves in the new Dudley Cafe in Roxbury. The space is quickly becoming a mecca for spoken word poets, youth empowerment, foodies and a diverse community of artists, activists and dreamers. My reading was cheered on by two dear writer friends from the Boston area: Peter Elikann, who I’ve known since high school; and Laura Krantz, a talented reporter for The Boston Globe.

Here’s how the evening was described by its organizer: Stonecoast MFA Graduate Assistant Lo Galluccio (poetry/creative non-fiction) has teamed up with the Boston area poetry series’ Stone Soup MC Chad Parenteau to hold a special release party reading for the Stonecoast Review Issue #9 on October 27th at the Dudley Café in Roxbury, Massachusetts. There will be an open mic at 7:30 pm (with a sign up at 7 pm) and three features: Stonecoast Review contributor and creative non-fiction writer, Lee Kahrs, Stonecoast Review Managing Editor and fiction writer, Emily Bernhard, and Boston performance poet Joseph “Skoot” Mosby.

Reading at the same mic with such talented writers and performers was amazing! Proof that when you send your work out into the Universe, you never know what doors might open. In the clip I’m reading one of my newer poems, “Stella Knows Sin.” This was recently published in Cold Lake Anthology, 2018 Writing from the Burlington Writer’s Workshop.

Scribbling Counts

I worked hard earlier this month on two separate poetry submissions - polishing, questioning, reading aloud, re-writing, re-titling some pieces, and finally sending them off to meet deadlines.  Whether or not I'm accepted, the process of submitting helps hone my craft. Since then, I've taken a trip to Knoxville TN to visit one of my sisters, celebrated the birth of a new grand-nephew, cared for our lovable chocolate lab grand-dog while our daughter was away, celebrated my birthday and the arrival of the Spring Issue of Rattle in my mailbox. I haven't done much writing.

"The Nest" Knoxville Botanical Gardens & Arboretum

It's easy to panic in times like this, when poems hide from me or don't flow easily. But today I looked through my notebook, and it's full of scribbling. Snippets of conversations overheard in the American Airlines terminal, ekphrastic impressions of a major piece of glasswork by Richard Jolley at the Knoxville Museum of Art, playful outdoor sculpture at the nearby Botanical Gardens. Spiral-bound phrases popped into my head at random moments. Here's a little sampler: "the Tree of Auspicious Fruit" "Will the trout get his fill at mealtime before the soaring eagle drops its talons?" "Where is the poem in foster care?" "Noise canceling headphones - 4th and 5th chakras exposed to the sun."  For me, scribbling is part of my writing process -- a trail of visual and verbal bread crumbs to follow (or not) when I'm searching for new material. So don't be surprised if you see some of these phrases in a future poem of mine. My creative process doesn't travel in straight lines or adhere to a strict schedule. And that's fine with me.

Tuck Magazine - Spoiler Alert and Four O'Clock Freedom

"Unsplash" photo by Alexandra Rose (Tuck Magazine, 4/6/18)

So proud to be published in Tuck Magazine this week. Tuck is a online political, human rights and arts magazine curated by editor Michael Organ. Based in Canada, with global contributors and audience.

On Robert Rothman's "Blackberries" poem

“Shadow Blue Square” by James W Johnson, acrylic/ink on panel, 20×20, 2014

Robert Rothman is a California poet featured in the February 2018 Issue #36 of this literary journal, where I serve as Poetry Co-Editor. His poems positively drip with images and sensory details. Plus James Johnson's accompanying artwork selected by our Art Editor, Mark Benton, amplifies the poems so perfectly. It's no surprise I was especially drawn to his poem "Blackberries." Our family of four operated a small market garden in the late 90's, Blackberry Hill Gardens. The property came with a massive patch of cultivated blackberries. For several weeks every midsummer, we bled and swore and wore long sleeves and swatted mosquitoes while we tried to keep up with the harvest. We called it the "Mother Lode," and those berries fetched top dollar, nestled in half pints at the Burlington (VT) Farmers Market. We used our market earnings to take some memorable family vacations. Click here to read Robert's poems.