Poetry Corner
Section Editor: Mare Leonard
Mare Leonard lives and works in the Hudson Valley where she is an Associate of the Institute for Writing and Thinking and the MAT programs at Bard College. Her latest chapbook, The Dark Inside My Hooded Coat, was published in 2018 at Finishing Line Press. Find reviews on her Facebook Page: Mare Leonard Poet and message Mare for a copy.
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"When was the last time you selected a book of poems to read or ordered one from the library? Poetry is dismissed in our culture. With Poetry Corner, we are hoping to share a taste of poems that will make you think, laugh or wonder. We will also post monthly readings, events, and classes in the Hudson Valley Region of New York and beyond."
~ Mare Leonard Attention Readers:
If you would like us to post a nonprofit or FREE community event in Poetry Corner, please send a note to: seniorstaff@sanctuary-magazine.com For-profit events will also be posted for a small fee. Please inquire. |
EVENTS
PLEASE STAY TUNED FOR VIRTUAL POETRY EVENTS or for IN-PERSON EVENTS ONCE THE PANDEMIC IS UNDER CONTROL. The Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center Poetry Night Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, NY CAPS Calendar Hudson Valley, NY Bowery Poetry: Open Mic (see calendar listings) New York, NY Poetix Calendar Southern, CA Poetry Near You: Poets.org Poetry Events throughout US Poetry Open Mics Find poetry in your local area in the U.S. and Canada. |
JULY 2020: Selected Poetry
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Letter of Appreciation
by Cathryn Shea I am no small giver to small charities. In spite of “A mind is a terrible thing to waste” on this ornate letter with its flowery “thank you” for something someone has imagined I’ve done or am about to do, I am sending no money today. Not even the reply I’m thinking: “Ink, paper, and postage are terrible things to waste.” And on behalf of every bright child, I am crumpling up and discarding this misplaced praise with its machined deckle edge and cliché in gold laser-printed lettering, but I’ll keep the address labels that came with it. My own children dropped out of college. One, after he broke an ulna and had mono and questioned the reason for living, the other after she told me on the phone she hated her roommate, her classes, and teachers. Essentially, hated the whole world. I went to college and worried I wasted my mind but got a degree anyway. I must have failed to teach my children not to be afraid to waste their minds. Or maybe they saved their minds for some other time. |
Where Stars Go Dim
by Cathryn Shea Waiting-lists for veterans’ homes, not for him no matter how much his brothers worry he’ll drive into a ditch or crash head-on into an innocent carload. Cooped up in some cell of a room in Chula Vista with curmudgeons blathering on about the past and grandkids who don’t visit, last thing he needs. His neck stiff as if welded in place he sits at the helm of his ’79 Ford Econoline, the powder blue van fitted with solar and air. Perfect for Burning Man he’s never planning to attend. He can’t give it up (even though the engine seizes, shocks are shot). Retrofitted with third party after-market parts. His home not away from home. Social Security and a small pension from years teaching business law ebb and flow with the stock market, keep him afloat. Final destination: Borrego Springs via Walmart parking lots. Seeking endless night sky with its glow of galaxy light, his one good eye cataract-clouded. |
Cathryn Shea is the author of four chapbooks, including most recently “Backpack Full of Leaves” (Cyberwit, 2019), “Secrets Hidden in a Pear Tree” (dancing girl press, 2019), and “It’s Raining Lullabies” (dancing girl press, 2017). Her first full-length poetry book, Genealogy Lesson for the Laity, is forthcoming from Unsolicited Press in September 2020. Cathryn’s poetry has been nominated for Sundress Publication’s 'Best of the Net' and appears in Typehouse, Tar River Poetry, Gargoyle, Permafrost, Rust + Moth, Tinderbox, and elsewhere. Cathryn is a fourth-generation northern Californian and lives with her husband in Fairfax, CA. She served as editor for Marin Poetry Center Anthology. Follow her on Twitter.
JUNE 2020: Selected Poetry (As part of our "Celebrating the Men in Our Lives" special issue)
Relationship
by James Fowler
She wants to do a jigsaw puzzle. He doesn’t, not wanting to assemble anything else today: two-by-fours, plywood, linoleum. He thinks they should play Yahtzee. She doesn’t, not wanting anything else to do with numbers today: 2 for 3 dollars, 4 for a buck, 50c each. He tries the puzzle, but she tells him he’s trying to put ocean in the sky. She tries the game, but he tells her she’s shooting for fours when her fours are filled. He goes out to the garage, cleans and greases the snow thrower. She showers, puts on her pajamas and watches tv.
kitchen table
two ‘Be My Valentine’ cards
back to back
by James Fowler
She wants to do a jigsaw puzzle. He doesn’t, not wanting to assemble anything else today: two-by-fours, plywood, linoleum. He thinks they should play Yahtzee. She doesn’t, not wanting anything else to do with numbers today: 2 for 3 dollars, 4 for a buck, 50c each. He tries the puzzle, but she tells him he’s trying to put ocean in the sky. She tries the game, but he tells her she’s shooting for fours when her fours are filled. He goes out to the garage, cleans and greases the snow thrower. She showers, puts on her pajamas and watches tv.
kitchen table
two ‘Be My Valentine’ cards
back to back
For 20 of the 25 years that James Fowler was in the U.S. Navy, he was stationed in or on ships homeported out of Japan. Many newspapers in Japan, including those in English, publish haiku weekly or daily, so Jim tried his hand at haiku writing. Jim privately taught poetry writing for 13 years. Over 250 of his poems have been published in journals, including Bitter Oleander, Worcester Review, Frogpond, Modern Haiku, RatsAss Review and many others.
MAY 2020: Selected Poetry
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The Music of These Worn Down Ozark Mountains
by Sheri Gabbert The Music of These Worn Down Ozark Mountains Summer nights we sat in a lawn chair circle, the pickers together, the rest of us on either side. We sang inherited harmonies as we told the stories of generations lived in the Ozark Mountains. I could hear those voices singing as she bid farewell to me Far across the fields of cotton my old hopes I could see As the moon rose in its glory, then I told my oldest story Of that girl I left in sunny Tennessee and songs from the War Between the States, but never damned Yankee tunes, and songs the old folks grew up with or danced to while they fell in love and the music stories of the Big War and the one that followed which was even bigger and more terrible. The old folks told once again how their brother, Tom, was awarded a silver star for taking charge of his platoon on one of Normandy’s beaches when his commander panicked at the carnage, weeping over what remained of a soldier’s torso. We sang history as August heat lingered long after Missouri breeze had gone to bed, cicadas and lightening bugs and an army of crickets repeated every note, each summer’s symphony performed by that night’s orchestral insects as if Fall and Winter did not exist, as if the music belonged to them, not us, genetic coding of an ancestral past, the unconscious collective memory of bugs and mountain families. How many August evenings I have sat alone listening to the past and wishing just one more time to be in that circle, the chairs all filled. |
What I Did Last Summer
by Sheri Gabbert I watch the old woman next door, her sheets flying kites tethered to a wire clothes line. She leans against a rusty pole, single clothespin in her mouth, pauses to consider linens hung to dry on summer afternoons. Dripping air in dry skies, sweat, iced watermelon, banjo and fiddles on a front porch, old men in overalls, kids with no shoes, the growl of a lawn mower. I never hang sheets out to dry they smell like dirt dirt smells like a fresh-dug grave. |
Sheri Gabbert is a substitute teacher living and writing in Southwest Missouri. Her work has been published in several literary journals, including Serving House, Nature Writing, Communicators League, Rat's Ass Review, and Moon City Review. Other works have been published in 417 Magazine and The Lawrence County Record. Sheri seeks sanctuary within the soothing atmosphere of her home which is filled with loving memories of family and of her son, Joseph Roderick Brennan, deceased.
APRIL 2020: Selected Poetry: It's National Poetry Month!
Poetry this month by: Bettina "Gold" Wilkerson, Ingrid Bruck & Meg Freer
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WHERE I GREW uP
by Bettina "Gold" Wilkerson I grew up with the clack clack of dominoes landing on make shift table tops that sat upon milk crates bodegas filled with the sweet smell of white cheese and salchichon...who knew a fifty cents piece please the corner icy man shouting "piragua piragua" Yeshiva University and yarmulkes I loved it just because I knew I belonged to something greater than myself I was living amongst historical giants like George Washington and Malcolm X whose lives were resurrected from the concrete beneath my feet bridges and buildings built to honor their name so when I stood next to the four tall buildings that seemed to touch the sky I imagined I could leap them in a single bound because my mind was never bound they were the bridge to connect me to the rainbow and I would grow up and tell stories of these days… there were no white picket fences, but there were plenty of dreams my friends were like fat albert’s and bebe’s kids, little rascals, charlie brown and peanuts all rolled up into one, but we were called “The Bridge Kids” we were being flavored by salsa, merengue, afro centric Cubano groove, good soul music, cadillacs, gangsta leans and all that- the Heights, this is where I grew up In my hood most folks gave a damn about someone else’s child because they gave a damn about their own child the word ‘village’ was more than a seven letter word or a catch phrase and poor meant that you were born rich with a sense of ethics… we were strong back then--built with courage & fists fights never turned into guns fight that turned into pact fights viewed on you tube Saturday nights- we were never somebody else’s fool and our assets were not where our ass set we were taught it was where our mind set amongst art deco buildings with a view this was the neighborhood where I grew Between two currents, the East river and the Hudson my thoughts flowed like a stream into an ocean entrepreneurs, I was influenced by drug dealers kept the streets clean of robbers, rapists & thugs cops made deals to catch kingpins and I and I I became a little hustler my product, my imagination I grew to become a distributor of dreams because I lived amongst fathers hanging at the number hole, with the library and the church all residing on the same block so you can learn math, read, and pray that your number hits this is where I grew up my experience, my life en un lugar pequeno que se llama Washington Heights! The above poem is part of the poetry collection in Poet Gold's book When My Soul Speaks, I Scribe...Poetry. |
Click Book Cover for More Information on Bettina's Book or to Purchase
September 13, 2013 ~ Live at The Falcon
Video Recorded By: Betty Gennarelli |
Bettina "Gold" Wilkerson (a.k.a. Poet Gold) is a poet, author, performer, songwriter, community “Artivist” and speaker who is pushing the boundaries of poetry and the spoken word. Appointed the 2017 and 2018 NYS Dutchess County Poet Laureate, Poet Gold is the recipient of numerous awards. With countless recitations, she has opened for Grammy-nominated artists and has spoken at renowned organizations, such as Omega Institute and Self Employment in the Arts. Currently, she is the co-host for the iHeart Radio podcast “Finding Out with Pete and The Poet Gold.” Her distinct voice will be heard, playing the role of God, in the upcoming animated short film “The Creation,” poem by James Weldon Johnson, directed by award-winning, animated filmmaker, Steve Leeper. Find an interview with Poet Gold HERE.
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Red Moon
by Ingrid Bruck Jersey shore kids play a game called first one to see the moon, I never played it until tonight at Stella Maris. “There,” a woman cries, and points to the eleven o’clock position. All around me, the cry is repeated, followed by the silence of a lightning bolt without thunder. The full moon rises out of the great mixing bowl. A red sliver of light etches the horizon, emerges to giant fullness, then pauses, reluctant to leave the sea and go alone into the sky. Tide’s tug holds it in a watery embrace. A ribbon of light shimmers on the surface, the moon ascends, shrinks, fades from bright to branding iron white, climbs higher and casts a river of beams. That’s the only time I ever saw the moon rise from the ocean. In the woods where I live, you see the moon after it clears the trees. I long to see the back of the moon, wonder if will be blue. Sometimes it takes one woman’s eyes to open another’s. |
Before Night Comes
by Ingrid Bruck It happened on a hillside in Pequea, we retired and burned the moving boxes, the ones done traveling between jobs and houses. We sit here and wait for inevitable night, refit the house, try to tame the land, unpack books and mementos of holidays, jobs and the children’s lives. We set out few treasures to keep us company, attack land tangled with thorns and vines, establish a garden, plant perennials and fruit trees. Each night before dark comes, I stop whatever I’m doing rush outside and look east where deep shadows march towards night, check for yellow light caught in tree branches, on sides of houses and barns. Then I turn west for the light show of dusk, a brilliant crone’s scarf that collects the rich colors and words of the passing day and put on my scarf before night comes. |
Ingrid Bruck, a Pennsylvania-based poet, grows wildflowers and makes jam when she's not writing poetry. In 2019, one of her poems was nominated for Best of the Net and two were nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Ingrid has one chapbook titled Finding Stella Maris (Flutter Press) and is a monthly columnist for Between These Shores Books. Some of her current work appears in Otata, Failed Haiku, Halcyon Days, Red Fez, Quatrain.Fish, Communicator’s League and Leaves of Ink.
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The Significance of Snowdrops
by Meg Freer My excitement upon seeing snowdrops rapidly deflates when you respond, “Snowdrops? What are snowdrops?” and I bite my tongue, order hot cross buns, while sadness wells up as if I have just unlit a candle by using its flame to light a match, for I announce my first sighting of snowdrops every spring, taste grace in their blessing, and I consider whether you should look where they grow beside the deck, or whether I should retire my harps of joy, agree with cosmologists who say the earth gets more insignificant over time, or whether my tongue has clung too long to my palate and not made it clear that, during Lenten lengthening of days, when fragments of ice still skitter across glass, snowdrops will never be insignificant. (Honourable Mention, Brooklyn Poetry Society |
Small Story of Calm Space
by Meg Freer I envision them in Victorian costume, she in a silk gown and dainty shoes, he in waistcoat and top-boots. With poise and a certain diffidence, she plays the complicated novella of their lives on the grand piano as he listens beside her, the scene far from the outside world, unspoiled as black coffee on a moonless night. |
Meg Freer grew up in Montana and later worked in book publishing in New Jersey. She now teaches piano, takes photos and enjoys the outdoors year-round in Ontario. Her photos, poems and prose have been published in journals such as Ruminate, Vallum Contemporary Poetry, Young Ravens Literary Review, Eastern Iowa Review, and Rat’s Ass Review. In 2017, she attended the Summer Literary Seminars in Tbilisi, Republic of Georgia. Her poems have won awards and have been shortlisted for several contests in both the U.S. and Canada.
MARCH 2020: Selected Poetry
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Moving
by Robin Wright Winter lifts the hem of her dress, exposing yellow roses, pink azaleas as we deliver old life into new. We set up beds, chairs, tables, stack boxes with thirty years worth of memories and marriage vows in this solid house with a leaky roof, broken siding. Sirens slay the air. From the yard we watch fire trucks scream from the station toward trouble. When clouds cuss and threaten, we scamper to patch the roof, but the rain forces its way in. Its tenure given over to us. |
Secret Life
by Robin Wright Two weeks after my friend’s death, her husband calls, wants to get together and talk about her secret life. I know what he’s doing. He’s searching through belongings, studying pictures of her with large glasses, big hair, and a young son tethered to her neck. He’s reading letters from her life-long pen-pal, wondering what words are painted on the other side of the canvas. He wants to know the her before their five years together, wants me to share twenty-five years of tender gifts unwrapped in my brain. I can’t think of anything secret. He already knows about the stripper I hired for her thirty-fifth birthday. Best birthday ever, she always said. A night of steak, wine, a muscular man gyrating to a boom box and the squeals of several women. Maybe it’s realization that the shape of new memories has dissolved into sand or that the power of addition, five years plus another twenty-five, equals a life, that’s made him call. My secret: I want spring to bring more than sweet-smelling blossoms to my tulip tree, and deep-red berries to the holly. I want my friend to jump up, leave her cancer in damp dirt, wave her arms, and shout. |
Robin Wright lives in Southern Indiana. Her work has appeared in Black Bough Poetry, Spank the Carp, Ariel Chart, Bindweed Magazine, Muddy River Poetry Review, and others. Her work was nominated for a Pushcart Prize by Panoply, and her first chapbook, Ready or Not, is forthcoming from Finishing Line Press.
FEBRUARY 2020: Selected Poetry
Skate Me a River
by Darcy Smith
"I would teach my feet to fly." ~ Joni Mitchell, River
River ice holds most anything
Ma’s station wagon, Dad’s tractor, the nasty
vacuum, your bed, a barge bound to break
mountains of their sheen. You know it
only takes one thaw to end everything –
blue jeans, double layered and damp
they work like triple socks. Don’t ask why
Dad comes home late most nights. You trust
knotted laces, used skates.
Ice boats are dragon shimmer,
a skitter you can trace
like your breath pushing itself
a white plum floating over –
everyone is laughing like the sun
splashing a sweet-milk flurry. If he
doesn’t upend the coffee table,
don’t complain when you see
his gritting teeth, Ma’s clenched hands.
You know the winds will switchback sting
like an errant ice ball, clean shot to the thigh.
You shouldn’t, but you have to –
ask, it’s six o’clock. She hands you
the phone. Call the bar again. Set the table.
He didn't see you half asleep, shivering.
You felt his eyes, his raised suitcase,
as if to say I can. I will. Just watch.
Just watch. You already know
you’ll go to the river you’re ready.
You can. You will. Just watch.
It’s not so hard to learn
a one-leg lift. Find a smooth patch
and push.
Rivets pop if you pull worn laces too tight.
Truss them just so. He packed his bag once.
When you skate on the river, you trust
you won't fall in because ice boats
mean cracked white leather is safe
even when your toes go numb.
by Darcy Smith
"I would teach my feet to fly." ~ Joni Mitchell, River
River ice holds most anything
Ma’s station wagon, Dad’s tractor, the nasty
vacuum, your bed, a barge bound to break
mountains of their sheen. You know it
only takes one thaw to end everything –
blue jeans, double layered and damp
they work like triple socks. Don’t ask why
Dad comes home late most nights. You trust
knotted laces, used skates.
Ice boats are dragon shimmer,
a skitter you can trace
like your breath pushing itself
a white plum floating over –
everyone is laughing like the sun
splashing a sweet-milk flurry. If he
doesn’t upend the coffee table,
don’t complain when you see
his gritting teeth, Ma’s clenched hands.
You know the winds will switchback sting
like an errant ice ball, clean shot to the thigh.
You shouldn’t, but you have to –
ask, it’s six o’clock. She hands you
the phone. Call the bar again. Set the table.
He didn't see you half asleep, shivering.
You felt his eyes, his raised suitcase,
as if to say I can. I will. Just watch.
Just watch. You already know
you’ll go to the river you’re ready.
You can. You will. Just watch.
It’s not so hard to learn
a one-leg lift. Find a smooth patch
and push.
Rivets pop if you pull worn laces too tight.
Truss them just so. He packed his bag once.
When you skate on the river, you trust
you won't fall in because ice boats
mean cracked white leather is safe
even when your toes go numb.
Darcy Smith works as a sign language interpreter. Recent poems have appeared and are forthcoming in New Reader Magazine, Sequestrum, Coe Review, Two Thirds North, January Review and River Heron Review. A Buddhist and a kickboxer, her current obsession is executing a six punch three kick combination with perfect form.
JANUARY 2020: Selected Poetry
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Dismissing the Blues
by Mare Leonard In yin yoga, we lie on our backs legs up the wall, arms stretched out Someone shouts “Get the backhoe for my tush!" We laugh, shimmy closer, let go of doubts Legs up the wall, arms stretched out The teacher says, Find your edge I wonder, Is this too far out? Hold release into the stretch My mind says do it Let it all hangout The teacher says, Find your edge dabs mint on our wrists Hold release into the stretch Breathe in and trust I lift my wrists smell mint watch it growing Chopfortea chopchop forsaladFatoush The teacher drops mint on my third eye Let go of loving the good, hating the evil Press and push do not be attached Breathe in and trust Mymindswingsback NannaNonni All refugees running thiswayandthat The teacher says, Let go Let go of the present and the past My legs slide down into fields of mint. She says, Press and push, do not be attached . My mind says Stretch stretchyourarmsout Accept I breathe in, let go, Trust thiswaythat |
Proposal
by G.D. Burns None other, I declare it Affirming as negating With words the wordless under- tone Of ever before, another lovely Sweetheart, make sermons profane Friends and family strangers Afford this river crossing From one life, to the next From one life – to the next G.D. Burns is a Western American poet and educator who currently resides in the village of Catskill.
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