I kneel on the rocky shore of the river searching for myself. My image reflects off the shiny water. The glimmer of a familiar face in a tough time. But then, the wind picks up, ripples the waves, Splays my long hair into gray tendrils. In the riffle, one eye opens, one eye closes. My […]
Awash into a Broken Mirror – Barbara Leonhard — FREE VERSE REVOLUTION
I have uploaded an episode featuring Ivor Steven to my poetry podcast, Poetry: The Memoir of the Soul. You can access it here.
https://meelosmom.podbean.com/e/memoirs-of-ivor-steven/
In this episode, I feature the memoirs of Ivor Steven, who writes of his loss of his wife to Multiple Sclerosis. His poems reveal raw and touching grief.
Ivor Steven formerly worked as an industrial chemist and a plumber. He is now retired. He has had numerous poems published in on-line magazines such as Vita Brevis, Spillwords, Drabble, Wolff Poetry Journal, Festival of Poetry, Slasher Monster Magazine, and Fae Corps Publishing. Recently he was appointed to the “Go Dog Go Café” magazine’s website team of Baristas. He is also an active member of the Geelong Writers Inc. and many of his poems are published in their anthologies. He started writing 19 years ago to help with his recovery from a stroke. During this time, and for the 30 years of his wife’s severe MS illness, Ivor was also his wife’s primary caregiver.
He produces his own poetry chapbooks, each of which contains 40-45 poems. The series of chapbooks is called “Tullawalla”, (+ Title). He has created ‘nineteen’ of these chapbooks. He sells them through his website, local cafes, Geelong Writers groups, and the Geelong MS charity shop. All the money raised is donated to the MS Society.
Websites: http://ivors20.wordpress.com and godoggocafe.com
Instagram: ivors20
Link: https://www.nationalmssociety.org/What-is-MS
Music: “I Will Be There” from the royalty free selections on Podbean
Barbara Harris Leonhard is a writer, poet, and blogger. Her work appears in Phoebe, MD: Medicine and Poetry, Well Versed 2020, Spillwords; FREE VERSE REVOLUTION; Heretics, Lovers and Madmen; Go Dog Go Café; Silver Birch Press; Amethyst Review; Pillbaby.com; and Vita Brevis. She is the author of Discoveries in Academic Writing, which is based on her years of teaching English as a Second Language at the University of Missouri.
Blog: extraordinarysunshineweaver.blog
Podcast: meelosmom.podbean.com
To submit your poetic memoirs and concerns to this podcast, follow this link for the submission guidelines.
I have uploaded an episode featuring Walter Bargen to my poetry podcast, Poetry: The Memoir of the Soul. You can access it here.
https://meelosmom.podbean.com/e/memoirs-of-walter-bargen/
This episode features poems by Walter Bargen, who is Missouri’s first poet laureate. I read from Days Like This Are Necessary: New & Selected Poems, Trouble Behind Glass Doors, and Pole Dancing in the Nightclub of God.
Walter Bargen has published 24 books of poetry. Recent books include: Days Like This Are Necessary: New & Selected Poems (BkMk Press, 2009), Trouble Behind Glass Doors (BkMk Press, 2013), Perishable Kingdoms (Grito del Lobo Press, 2017), Too Quick for the Living (Moon City Press, 2017), My Other Mother’s Red Mercedes (Lamar University Press, 2018), Until Next Time (Singing Bone Press, 2019), and Pole Dancing in the Night Club of God (Red Mountain Press, 2020).
Bargen’s books are available on amazon.com, barnesandnoble.com, and bookshops.
His awards include a National Endowment of the Arts Fellowship (1991), Quarter After Eight Prose Prize (1996), the Hanks Prize (1996), the Chester H. Jones Foundation prize (1997), the William Rockhill Nelson Award (2005), Short Fiction Award– A cappella Zoo (2011).
His poems, essays, and stories have appeared in over 300 magazines, including American Literary Review, American Letters & Commentary, Beloit Poetry Journal, Denver Quarterly, Georgia Review, International Quarterly, Missouri Review, New Letters, New Novel Review, Pleiades, Poetry Northwest, River Styx, Seneca Review, Sycamore Review, and Witness.
LINKS
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/walter-bargen
Hear Walter Bargen read his work on Paul Pepper’s shows. You will see additional links to other shows, as well.
https://www.kbia.org/post/paul-pepper-authorpoet-walter-bargen-todays-farmer-magazine#stream/0
“Superior Waters”
“A Different Prayer”
“Brotherhood” and “The Great Moon Hoax”
Barbara Harris Leonhard is a writer, poet, and blogger. Her work appears in Phoebe, MD: Medicine and Poetry, Well Versed 2020, Spillwords; FREE VERSE REVOLUTION; Heretics, Lovers and Madmen; Go Dog Go Café; Silver Birch Press; Amethyst Review (pending); Pillbaby.com; and Vita Brevis. She is the author of Discoveries in Academic Writing, which is based on her years of teaching English as a Second Language at the University of Missouri.
Blog: extraordinarysunshineweaver.blog
Podcast: meelosmom.podbean.com
To submit your poetic memoirs and concerns to this podcast, follow this link for the submission guidelines.
Fellow poets,
I would like to do a series of podcast episodes on your memoirs for my poetry podcast, Poetry: The Memoir of the Soul, which is found here.
Do you have a … 1) personal life experience or 2) a concern about life today that you can describe in one or two paragraphs followed by an original poem on the topic or experience? Word length for the exposition and poem: under 1000 words.
The submission can be new, from a prior blog post, or from a book of yours you would like to promote. You maintain the copyright for the work.
All submissions must be your original work. If you use a reference in the exposition part, please cite the source and provide a link that I can list in the episode sources.
I might do some minor editing to aid oral delivery.
If you haven’t submitted to my podcast yet, please include an image and a short BIO with links to sites you would like to promote or provide for contact purposes, such as blogs, Facebook, your website, etc. I would also like to promote your works, so provide titles of publications and places where we can acquire your books. I will include this information in the content summary of the podcast.
Please email submissions to meelosmom@gmail.com. You may paste the submission into the email or attach a Word document saved with your last name and the title of your submission.
In addition to informing you at the time I publish the podcast episode, I will post the episode link on WordPress, Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.
Feel free to share this call for submissions with other poets. This is an open call for submissions as I would like to continue with several episodes.
Mail submissions to…..
meelosmom@gmail.com
I am looking forward to reading your memoirs.
Barbara Leonhard
Image: ©Dierik Leonhard
I just published a new podcast episode which explores the grief and loss we are experiencing mainly due to the current pandemic and social upheaval. Our wellness is at stake, and those with pre-existing conditions are vulnerable. How can we maintain good health and navigate our grief when we experience loss of loved ones and disruptions in our daily life? Poetry can help us nurture compassion and heal on our sacred journeys.
https://meelosmom.podbean.com/e/grief-and-healing-1596140188/
I hope you listen, like, and share the link. My gratitude!
Image: “New Day” ©Martha Harris, Martha’s Artistic Flarings, artisticflarings.blog
Clarissa Simmens is an Independent poet; Romani drabarni (herbalist/advisor); ukulele and guitar player; wannabe song writer; and music addict. Favorite music genres include Classic Rock, Folk, Romani (Gypsy), and Cajun with an emphasis on guitar and violin music mainly in a Minor key.
Facebook: facebook.com/RomaniGypsyBooks
WordPress: poeturja.wordpress.com
Amazon Author Page: t.co/JSvNROn15t (self-published)
Cynthia Cady Stanton is a hospice chaplain, bereavement specialist, speaker, poet and writer. She is a regular contributor to Phoebe. MD: Medicine + Poetry (https://phoebemd.com/).
Website: cynthiacadystanton.com
Blog: becomingandbeholding.blog
LinkedIn: linkedin.cynthia-cady-stanton-3599b823
Denise Fletcher is a freelance writer and artist. Her creative works have appeared in Bards Against Hunger, Kaleidoscope Magazine and numerous publications in the U.S., Canada and the U.K.
Blog: Poetry Curator – poetrycurator2020.blogspot.com
Laura Kelly Fanucci, Instagram: @thismessygrace
I found her poem “When This is Over” here:
Barbara Harris Leonhard is a writer, poet, and blogger. Her work appears in Phoebe, MD: Medicine and Poetry, Well Versed 2020, Spillwords; FREE VERSE REVOLUTION; Heretics, Lovers and Madmen; Go Dog Go Café; Silver Birch Press; Amethyst Review (pending); Pillbaby.com; and Vita Brevis. She is the author of Discoveries in Academic Writing, which is based on her years of teaching English as a Second Language at the University of Missouri.
Blog: extraordinarysunshineweaver.blog
Podcast: meelosmom.podbean.com
https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/wellness-and-prevention/the-power-of-positive-thinking
I finally have a new episode up on my poetry podcast, Poetry: The Memoir of the Soul. Even though I have gotten some poems published, I lost my focus and momentum with the podcasts because I felt waylaid by COVID-19.
https://meelosmom.podbean.com/e/grief-and-race-unmasked/
In this podcast, produced on Juneteeth, (June 19th), 2020, I recognize and honor the grief of African Americans, especially in light of current events with the murder of George Floyd and other African Americans by police. Racial discrimination is as lethal as another contagion we are fighting at present with COVID-19. Unless we turn to love and compassion, how can we heal? I selected poems that express different aspects of racial discrimination against Black citizens.
Poets read today: Phillis Wheatley, Gwendolyn Brooks, Langston Hughes, Rita Dove, Priscilla Jane Thompson. Their works read today were found on these sites:
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/
Juneteenth (Emancipation Day, Freedom Day, Jubilee Day, and Cel-Liberation Day)
https://www.battlefields.org/learn/articles/10-facts-juneteenth
Racial Disparities in Our Medical System
https://time.com/5855756/covid-19-racial-injustice-health/
Ahmaud Arbery
George Floyd
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/31/us/george-floyd-investigation.html
Rayshard Brooks
The image for this podcast was found on harpersbazaar.com, “Here’s How You Can Demand Justice for George Floyd”, by Chelsey Sanchez, May 28, 2020.
My poem Memoirs was published by Poetry Curator on Poet’s Notebook. It’s a beautiful site with many features and even gifts for readers. I downloaded some free PDFs. Denise Fletcher, who publishes the blogspot site, is very nice. Thank you, Denise!
https://poetrycurator2020.blogspot.com/2020/06/memoirs.html
Image: pexels.com
I notice that I haven’t completed a poetry podcast since April 2. However, as you can see on my WordPress blog, I have done some publishing. It seemed easier to publish in on line sites than on my own poetry podcast in my own voice. I have to admit, everything of late has stunned me. I have lost focus to some degree when it comes to the intimacy in my podcasts.
Meanwhile, Podbean informed me my site design would not be supported, so I have chosen a new theme. Simple and clean. Kind of like life could be at this time…at least in an ideal world. https://meelosmom.podbean.com/
What the heck happened? What have we become? I was once a young girl riding my bike and playing with dolls. Now I’m hiding from a pandemic and bullets.
Does this pandemic represent our diseased minds and hearts? COVID-19 has forced us to retreat to the silence of our souls, our heart minds. Can we stand to be with ourselves? Can we cultivate our beautiful garden? Or can we only find comfort in noise (distractions, addictions, possessions). Can we truly see ourselves, love ourselves? Can we truly see and love others? And what about the Other, those who are from different tribes (families, societies, races, cultures).
What is hidden eventually rises for healing as is shown in the response to the murder of George Floyd at the knee of a cop. Racism, social inequities, corporate greed, and other forms of social, economic, and ethical/ moral malaise are symptomatic of another pandemic hidden in our Deep. George Floyd was strangled to death for passing a fake bill, but what about white-collar crime and all the money doled out to corporations while the average American can’t put food in the table with one job? With this pandemic, we suffer from huge losses in income. Our economy is flailing.
Everything that happens daily becomes the memoir of our society and our world. It’s all recorded not just on film (owing to technology) but also in our DNA. The ugly can make us ill. As Caroline Myss writes, “Our biography becomes our biology.”
I want to avert my eyes and deny all that is aberrant. However, I’m simply storing it away, like I do old journals, letters, and photos. Some things trigger joy, while others uproot pain. I think that if I don’t see it, it isn’t there, but it is creating illness.
It’s no coincidence I have taken to memoir writing, exploring my Deep. What have I buried from view? What do I need to heal? Looking at the truth is visceral and, I am told, bold maybe even courageous and healing. However, it is also dangerous. Being truthful to our word can create loss. These kinds of shifts occur because ‘all that is not aligned will fall away’.
I have feared excavating my soul because of judgment and fear of alienation and abandonment, but I see my life from my lens while others, especially members of my tribe, have their perspectives, which they can explore in their own memoirs.
I hope to continue to explore these themes in my poetry podcast and other wetting, and see my morning awaken, as the featured image of this post shows.
https://meelosmom.podbean.com/
©Barbara Leonhard, extraordinarysunshineweaver.blog
Image “Morning Awakening” ©Martha Harris, Martha’s Artistic Flarings, artisticflarings.blog
FREE VERSE REVOLUTION chose my poem “A Rocky Start” as one of the top three for the weekly challenge Saplings.
Dear reader,
And so the end of Blossom is here! Thank you to everyone who contributed a piece to this month and to those who have continued to follow, read and share the work published on Free Verse Revolution.
May’s theme is Illusion and contributing slots have disappeared; there are only three remaining which haven’t been filled or reserved. If you are interested in submitted before the submission window closes – see the guidelines here.
To catch up on the final pieces of April:
Friday – Candice Louisa Daquin
This week’s prompt was ‘saplings’ and there were several responses across Instagram and WordPress. Below are the top three: if your piece wasn’t chosen I hope you will continue to respond to May’s prompts, it was a tough call!
View original post 173 more words
Recently published on phoebemd.com (PhoebeMD: Medicine + Poetry) as part of my article on infertility.
Broken Womb, Shattered Soul: Living with Infertility (part 3)
The Wound Still Waits
The bandage torn
From new flesh
Releases wails
The wound still
Imbibes air
The scab hides
deep repair
Let it rest. Wait
In time the scar
Records a fate
©Barbara Leonhard, extraordinarysunshineweaver.blog, meelosmom@podbean.com
Image: “From Beneath” ©Martha Harris, Martha’s Artistic Flarings, artisticflarings.blog
