My Ekphrastic poem, “Blue Baby”, written in response to the painting “A Woman Holding a Balance” by Johannes Vermeer, has been published by Vita Brevis. Thank you, Brian Geiger!
It’s interesting that this poem was published on Father’s Day considering the theme I propose. What is she weighing? Is it really the pearls?
Check out some other poetry put up by this press.
https://vitabrevisliterature.com/
Image: Johannes Vermeer, “A Woman Holding a Balance” (1664)
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.
Spillwords published my poem “Straw House”, which reflects our times with COVID-19. Dare we venture out of our nests unprotected too quickly like fledglings stumbling out of their straw houses into the grasp of the predator?
My appreciation to Spillwords!
Image: https://journeynorth.org/tm/robin/jr/Book_Babies1.html
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
The final section of my article on infertility is up on Phoebe,MD: Medicine + Poetry. Links to the other sections are provided. I am grateful to Phoebe and her beautiful site for being a major part of my journey with memoir writing.
By Barbara Leonhard | Featured Contributor
⋅
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
⋅
I learned that healing is a deep process. We may heal a physical wound, but to become whole, we need to heal emotionally, spiritually, and mentally. We need to dig into the old grout of our deep being. Moreover, we must trust help is available.
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A heart-warming post on a father’s love for his daughter. Follow his other links to the other stories and poems for her in the book.
Blonde-haired, Blue-eyed Adventures
From March 1999 to July 2001, I wrote a series of stories for my daughter. They were eight short tales of the adventures of a blonde-haired, blue-eyed little girl, each written after the adventure and shared with her. The last was written after she was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes, shortly before her ninth birthday.
For years, I’ve wanted to collect them into a book, and I finally sat down and did that last month. A photo/sketch accompanies each story, and the book closes with a bedtime poem that I wrote following her diagnosis. The photo on the front cover is of Alyssa at her first Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation “Walk to Cure Diabetes,” in 2002. I even managed to finish it before her wedding, which is in two weeks. I gave it to her this month for her birthday, and she loves it. And, I’m a…
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Thank you, Phoebe! I hope my story continues to help others who have had to deal with infertility.
By Barbara Leonhard | Featured Contributor
Depression developed and flourished because I grieved so much over loss of fertility.
Women who are childless miss out on a great deal. They never feel what it is like to have a life growing, kicking and wiggling inside of them; to cry out during the birth of a baby (a rite of passage to celebrate with girlfriends); to watch over and even to grow with a child through sickness and health, all the milestones of birthdays, graduations, marriage, and the births of grandchildren. I have even grieved not being able to be the tooth fairy, help my kids find Easter eggs, read them bedtime stories, take them to the zoo.
Feeling apart from and not a part of the tribe still saddens me. I find I am left out of conversations about all those life passages women…
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Thank you, FREE VERSE REVOLUTION!
Image: The fake 100-dollar bill printed by the United States of Halloween. I found this treasure folded up on grass along a pathway I was walking on and trying to clean up just to be a good citizen. I felt pretty excited and told everyone I had found 100 dollars! Well, upon closer examination of the bill, I found it was just paper. I was so disappointed and, of course, embarrassed that I hadn’t been more discerning in my excitement. The whole incident reminded me of love gone wrong out of in-authenticity.
When I first found you,
I thought you were the real deal,
Handsome and of means.
Your mystery, promises
Of jewelry and charitable contributions,
Maybe even a luscious meal with fine wine.
Your credentials, superb at first glance.
How no one had found you before
Is beyond me, but there you were,
Out there where all could see
And in my grasp.
I felt blessed for my good works,
My generous nature, attracting value.
I kept you hidden, my treasure!
How I bragged about my new love!
Friends and family celebrated this bond –
No one had ever found such a prize
Just by chance! –
Until I discovered your true worth
Upon scrutiny as it unfolded!
Your heart, counterfeit;
Our love, a sham!
How duped I was by your smile.
Those eyes, your vivid presence;
Your charisma, regal!
Your sources, trusted!
Your history, infallible!
My dreams, blind, hopeful the…
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My new book from Two Sylvias Press, PR for Poets, is a guide for beginning to mid-career poets to learn how to build an audience and promote their books! Think of it as a guide to getting read.
People have asked me specifically about how do I, as a poet with a disability and chronic illness (I have MS, among other things), manage to promote my own books?
It’s a great question because not every writer is able to hop on a bus and couch-surf across the country to promote their book, and not everyone is able to work in academia and have a built-in support system. I think trying to promote a book with MS is probably similar to the way lots of people who are limited in time and money, or tied to day jobs and families and unable to travel, manage to promote their work. I…
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